Today on her radio program, Laura Ingraham interviewed guest Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and asked her about the ideological direction of the Republican Party. The pair discussed recent statements made by retired GOP Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist (TN) and Bob Dole (KS) in support of some type of comprehensive health reform.

Dole has called for Republicans to become engaged in the process, stating “we’ve got to do something” to solve the current crisis. Frist has endorsed the Senate Finance health reform bill, and has called out “people on the extreme” in his own party for falsely labeling President Obama’s health reform as “socialized medicine.” Clearly incensed by these comments, Ingraham and Bachmann traded barbs trashing the former Republican leaders for daring to veer away from a “pro-freedom agenda”:

INGRAHAM: Of course. God bless Bob Dole he just came on our show, I have great respect for the man. And also for Frist. But Frist presided over a pretty disastrous situation in the Senate.

BACHMANN: They lost.

INGRAHAM: They lost. And Bob Dole lost how many times on a national level? I guess I’ve lost count. [...] That Republican ideology and that Republican outlook has been a losing outlook. That’s why President Obama wants more of us to be like them.

BACHMANN: Because we want a pro-freedom agenda. And he’s trying to throw people around who he believes will increase a non-pro-freedom agenda.

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Bachmann and Ingraham’s vitriol wasn’t only reserved for Republicans who dared to express a willingness to support reform. Asked if the New York Times’ recent profile of her has generated a lot of “hate mail,” Bachmann replied that although she does receive a lot of mail, it is “because Nancy Pelosi has made me a top target.” Ingraham then began mocking Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives and the highest-ranking female politician in American history — by making hissing and cat noises, then shrieking, “she doesn’t like powerful women.”

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Yesterday, “[a] 23-year-old man upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened fire from his truck at two soldiers standing outside a military recruiting station here on Monday morning, killing one private and wounding another.” In response, conservative talker Laura Ingraham suggested that websites and news outlets that have been critical of the war in Iraq were responsible for the obviously horrible attack. Her guest Bill O’Reilly seemed to agree with her tongue-in-cheek reasoning:

INGRAHAM: Are we now going to look at the websites that he frequented to see if he was on some of the crazy left-wing anti-war websites, Win Without War, George Soros-funded websites, DailyKos, all the crazies. … The way they are reporting on the George Tiller murder, all of talk radio was responsible for that. … Did he frequent MSNBC, did he like to watch it? [...]

O’REILLY: Since they have been unrelenting in describing their country as a torture nation, I’m sure that set this muslim guy off to kill one and wound another of our military and I’m sure that’s NBC’s fault. Look, the absurdity of this is beyond the pale.

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These commentators weren’t criticizing O’Reilly and groups like Operation Rescue simply because they are opposed to abortion. Many right-wing activists used words like “murderer” and “killer” when they criticized Tiller’s abortion practices. O’Reilly, in particular, sent his producers to ambush Tiller and said that anyone who didn’t “stop” Tiller would have “blood on their hands.”

Last week, ThinkProgress reported that hate radio host Laura Ingraham responded to Meghan McCain’s criticism of right-wingers like Ann Coulter by calling her “plus-sized.” Meghan shot back, telling Ingraham, “stop talking about my body.” Yesterday, Meghan ripped Ingraham on The View, saying, “Kiss my fat ass!”

Today, in his “Twitterview” with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) shied away from condemning Ingraham’s gratuitous attacks on his daughter. Stephanopoulos asked McCain, “What do you think of Meghan’s feud with Coulter and Ingraham?” McCain first said, “I’m proud of my daughter and she has a right to her opinions.” When asked if he agrees with his daughter, McCain did not say, simply stating, “like any family we agree on some things and disagree on others”:

Stephanopoulos, seeing that McCain didn’t want to go any further on the matter, tweeted to McCain, “I know I’m not getting anymore on Coulter and Ingraham.”

It’s unclear why McCain wouldn’t directly admonish Ingraham, who has mocked his daughter’s voice, weight, and just yesterday, called Meghan a “useful idiot.” But in the past, McCain has courted the extreme right of the GOP, granting an interview to Ingraham as late as October 2008. Throughout the presidential election, McCain, long considered too liberal by the extreme right, frequently appeared on hate radio shows, and he has a history of defending the bigoted remarks of right wingers.

Is McCain placing right-wing politicking before his own family?

