For several years NewsBusters has been informing readers of Nobel Laureate Al Gore's profit motive as it pertains to his advancement of global warming hysteria.

This included the presentation of a video of the former Vice President disclosing in March 2008 what investments he's personally made in companies that will benefit from any legislation designed to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

This admission garnered virtually no mainstream media coverage from global warming obsessed press members when it was first uncovered last April.

So great is their devotion to this cause that when Gore was asked about his financial interests in pending cap and trade legislation at a recent hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (video embedded right), his heated exchange with a representative from his home state went completely ignored by America's television news divisions until conservative radio host Laura Ingraham and Climate Depot's Marc Morano discussed it on Friday's "O'Reilly Factor" (video and transcript embedded below the fold followed by additional comments on the subject): 

The "Today" show devoted much of last week's coverage of Obama's European trip to obsessing over such frivolous matters as what Michelle Obama was wearing and what kind of gift the Obamas gave the Queen, so when Laura Ingraham was invited on Wednesday's "Today" show, the conservative radio talk show host couldn't resist knocking the silly coverage, as seen in the following exchange with NBC's Matt Lauer (audio available here):

MATT LAUER: So let's be fair and say that he didn't come away accomplishing what he went there to accomplish, but is it possible to say, look at it slightly differently, Laura, and say some of these things take a while to bear fruit and that perhaps some of these leaders, other leaders were reluctant to come forward with some of these things under the glare of the summit spotlight and they may be more forthcoming in the coming weeks and months?

LAURA INGRAHAM: Well I don't know, I guess that's possible. But look we, we know that Europe loves President Obama. He had adoring crowds. The press loves Obama. The question is how will this date end? Okay? The question is, to what end? Why do they love President Obama? They love his personal story, they love his wife. North Korea, China and Russia don't really care about Michelle's arms and, you know, whether they gave an iPod to the Queen, okay? They care about whether America is still going to lead, exhibit strength and doesn't just talk about these vague concepts, Matt, of global cooperation.

Former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's daughter Meghan has four words of advice for conservative radio host Laura Ingraham: "Kiss my fat ass!" [h/t Jeff Poor]

Appearing on the March 16 edition of "The View," The Daily Beast columnist told the gals of "The View" that she was annoyed with Ingraham for recently making a joke about her weight.

McCain: Why are we so obsessed with weight? Why? And I know specifically for me, this is so, you know I'm a pop culture junkie, but when Tyra Banks went on her show in her bathing suit and said, "Kiss my fat ass," that's what I feel like right now. I'm like, "kiss my fat ass!"

It's a question we've all been waiting to hear answered. Unfortunately, it took a conservative talk radio host to ask it and didn't come from the mainstream media.

In an interview with Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, Pa., on Feb. 9, talk show host Laura Ingraham asked why he and Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are the only three out of 229 Republican members of Congress to support the stimulus. She inquired if it might have had something to do with being invited to the White House by President Barack Obama.

"Is it nice to be wined and dined at the White House?" Ingraham asked. "And, you're treated pretty well when you're a Republican bucking other Republicans, right Senator?"

Specter told Ingraham he wasn't being "wined and dined" by the Obama White House. Specter wasn't on the guest list of one infamous White House party that included several Republican and Democrat members of Congress, which included cocktails and wagyu beef. However, Specter did attend a Super Bowl party hosted by the White House on Feb. 1 as the only Republican member in attendance.

Update (11:37 a.m. EST): Miller is now on the radio program. She insists she had a radio show scheduling conflict. Ingraham apologized for saying she chickened out.

Update (11:26 a.m. EST): Miller backed out of appearing even solo with Ingraham. Mohler is now talking with Ingraham.

A few minutes from now Newsweek's Lisa Miller will appear on the Laura Ingraham radio program to defend her recent article that insists the Bible can reasonably be interpreted to defend same-sex marriage. Shortly after she goes toe-to-toe with Ingraham, the radio host will feature Baptist theologian Albert Mohler who will offer a full-fledged rebuttal. Apparently she refused to go on the show at the same time as Mohler.

Find Laura on a radio station near you using her station finder page here.

For a taste of Mohler's arguments, see his December 8 critique of Miller, "Turning the Bible On Its Head."

Shortly before 11 a.m. Eastern time, Mohler posted the following to his Twitter page:

An unsigned article on CNN.com about Sarah Palin’s rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on Saturday failed to mention the Alaska governor’s attack on Barack Obama’s votes against the Illinois Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, and quickly tried the change the subject to the recent "Troopergate" finding against her after its first sentence: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin charged into the culture wars Saturday in Pennsylvania, painting Sen. Barack Obama as a radical on abortion rights. The stop comes amid news that Palin violated Alaska ethics law by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator's report for the bipartisan Legislative Council concluded Friday."

