Laura Ingraham

Laura Anne Ingraham (born June 19 1964 in Glastonbury, Connecticut) is an American conservative talk radio host and author. Her show is called The Laura Ingraham Show.

Career

In the late 1980s, Ingraham worked as a speechwriter in the Ronald Reagan administration for the Secretary of Domestic Policy. She also briefly served as editor of The Prospect, the magazine issued by Concerned Alumni of Princeton. After receiving her Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991, she served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Ralph K. Winter, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She then worked as a white-collar criminal defense attorney for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She appeared on a 1995 cover of The New York Times Magazine in a friend's leopardskin miniskirt — which she joked is displayed in the Smithsonian — for an article about rising young conservatives.

In the late 1990s, she became a CBS commentator and hosted the MSNBC program "Watch It!",^[1] which she jokingly says should have been called "Watch It Get Canceled!" She is the author of two books: The Hillary Trap: Looking for Power in All the Wrong Places (2002), which presents Hillary Clinton as an example of the 'traps' women can encounter, as well as Shut Up & Sing (2006), which decries the elitist views Ingraham attributes to liberals working primarily in entertainment, academia and the media. Ingraham is currently working on a book titled Power to the People, based on the common theme from her radio show.

Ingraham launched The Laura Ingraham Show in April 2001, which is heard on 306 stations and on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. The show was originally syndicated by Infinity's (now CBS') Westwood One, but is now syndicated by Talk Radio Network. Ingraham is also a frequent guest of and contributor to Fox News.

Personal

In April 2005, Ingraham announced she was engaged to businessman James V. Reyes, with a planned wedding in May or June 2005. On April 26 2005, she announced that she had undergone breast cancer surgery. On May 11, 2005, Ingraham told listeners that her engagement to Reyes was canceled, citing issues regarding her diagnosis with breast cancer. Despite the breakup, she maintains that the two remain good friends, and has told listeners in 2006 that she is currently in good health.

Ingraham once was engaged to conservative author Dinesh D'Souza and has dated former New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli. ^[2] She is a convert to Roman Catholicism.

Controversies

Views on homosexuality

According to David Brock, in his 2002 book Blinded by the Right, Ingraham, while writing for The Dartmouth Review in the mid-1980s, once attended meetings of a gay student organization for the purpose of publicly outing them in the newspaper. Ingraham secretly taped a meeting of the Gay Students Association, then published the transcript, identifying students by name and calling them "sodomites".^{[citation needed]}

A decade later, on February 23, 1997, however, Ingraham wrote an essay in the Washington Post in which she announced significant changes in how she views gays and lesbians. This was motivated primarily by her experience with one of her brothers rumored to have been estranged from her for a time after the gay student group controversy, as he cared for his ailing partner:

In the ten years since I learned one of my brothers was gay, my views and rhetoric about homosexuals have been tempered... because I have seen him and his partner of 14 years, lead their lives with dignity, fidelity and courage.^{[citation needed]}

Statement about Iraq War media coverage

On March 21, 2006, Ingraham stirred controversy as a guest on NBC's The Today Show with remarks about coverage of the Iraq War by "NBC and networks of the United States":^[3]

To do a show from Iraq means to talk to the Iraqi military, to go out with the Iraqi military, to actually have a conversation with the people instead of reporting from hotel balconies about the latest improvised explosive device going off. ^[4]

Ingraham's comments followed a six-day visit to Iraq under the protection of U.S. forces,[1] during which she traveled on a Blackhawk helicopter, visited a hospital and several secured villages,^[5] and spent nights in the Baghdad Green Zone. In order to tour an Iraqi orphanage, Ingraham left the safety of the Green Zone, donned body armor and traveled a route which abutted a large crater created "by a bomb that detonated the night before." During her visit Ingraham also interviewed the mayor of an Iraqi village, members of the Iraqi military, and an Iraqi businesswoman. She also visited a public children's hospital and embedded herself with military units.^[6]

Her statements about mainstream media coverage of the war were praised by National Review,.^[7] Keith Olbermann commented, "Laura seems to have forgotten that some eighty journalists have been killed in Iraq."^[8]

Encouraged mass calls to Democratic voting problem hotline

During her show of November 7, 2006 (Election Day), Ingraham was heard encouraging listeners to call the phone lines of a toll-free Democratic Party number intended for voters to report problems in voting.

A transcript of Ingraham's statement as follows:^[9]

INGRAHAM: Wait a second! So – (Laughter) you call 1 888 DEM VOTE – otherwise `Dim Bulb Vote' or `Dumb Vote' – and all you do is get transferred to music, then they cut you off. This is what I'm thinking. Tell me if you think I'm crazy. This is what I'm thinking. I think we all need to call 1 888 DEM VOTE all at the same time. And, by the way, when you call, when you call the number – and remember, it's `Dem Vote' not `Dumb Vote' – when you call the number, as we did, and we got transferred, transferred, then we just got hung up upon. You know, we're supposed to have these election teams within a matter of minutes, they're supposed to be coming to the polls. Can you imagine what those people look like? Halloween all over again. So if you have trouble with the poll, you're supposed to call, via 1 888 `Dumb Vote,' and this is what you get.

OPERATOR: Thank you for calling 1 888 DEM VOTE. To continue in English, press 1. Para continuar en español, oprima el dos.

INGRAHAM: Oh, and if you're Saddam Hussein, no problem. Vote absentee, in Maryland or Ohio.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on November 16, 2006, Senator Pat Leahy asked Wan Kim, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights division, whether his division would be investigating Ingraham for voter fraud.

Leahy stated, "I hear about so many candidates and political parties trying to interfere or intimidate people so that they won’t vote. According to press accounts, right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham, urged listeners of her radio show to jam a phone line set up by Democrats to investigate alleged voter irregularities. She told her listeners, everybody call that voting line all at the same time and basically mark it inoperative. Is that something that your division investigates?"

Kim responded to Leahy's question by stating that Ingraham's actions sounded like a "voter fraud scheme," but that such an act would not fall under his jurisdiction, and would instead be under the Criminal Division's jurisdiction.^[10]

No legal action was taken against Ingraham. Toll-free hotlines sponsored by political parties are private entities not affiliated with the Federal Election Commission.

References

External links

[WPOST-1] Cite error: The named reference WPOST was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[2] ttp://www.nndb.com/people/002/000055834

[3] ttp://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_12236.shtml

[4] ttp://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/26/rs.01.html

[5] ttp://www.lauraingraham.com/freephotos?action=viewPhotoSet&photoSetID=39

[6] ttp://www.lauraingraham.com/pg/jsp/general/iraqjournal.jsp

[7] ttp://www.nationalreview.com/comment/graham200603231024.asp

[8] ttp://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20060323_olbermann_smacks_ingraham/

[9] ttp://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/07/ingraham-voter-line/

[10] ttp://www.c-spanarchives.org:80/zentest/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&cPath=6_11&products_id=195412-1&tID=5

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