Is Dr. Laura a Fake?

Today I finally called Dr. Laura.

OK, I’ve always considered hers a pretty dumb show, but so is Oprah, and we all know how important she is – just ask the Texas Beef Council.

But today was over the top. Early this morning our local radio station had the 2-minute teaser for her afternoon show. "Girls, why do you even THINK of dating an older man? Get real!"

Now this seems to have become a theme of her show (it’s always on in our kitchen during the afternoon). Usually, I can ignore it, since the regular fare comprises weeping and wailing of caller after caller who discovers that she has to live with the consequences of her decisions.)

But wait, there’s more.

Dr. Laura "challenges" every caller; whatever the caller’s question, Dr. Laura asks a different one, and then another one, until we hear the poor caller stammer " well... I guess you’re right."

A little of this goes a long way. But today I finally rose to the bait. This afternoon, my wife and four-year-old daughter were baking cookies while Dr. Laura was holding forth about how bad colleges are these days. Well, I could have told her that, but then she said, with all the finality of Oprah’s disdain for hamburgers, "I can’t think of a college in the country where you could send your child."

I mulled that over, and thought of the small, Catholic liberal arts college down the road from us where I teach a course now and then. So I thought I’d call Dr. Laura with some positive feedback.

I couldn’t believe it when I got through, right away, to her screener.

"Do you have a question for Dr. Laura?"

"Yes, two. First, why doe she always knock women who marry older men? In our Irish family, the men have been from ten to twenty years older than their wives for several generations, and we’ve managed to have happy, holy marriages. Why would she be so negative about that?

"Second, is there really NO college in the country she would send a child to? What are her criteria? I live down the road from one she ought to take a look at."

"Thanks, I’ll let her know." CLICK!

Not long ago conservatives were encouraged to complain to Proctor and Gamble because "homosexual activists" had convinced P&G to withdraw ads from her new (now cancelled) TV show.

But is Dr. Laura really a "conservative"? Or is she just a quack with a knack, a physiologist with the glib analysis that always leaves her callers thinking that they’d be fine, if only they were as smart as she is?

And does that mean she has to screen out everything but the dumb questions?

Contemporary families do have to grapple with a lot of tough moral questions, no doubt about it.

But Dr. Laura’s version looks just a little too much like professional wrestling to me.

April 6, 2000

Christopher Manion, a founder of the political satire group the Capitol Steps, runs a background music production company in Front Royal, Virginia, and teaches political theory at Christendom College as an adjunct lecturer. He was at the 1960 Republican convention in Chicago, where, he insists, Nixon stole the nomination from Goldwater.

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