The CNN article then continued about the apparent divisiveness of the abortion issue: "Ethics woes aside, Palin focused her attention on abortion -- an issue that rallies the conservative base but some say alienates independent and women voters." After quoting from some of the governor’s comments at the rally, the anonymous writer tried to spin the significance of her bringing up the issue: "Palin has mostly avoided raising her opposition to abortion rights on the campaign trail since she was tapped as Sen. John McCain's running mate, a fact she readily acknowledged in her remarks. But Palin said Obama's record on the matter is too extreme to be ignored, and she spent 10 minutes of her 30-minute speech discussing abortion."

On Monday morning, Laura Ingraham interviewed Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff on her national radio show about his investigative report in the magazine about Barack Obama’s campaign being flagged for some obviously fraudulent donors:

Consider the cases of Obama donors "Doodad Pro" of Nunda, N.Y., who gave $17,130, and "Good Will" of Austin, Texas, who gave more than $11,000 – both in excess of the $2,300-per-person federal limit. In two recent letters to the Obama campaign, Federal Election Commission auditors flagged those (and other) donors and informed the campaign that the sums had to be returned. Neither name had ever been publicly reported because both individuals made online donations in $10 and $25 increments. "Good Will" listed his employer as "Loving" and his occupation as "You," while supplying as his address 1015 Norwood Park Boulevard, which is shared by the Austin nonprofit Goodwill Industries.

But the fairly chummy interview broke down when Ingraham started asking questions about why the Federal Election Commission would drag its feet on Obama for fear of looking "political." (Isn’t foot-dragging also a way of looking political?) Isikoff said the FEC will probably have no choice but to look into Newsweek’s findings, but may put off a broader probe.

During FNC’s Republican Convention live coverage, former Dukakis campaign manager and liberal FNC analyst Susan Estrich voiced her disapproval of the "vicious and mean-spirited attacks" on Sarah Palin by the media as she appeared late Tuesday/early Wednesday night with anchor Greta van Susteren. Estrich: "I’ve never seen anything this bad in my life ... I was with Geraldine Ferraro in ‘84 – and this is worse. ... I have never seen from some of my friends such vicious and mean-spirited attacks on her most personal choices, which is what they are."

A bit earlier at about 12:05 a.m., conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham had also complained of Palin’s treatment. Asked by van Susteren if Palin was getting "fair treatment," Ingraham argued that Palin is being "reviled and hated" because she is conservative and pro-life. In response to van Susteren’s question of "who’s reviling her," Ingraham elaborated: "Did you read the New York Times today? Have you read some of the left-wing blogs about her? Have you heard some of the comments on our competitor networks? It’s vile, it’s nasty, it’s vicious."

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- NewsBusters Ken Shepherd and Jacob Lybbert ran into Laura Ingraham at the Republican Convention on September 2. The radio host was in a rush but spoke briefly to NewsBusters.

Ingraham said the bottom line for the media's biased coverage against Palin was that she is pro-life. When we thanked her for taking a few seconds to talk to us, Ingraham praised NewsBusters, saying, "you guys do great work."

MRC's Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham appeared on the July 1 edition of Fox News Channel's "Just In" to discuss a Chicago Tribune article entitled "Coded Prejudice Is Cloaked Dagger," marking the second media appearance in two days dealing with Chicago Tribune nonsense.

Graham appeared opposite Paul Porter of IndustryEars.com, who alleged the media have an anti-Obama bias.

"The question isn't whether he's getting a fair shake, the question is, 'Is the hug too tight?'" quipped Graham about the media's pro-Obama bias. [audio available here]

Remember back in 2000 when actor Alec Baldwin allegedly promised to leave the country if George W. Bush was elected president?

Well, his brother Stephen was on Fox News's "Just In with Laura Ingraham" Wednesday evening, and apart from skewering celebrities for supporting Barack Obama "just because quote unquote they want change, whatever, without ever really fully recognizing who the best person for the job is," he also deliciously mocked his brother for still being in America despite his 2000 pledge.

What follows is his full discussion with Ingraham (video embedded right, h/t NBer LilyPearl):

Laura Ingraham, syndicated radio talk show host and now host of Just In on the Fox News Channel, filled in for Bill O'Reilly, syndicated radio talk show host, on his FNC Show The O'Reilly Factor on Friday, June 20.