In an e-mail message today titled “useful idiot watch,” right-wing talker Laura Ingraham sends a “Memo to Meghan McCain,” claiming that her “plus-sized” attack was just “one satirical line” that the left is now using “to malign outspoken conservatives.” Ingraham claims that “indignation” over her “off-the-cuff remark” is “manufactured and totally phony“:

The left’s indignation in this instance is manufactured and totally phony. If any off-the-cuff remark about a woman’s size was condemnable, then where was the outrage when President Obama made a passing reference to Jessica Simpson’s “weight battle” during his Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer? And of course they look the other way when obvious personal attacks are levied against conservatives. Remember when Al Franken was the toast of all media for his book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot”? Last month The View’s Joy Behar called him a “fat guy”; and when I was a guest on The View a few years back she ridiculed Ann Coulter and me as “peroxide” blondes on Fox. I laughed it off. If you can’t stand the heat…get out of the punditry business.

In a nod to ThinkProgress, Ingraham closes her e-mail by encouraging her readers to “click here to listen to the entire segment from March 13th, instead of the version that was edited and sent around by left wing smearmongers.”

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that right-wing radio talker Laura Ingraham attacked Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) daughter, Meghan, by mocking her as “plus-sized.” McCain responded yesterday on Twitter, telling Ingraham to “stop talking about my body“:

In a follow-up tweet, McCain wrote: “To all my girls out there. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about your body! I love my curves and you should love yours too!.”

Last night, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) daughter, Meghan McCain, appeared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, where she continued to criticize Ann Coulter. On her radio show today, Laura Ingraham responded to McCain’s critique of far right conservatives, saying that she is “just another Valley Girl gone awry.” In a mocking faux-Valley Girl voice, Ingraham made fun of McCain’s body, joking that she didn’t get a “role in the Real World” because “they don’t like plus-sized models”:

MCCAIN (on MSNBC): And I think there’s an extreme on both parties and I hate extreme. I don’t understand. I have friends that are the most radically conservative and radically liberal people possibly ever and we all get along. We can find a middle ground.

INGRAHAM (mocking): Ok, I was really hoping that I was going to get that role in the Real World, but then I realized that, well, they don’t like plus-sized models. They only like the women who look a certain way. And on this 50th anniversary of Barbie, I really have something to say.

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In the past, McCain has said that she is “proud” of her body. Last summer, she told Glamour, “I got to a point where I was like, I just don’t care. You think I’m fat? Fine. I don’t care how much you weigh.”

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On her radio show today, conservative talker Laura Ingraham asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) what he believed should be done to address the struggling U.S. economy. Ingraham listed several economic indicators that have declined in recent years to make her point. McCain dismissed the premise of Ingraham’s question, saying, “I still believe the fundamentals of our economy are strong”:

INGRAHAM: And now look: the dollar’s weak, we have serious competition from abroad, government is running a deficit. … What are the Republicans going to do if China ultimately overtakes us economically and does that matter?

MCCAIN: I still believe the fundamentals of our economy are strong. We’ve got terribly big challenges now, whether it be housing or employment or so many of the other — health care. It’s very, very tough times. It’s very tough. But we’re still the most innovative, the most productive, the greatest exporter, the greatest importer.

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It’s not clear which fundamentals McCain is referring to. Eight years of conservative management have left the economy with something other than “strong” fundamentals:

- Inflation is rising. The U.S. economy is currently experiencing “the worst 12 months of inflation in almost three decades.”

- Real wages are declining. Americans are experiencing a “de facto pay cut.” “Almost everything costs more, even as [Americans] have less money to pay for it.”

- Unemployment is increasing. Americans have experienced “seven consecutive monthly declines in employment.”

- Cost of food is rising. Food prices are quickly increasing and even school lunches across the country will be more expensive in the coming year.

- Optimism about economy is declining. “Optimism in the U.S. economy among CEOs of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies” is at a 16-year low. Americans are similarly pessimistic.

- Foreclosures are still increasing. Home foreclosures were up 55 percent over last year in July and “17 [percent] of all homes for sale in the U.S. are repossessed properties.”

McCain’s economic policies are promising more of the same. As Paul Krugman writes, McCain offers a “combination of irresponsibility and double-talk” that promises to be nothing short of “Bush made permanent.”

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