Dr. Laura Splits, But Is Unlikely to Fade

(Aug. 18) -- "We stopped Dr. Laura."

That is the gleeful headline this morning on the website Stop Dr. Laura.com, which a gay rights group formed a decade ago to run the conservative talk show host off the air. Progressive groups declared victory when she announced Tuesday night that she will end her radio show after coming under fire for repeatedly using a racial slur in an on-air call.

Not so fast.

One week after she "articulated the N-word all the way out" more than 10 times during an uncomfortable conversation with a black caller, a regretful, if somewhat defiant, Laura Schlessinger said she is leaving the airwaves. But she complained that her First Amendment rights had been violated and vowed to "move on to other venues" to speak her mind.

"I'm here to say that my contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year, and I've made the decision not to do radio anymore," she said on CNN's "Larry King Live." "My First Amendment rights have been usurped by angry, hateful groups who don't want to debate, they want to eliminate."

Schlessinger's outspoken conservative views have long attracted the ire of gay rights and civil rights groups, but the use of the racial epithet seemed to cross the line.

On Aug. 10, a black caller complained to Schlessinger that her white husband did not defend her against "racist remarks" made by his family. Schlessinger, nonplussed, accused the caller of being "hypersensitive" about race. When the woman asked if she thought the N-word was offensive, Schlessinger responded that "black guys talking to each other seem to think it's OK" and repeated the slur 11 times throughout the broadcast.

The day after the rant, Schlessinger apologized on the air and on her website.

"I was attempting to make a philosophical point, and I articulated the N-word all the way out -- more than one time," she said in an apology the next day. "And that was wrong. I'll say it again -- that was wrong."

Advertisers began to pull their support anyway. The N-word was not, apparently, something the popular radio show could survive.

This morning, conservative commentators defended the host, and said she wasn't likely to stay quiet for long. "She's battled political correctness for years," blogger Michelle Malkin wrote late Tuesday. "Look forward to seeing and hearing more of her."

Others said the host had it right about the N-word. "The obsessive use of and the tortured defense of the word by so many blacks gave her the license to use the word without any thought that there'd be any blow back for doing it," Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote at The Huffington Post last week. "She was wrong and got publicly called out for it. But that doesn't make her rationale or her explanation for using it any less valid. Dr. Laura got it right about the N word."

In an interview that recalled Sarah Palin's 2009 press conference in which she resigned as governor of Alaska but said she was "not retreating" but "advancing in another direction," Schlessinger said she would find other ways to make her influence felt.

"I'm not retiring. I'm not quitting. I feel energized actually, stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country," Schlessinger said. "I write books, I have blogs, I have my website. This is the era of the Internet."

When King asked if she realized "that it's OK if blacks want to kid blacks or make fun of themselves" but that it's not OK for a white person to do the same, Schlessinger sidestepped the question, then apologized again.

"I always tell people on my show to do the right thing," she said. "I thought I was trying to be helpful. I was trying to make a philosophical point, but I was wrong and I apologized."

The host's remarks left more questions than answers, but one thing, at least, is clear: Dr. Laura is sorry about her racial flap, but she has plenty more to say. Just what will her next act be? Stay tuned.