Tuesday, September 16, 2003

It All Depends On Whose Elite Is Being Gored

Conservative talk radio hostess Laura Ingraham has a new book out called Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN are Subverting America and it's doing quite well (#6 on Amazon's list today). Amazon describes the book thusly:

From environmentalists to Hollywood celebrities to media yuppies, no American elite is safe from the astutely critical eye of Laura Ingraham. In this refreshing book Ingraham probes the condescending elitism of liberals in politics and entertainment. She shows how their lack of national pride, their distaste for religion, and their disregard of American ideals are undermining traditions and values across the country. And her criticisms go deeper than just the elites in the Democratic Party; she even zeroes in on elite enclaves in the GOP.

Obviously all of these "elites" are deserving of their share of criticism and Ingraham is cleverly tapping into a long standing American distaste for what is perceived as the looking down your nose snobbery of the elite classes. She seeks to distinguish between these elites and what she calls "average Americans", a group she includes herself in. Now I have nothing against Ingraham personally, in fact I listen to her show on a somewhat regular basis, but attempts like this to play the populist card tend to rub me the wrong way. What Ingraham is trying to do with her book is similar to, but not in as egregious a manner as, Bill O'Reilly when he talks about how he stands up for "the folks". Yeah Bill you're just one of the "folks" aren't you? For Ingraham, whether she wants to admit it or not, is a member of an elite as well.

A media elite. Oh it might not be the same media elite as Katie Couric, Dan Rather, Christiane Amanpour, Ray Suarez, Maureen Dowd, and Joe Klein but you damn well better believe she belongs to a media elite. This morning on her show she talked about how she had gone on Sean Hannity's radio show as well as Hannity and Colmes on Fox News yesterday to shill her new book. She also had Chris Matthews on the air and lobbed a few softball questions at him before mentioning that she would be on Hardball later this week. If you look at her web site you'll see that she's appearing on Greta Van Susteren's show tonight and on MSNBC's Scarborough Country on Wednesday. I'm sure she'll be on O'Reilly before the week is out. Not bad for an "average American".

I don't have a problem with this sort of "I scratch your back and you scratch mine" exchange of favors and I understand that Ingraham is probably personally acquainted with many of her fellow media personalities and they see it as nothing more than helping a friend out. But do you think that a true "average American" would have a chance in hell of getting this kind of pub for a book that they had written?

By all means go ahead and skewer the liberal elites Laura, but please don't try to sell us on the notion that you're just another Joe Sixpack or Sally Housecoat. Us average Americans ain't buying it.

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