And led off with her Talking Points Memo, in which she excoriated the left's call for the return of the Fairness Doctrine, dismantling and undermining every liberal (alleged) justification for its return.

The Fairness Doctrine would mean the end of conservative talk radio; death by governmental censorship. Let Congress know this can not happen.

The dog ate my transcript.  

That's roughly what Susan Rice's response to a pointed question from Laura Ingraham amounted to. Give credit to Rice, Obama senior foreign policy advisor, for appearing on Ingraham's "Just In" FNC show today and taking on the host in a freewheeling conversation.   But she and her candidate are really going to have to learn to do better than the feeble dodge she offered.

The subject was the recent phone conversation between Obama and Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari.  ABC's Jake Tapper reports that after the call, Obama claimed that Zebari "did not express" any concern about the Dem candidate's plan to withdraw U.S. troops.  But Zebari told the Washington Post "that he had some frank talk for the candidate: 'The foreign minister said ‘my message’ to Mr. Obama ‘was very clear...Really, we are making progress. I hope any actions you will take will not endanger this progress.’"

That led to this exchange between Ingraham and Rice.

View video here.

Two years ago, after FNC's Bill O'Reilly erroneously stated that American troops had massacred Nazi German troops at Malmedy, Belgium during World War II, even after the FNC host corrected the error, which apparently should have referred to American troops who retaliated against German troops after Malmedy because of that massacre, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, on his Countdown show, demanded that O'Reilly apologize to American troops, relaying anger expressed by some Iraq war veterans who heard about O'Reilly's mistake, and in one of his most egregious smears against the FNC host, painted O'Reilly as a defender of Nazis. The Countdown show even played an audio clip of voice actor Seth MacFarlane derogatorily calling the FNC host "that b*****d Bill O'Reilly," and telling the FNC host to "allow me to soil myself on you." (Transcripts follow)

Monday's The O'Reilly Factor, guest hosted by Laura Ingraham, showed a pre-recorded interview between FNC host Bill O'Reilly and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, former Commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq and author of Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story. During the interview, Sanchez conveyed his disapproval at the mainstream media's coverage of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. When O'Reilly contended that the "New York Times and the liberal media" "went wild over Abu Ghraib" to "humiliate the Bush administration," Sanchez agreed: "To a large extent, you're absolutely right, because that is reflected in some of the questioning and some, obviously, in the press reports that occurred ... I believe that, in fact, we create the strategic defeat for America to a large extent by the way that we cover it in the press." (Transcript follows)

It appears the New York Post's assessment that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is on the verge of another professional meltdown was quite prescient.

On Monday's "Countdown," answering to criticism that his Special Comment last Wednesday about President Bush's "panoramic and murderous deceit" was so over the top that he should be suspended, Olbermann had the unmitigated audacity to claim those offended were showing "their instinctive hatred for, and contempt for" America's troops.

His targets: conservative commentators and stalwart supporters of the United States military including radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin.

I kid you not.

What follows is the video of Olbermann's extraordinarily convoluted and Norman Bates-like explanation for his deplorable behavior last Wednesday as well as the transcript:

Friday's The O'Reilly Factor on FNC gave attention to revelations which first surfaced last February that employees of some Planned Parenthood clinics expressed a willingness to accept donations from callers who expressed the blatantly racist motivation of wanting to see more black children aborted, with a couple of the Planned Parenthood employees even seeming to express agreement with the racist statements. O'Reilly interviewed conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham about the attention she has given to the issue on her show, and played a clip of one of the phone calls. (Transcript follows)

In February, a conservative student publication at UCLA, The Advocate, revealed that it had called a number of Planned Parenthood clinics pretending to be interested in donating money to the organization while feigning a racist intention of wanting to reduce the number of black children. O'Reilly played one clip:

AUDIO OF UNIDENTIFIED MALE DONOR: Hello, Autumn. I'm interested in making a donation today.

AUDIO OF FEMALE PLANNED PARENTHOOD EMPLOYEE: Fantastic!

DONOR: I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group. Would that be possible?

PLANNED PARENTHOOD EMPLOYEE: Absolutely.

Eric Alterman’s new book on Why We're Liberals isn’t just plagued with errors, it makes wild charges, like attacking conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, suggesting she was anti-Semitic for cheering on the movie The Passion of the Christ. In a chapter about how conservatives mock the elites, when they themselves are rich and pampered, Alterman wrote about conservatives: "In Ingraham’s case, as in many others, one detects a strain of anti-Semitism in her insistent elite-bashing." From pages 173-74:

In observing the members of the conservative elite denouncing "elitists, it can be difficult to tell your players without the proverbial scorecard. For instance, the radio talk-show host and former conservative cable host Laura Ingraham has written an entire book about the dangers posed by liberal elites, entitled Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the Media Are Subverting America. In it, this daughter of a Connecticut lawyer, and graduate of Dartmouth and the University of Virginia Law School, who now lives in an expensive home in Washington D.C., distinguishes between liberal elitists and those whom she terms "true Americans."

