PUH-LEESE! Radio Pschologist Laura Schlessinger Doesn't Take Any Guff from Callers

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The hottest new show in talk radio begins each hour with Patti

LaBelle's vibrant rendition of I've Got a New Attitude .

"I'm in control, my worries are few," LaBelle sings, by way of

introducing Laura Schlessinger, America's new favorite radio

psychologist cum moral philosopher to a daily audience estimated

at more than 10 million listeners, including an estimated 8,900

each morning on Jacksonville's WOKV (AM 930).

The song "expresses my belief that it is attitude, infinitely

more than circumstance, that determines the quality of life,"

Schlessinger wrote in the introduction to her most recent

bestseller, How Could You Do That?!

And Schlessinger certainly brings plenty of attitude to her

daily three-hour radio program. Frequently impatient, often

demanding, she's intolerant of excuses and unwilling to listen

to long, rambling explanations of the problem. "I preach, I

teach and I nag to the best of my ability," she is quoted as

saying in a brochure describing her new syndicated newspaper

column.

"Puh-leese" is her favorite on-air expletive, conveying

exasperation with callers who make excuses for why they aren't

responsible for whatever has gone wrong in their lives.

"Take it like a man," she exhorts the callers, an expression

she uses without regard to a caller's actual gender.

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