Ingraham Agonistes

‘Trump before Trump’: Laura Ingraham brings populist fire to Fox News lineup The talk radio star makes her debut on Fox News on Monday – and by hiring  her, Rupert Murdoch seems to have picked a side in the Republican civil war Media Matters: It is not a surprise that another right-wing commentator would continue the tradition of making things up about President Barack Obama. SCROLL At the ‘Breitbart Embassy’ on Capitol Hill last week, Steve Bannon , the ex-Chief Strategist at the White House now back at the alt-right Breitbart news website, threw a book party for Laura Ingraham, the conservative talk radio star who is poised to ascend to one of the premier spots in American cable TV. Battle hymns of the Republicans: Trump civil war is just getting started When she makes her Fox News debut on Monday evening, in primetime, the media and political establishment will be watching. And by hiring her, it seems, Rupert Murdoch’s network has picked a side in the Republican civil war. Ingraham might as easily be considered an activist as an anchor. As the longtime conservative radio host Charlie Sykes put it to the Guardian: “She’s as hardcore a Trumpist as you’re going to find on the air.” If ties to Bannon were once a liability in Washington, in 2017 they appear to have become an asset – and one Fox wants to cash in on as well. The subtext, said Feldstein, now a professor at the University of Maryland, is that Fox sees Trump’s base as its core audience. During the recent Republican Senate runoff in Alabama, Ingraham threw her support behind Roy Moore, the Bannon-backed insurgent, even as Donald Trump backed the establishment incumbent, Luther Strange. On her radio show before the vote, Ingraham asked Moore if he thought Trump had become disconnected from his core constituency. “I think that he may be,” Moore replied. “And I think that he’s being badly advised out of the White House.” Moore duly won. When she takes over in Fox News’s 10pm hour, Ingraham will lay down a markerfor the direction Fox is heading, and how closely it intends to side with Trump in Bannon’s battle with the Republican “establishment”. Asked recently if she would be bringing a Breitbartesque, hard-right and nationalist-tinged approach to her show, she replied: “I don’t call it Breitbart, I call it American.” She also, it bears mentioning, offers Fox female star power at a time when the network sorely needs it. Beyond the barrage of sexual harassment claims, Fox recently lost star anchor Megyn Kelly to NBC after Kelly antagonized Trump during the campaign with a tough line of questioning around his treatment of women. Ingraham was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where her mother worked as a waitress. She attended Dartmouth, where she wrote for the conservative student newspaper, then graduated from the University of Virginia law school and clerked for the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. She found her calling in the world of conservative radio and fashioned herself as something of an honest broker. A prominent personality, well-connected in Washington, she has her own following and a reputation that has held up over time. She also offers Fox some sorely needed female star power. There has been a barrage of sexual harassment claims against high-profile male employees. Star anchor Megyn Kelly recently moved to NBC. Ingraham lives in a big house on a leafy street in Virginia. As such, she may not seem an obvious pick to speak to America’s heartland. But, she says, she never forgets her working-class roots. The latest of her half a dozen books is titled: Billionaire at the Barricades: The Populist Revolution From Reagan to Trump. Murdoch was once thought to be ambivalent about Bannon, but he now appears to be opening his arms to the former White House strategist and his marshalling of forces set on destroying the “globalist” Republican establishment. Though Ingraham has been called “Trump before Trump”, she has said she will not soft-pedal her coverage. In a recent interview, she said Trump would likely be “irked”. But when she does depart from Trump, she typically does so by moving the discussion even further to the right. That is a different model to that of Trump-pleasing Fox News anchors like Sean Hannity. According to Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal thinktank Media Matters, it is a move straight out of the Bannon playbook. With Ingraham, he said: “When you think, ‘Wow, she’s just said something that was not 100% in lockstep the president,’ you step back to see what she said was actually worse and scarier and more extreme.” The veteran investigative journalist Mark Feldstein said Ingraham’s switch to Fox News primetime illustrates how transparent the alliance between conservative media and the president has become. “There’s actually a long history of journalistic commentators climbing in and out of bed with politicians,” he said. “What’s interesting, is how open this is.” In a recent profile by the New York Times, Ingraham referred to the president as a friend. CONTINUED That the  Guardian, a paper described as "the world's leading liberal voice," could, and would, publish—without any apparent leftist predisposition—this Laura Ingraham article reminds us of just how utterly enthralled by leftist agenda politics are America's news rags.  You know who they are.  Anyway, here's a story about my own, erm, fascination for Laura Ingraham.  I was a regular Free Republic contributor in the mid '90's when she caught my eye.  Knock-down beautiful!  When I read that she was a (1991) University of Virginia School of Law grad, I tried matchmaking. I am not making this up.  I e-mailed her that my son Greeper was himself  at UVA's law school, and would very much like to meet her.  Really had no expectations; didn't even tell Greep about it until later.  I recollect that she answered with a thanks-but-no-thanks.  Wouldn't have worked out anyway.  A few years later, after calling off his own wedding, Greep told his mother that he was gay (never has told me, to this day.)   Later, he asked his mom "what dad say?"   She answered," I was crying, and dad asked what was wrong. I told him you were gay and he said 'OMG, I thought you were going to say he turned a Democrat." True story. And now he is.  Sigh.