The liberal media has a simple policy about the religion of candidates. Democratic front-runners are "devout Christians," whether they go to church or not, since liberalism and the Lord’s work are pretty much the same thing. Republicans are the ones whose religious beliefs and associations are approached with fear and loathing.

Take one recent eruption from Obama about so-called gay marriage, as reported by CNSNews.com. "If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans." The scowling echo in that phrase disturbed many, that a Christian would say this piece of the Bible is true, and that other line of God’s word is obscure and worth ignoring. Is Obama trying to assemble today’s version of Thomas Jefferson’s bible, cutting out only the passages that display the Jesus he believes in, and shredding the rest?

File under Law of Unintended Consequences . . .

There has been significant speculation in the MSM that an upshot of the NYT's McCain piece could be to rally support for McCain from conservatives like Rush Limbaugh who heretofore have been, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about the Arizona senator.

Typical was this exchange from today's Good Morning America, which followed an appearance by McCain campaign advisor Charlie Black.

View video here.

Talkers Magazine has put out their "2008 Heavy Hundred" list rating radio talk show hosts across the country and one thing is obvious, conservatives still reign supreme in radio.

The top ten includes one "progressive" (Ed Schultz) and one shock jock (Don Imus), but is otherwise dominated by conservatives. The rest of the list has a smattering of sports guys and a very few more left-talkers, but just as in the top ten, much of the other 90 slots are dominated by conservatives.

#1- Rush Limbaugh, #2- Sean Hannity, #3- Michael Savage, #4- Dr. Laura Schlessinger, #5- Glenn Beck, # 6- Laura Ingraham, #7- Don Imus, #8- Ed Schultz, #9- Mike Gallagher, #10- Neal Boortz

Doesn’t look like an olive branch to me. Writing in today’s (Tuesday's) Wall Street Journal, novelist and sometime Republican activist Mark Helprin (not to be confused with Time magazine’s Mark Halperin) takes a series of insulting personal shots at the radio talk show hosts who’ve criticized John McCain for his numerous anti-conservative positions.

Helprin, whose last big political job was working as an advisor to Bob Dole in 1996, calls hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity “hairdressers [who] can talk all day long to one client as they snip...the depth of their thought is truly Oprah-like,” even as Ann Coulter is “relentlessly crocodilian.” For what it's worth, Helprin’s Wikipedia entry calls him a “conservative commentator.”

Associated Press is the latest media outlet (on the heels of the Washington Post and CNN) to suggest that John McCain's primary wins could show conservative talk radio is "having little effect." AP reporter David Bauder filed a report today (complete with a quote from MRC's Brent Bozell):

John McCain heads into Tuesday's Florida primary facing resistance from not only his fellow candidates, but also from the leaders of conservative talk radio, who some suggest have put their reputations on the line, as well.

Talk radio pioneer Rush Limbaugh said that if McCain or Mike Huckabee are nominated, "it's going to destroy the Republican Party." Mark Levin calls the senator "John McLame." On Monday, Laura Ingraham said she was "concerned about the mental stability of the McCain campaign" and had cuckoo-clock sound effects accompany his words.

The Laura Ingraham radio show began Wednesday morning with a red-hot burst of outrage at yesterday's National Public Radio debate with the Democratic presidential candidates. She called it "an underreported treasure trove of idiocy" and said the broadcast completely lived up the boutique-liberal NPR stereotype -- which is why it was underreported by the rest of the media.

The show began with an NPR question on why America is so hated in the Muslim world, which couldn't be a bigger softball to Joe Biden, and the rest of the candidates, who quickly blamed the Bush administration for the unsettled Muslim world. 

The lead-in to NPR's evening newscast All Things Considered last night was all ‘crazy neocon’ Iran quotes last night from the candidates. (They play the theme song, and then you get that featured soundbite or set of soundbites). Sadly, that’s not on the NPR website, but the two-hour debate is here.

