Postby Patrick M » Thu Sep 18, 2003 10:05 pm
Here's the transcript from last night's show with Laura:
DOBBS: Well, radio talk show host Laura Ingraham has had it with Barbra Streisand and others who say they love the American way of life but don't do anything but criticize it. Her book is called "Shut Up And Sing." It's a fascinating look at those she calls American elite and elites and they, some of them, seem to be ashamed of their country. Laura Ingraham joins us now. Good to have you with us.
LAURA INGRAHAM, AUTHOR: Great to be here, Lou.
DOBBS: The elites of the country, you suggest, are subverting America. Are they doing so you think intentionally?
INGRAHAM: Well I think -- we used to think of elites as kind of the monied class. All went to fancy northeast schools and the old elite term from Europe. But the elites today are really -- it's not about money or where you went to school, it's about how you view sort of the average American.
DOBBS: How do the elites view?
INGRAHAM: Well I think, rather disdainfully. I got this impression over the last two years hosting a radio show where I talked to thousands of people every month and from e-mails to calls that they bring into the show. I am an KRLA in Los Angeles every morning from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. And the phone calls from people who are just tired of being talked down to by Hollywood celebrities who lead pampered lives and play make-believe or go up on a stage and sing who suddenly think they're foreign policy experts and have this urge to continually trash the Bush administration. Or call the president stupid as everyone from Cher to Barbra Streisand has done.
And I think when these celebrities call President Bush stupid or ignorant they're call the American people who support him ignorant and stupid as well. That's what they feel.
DOBBS: Well, the idea, one of the fascinating things that you brought up in the book, talking about Michael Moore, and the book is how stupid white guys...
INGRAHAM: Stupid white men.
DOBBS: You point out that he's one of the elites posing as populist extraordinaire.
INGRAHAM: Yes, well there's populous rhetoric and then there's the elite reality. The elite reality is that Michael Moore's daughter goes to an elite private school in New York as Michael Moore's out there, you know, talking for the everyman and talking about the need of the everyman to be supported. But of course most Americans support gun rights and Michael Moore says he's a member of the NRA but does a movie, "Bowling for Columbine" which includes monumental distortions of videotape and the way he cuts and splices tape. And so it's an elite reality versus Michael Moore's populist rhetoric.
DOBBS: And to be fair, you say there are even Republican elites too?
INGRAHAM: Oh, sure. I mean, President Bush, on the issue of border enforcement, Lou, total elite. He's with the elites on that. The American people want the borders enforced. The Democrats don't want them enforced because they want new Democrat voters and they think Hispanics will be Democrat boarders. President Bush has that same sensibility, plus his friends in the business elite community, all of those people...
DOBBS: Don't forget "The Wall Street Journal"
INGRAHAM: "The Wall Street Journal" editorial page I go after hard on this, because they think, well don't worry about illegals, the illegals bring in a lot of money into the United States, it's cheap labor. And meanwhile again, the American people, not Democrats or Republicans, but they want the borders enforced.
DOBBS: And just talk about Commerce Secretary Don Evans before sat down here, Laura, making a decision now to try to do something, level the playing field. But for so many years in this country the quote, unquote, elites have been saying that you're basically some sort of bloodite (ph) -- idiot if you talk about managing trade. That view seems to be changing.
INGRAHAM: I think so because the 2.7 million jobs that are lost in that factory -- the Malden Mills factory all of the jobs going overseas, that's tragic for this country. Do we want to just become a service economy? If we do than...
DOBBS: I've got bad news for you...
INGRAHAM: Breaking news.
DOBBS: We already are.
INGRAHAM: I've done that. I've done that.
DOBBS: Laura Ingraham, the book is "Shut Up and Sing" by the way, the title is not related to the Dixie Chicks which many people might think. It's about Streisand?
INGRAHAM: It's Barbara. It's Sean Penn. It's Susan Sarandon. It's a metaphor of the average American's frustration about this.
DOBBS: Metaphor upon metaphor heaped in "Shut Up and Sing."
INGRAHAM: Exactly.
DOBBS; Very entertaining, very informative, thanks for being with us.
INGRAHAM: Good to be here.
DOBBS: Laura Ingraham.
Coming up next, what do you think about opinion polls? An accurate scientific procedure, pure entertainment, an accurate reading of the pulse of the American populous. Matthew Felling, the media director for the Center For Media and Public Affairs joins us next. Stay with us.