Laura Ingraham brought up Diane Sawyer’s umbrage at Mike Huckabee yesterday for his ad stressing he was a "Christian leader" as somehow crossing a line of decency (see Scott Whitlock's blog here), and how Sawyer pressed Newt Gingrich with Peggy Noonan’s quote that we’re looking for a leader, not a Bible study teacher. After noting that Sawyer doesn't usually find anyone crossing a line on the Angry Left, Ingraham wondered: how often does Sawyer cite Noonan? Is it usually just to prod and poke Republicans?

A quick review of the Nexis database shows that ABC’s Good Morning America has interviewed Noonan quite a bit on her expert subjects, first on her old job of presidential speechwriting, and more recently, on her biography of Pope John Paul II. But in the Bush era, on the few occasions when Noonan’s writing is quoted by ABC anchors or reporters, it’s almost always to prod the GOP.

In the musty but hallowed halls of the Old Media, the first item for target practice is often the New Media, the ones formed and made popular by the atrocious biases of their predecessors. The Old Media continue watching their numbers bleed away; continue to paint themselves as fair and balanced, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary; and continue to smear the New Media, especially talk radio, as the divisive haters and fact-manglers ruining civil discourse in America.

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw is on the publicity tour for his new book "Boom!" about the 1960s. On the November 26 Laura Ingraham show, when he was challenged with his soundbite broadsiding talk radio as "instantly jingoistic and savagely critical" of war protesters, Brokaw quickly put his anti-radio rant back into rotation.

He suggested incivility was a "big cancer" on America, and talk radio is the number one tumor. Front and center in Brokaw’s pathology was Limbaugh: "My problem with the whole spectrum is there is not -- you know what Rush’s, what his whole drill is. He doesn’t want to hear another point of view. Except his."

On Wednesday's "Countdown" show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann accused Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway and Fox News of "race hatred" in response to Conway making an arguably alarmist suggestion on Monday's "The O'Reilly Factor" that allowing the EEOC to sue employers for requiring its employees to speak English on the job could eventually lead to the hiring of non-English-speaking employees for other more serious jobs like air traffic controllers, resulting in airplanes crashing. During the "Countdown" show's regular "Worst Person in the World" segment, the MSNBC host went over the top by charging that Conway was "trying to dress up the lunatic fringe's race hatred over there at Fox News," and, addressing Conway, advised: "If you were just honest about your racism, at least you wouldn't look quite that stupid." (Transcript follows)

Before Thanksgiving, the Laura Ingraham show had great fun with a Today segment on November 16. As part of a series on "Today Gives Thanks," news anchor Ann Curry expressed her deep love and appreciation for Maya Angelou, the liberal black poetess who delivered the mawkish "rock, river, tree" poem at Bill Clinton's first inauguration.

NATALIE MORALES, co-host: This morning we wrap up our special series "Giving Thanks Today" with Ann's turn to show her gratitude to a great woman. Ann.

ANN CURRY: That's right. You know, words can change your life, and listening to the words of Dr. Maya Angelou in 2002 changed mine. If you're not familiar with Dr. Angelou, you need to stop what you're doing and sit down and listen.A renaissance woman, she is a writer, performer, teacher and an American Poet Laureate...

Laura Ingraham’s Monday appearance on The View on ABC wasn’t well-reviewed by the Huffington Post, where Rachel Sklar whacked Laura’s knuckles for daring to ask Barbara Walters if she supported victory in Iraq. She condemned the question as an irresponsible rhetorical trick, a conservative canard, “Slightly accusatory, more than a little condescending.”

On Thursday’s Laura Ingraham show, Laura and Rachel faced off over what you can ask Barbara Walters. Sklar insisted this kind of who-wants-victory question was a “debate-ending question,” meant to stifle discussion rather than promote it. Ingraham was quick to disagree, insisting that she wanted the discussion about the war to go on, but The View gang changed the subject to a more important topic: Heather Mills and her nasty tabloid-pleasing divorce from Paul McCartney.

Here's what Sklar wrote on Eat the Press:

Laura Ingraham was in a groove on Monday's "The View," spurring protest from Barbara Walters by asking if the talk-show gang there really wanted America to win in Iraq. (Walters protested probably not only for her colleagues on the chat show, but her colleagues at flag-pins-are-verboten ABC News). Video of the exchange is available here. On what I'm guessing was Ingraham's last appearance on "The View," on January 22, 2003, our Jessica Anderson captured how the radio host handled a cast of putative feminists who defined feminism as offering women the choice to have a completely elastic and plastic marriage for political gain:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: I know that you wrote this book called The Hillary Trap, Laura, and in it you sort of blast Hillary – or not even sort of, you do – for the way she handled her husband's infidelities, and basically make the point that she is not a good role model.