Good riddance to Dr. Laura, our generation’s most dangerous radio host.

Dr. Laura wouldn’t countenance Dr. Laura, that’s for sure. If the radio talk show host—who has written a slew of best-selling books and who regularly encourages her readers to “do the right thing”—got a call about a bullying, abusive friend who has an instant, headstrong opinion on everything, who views patience and compassion the same way Sarah Palin views science, it’s easy to imagine her response. She’d quickly adopt her incredulous lilt—a combination of “I can’t believe I’m wasting my time with this” and “I can’t believe you’re this stupid”—and tell the caller to cut her friend off immediately. If the caller persisted with a “But Dr. Laura...” or, worse, a “But maybe...”, she’d upbraid her for being so damn weak.

If Dr. Laura’s career isn’t over, it’s close; in the wake of a bizarre, n-word-laden rant, she announced on “Larry King” Tuesday that she’ll be retiring from the radio after more than 30 years on air. Still, it’s not as if she’d avoided controversy before this week. In 2000, her TV show didn’t last due in part to the uproar caused by some anti-gay comments she’d made earlier, such as calling homosexuality a “biological error.” Her biography, a whirlwind of naked photos and divorce, also clashes violently against her proclaimed on-air values. Yet for the most part, she hasn’t gotten quite the attention she deserves given her popularity and reach. She gets around eight million listeners a week, which is on par with Glenn Beck’s and Michael Savage’s radio shows, according to Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine. Liberals regularly work themselves up into a lather over the steady stream of invective spewed by the likes of Beck, Savage, and Rush Limbaugh, but have tended to give Dr. Laura something of a pass—all she does is give lame, retrograde advice, the thinking seems to go. At least she doesn’t misinform about politics.

This view is understandable. While in one sense the Becks and Limbaughs of the world are merely telling their audiences what they want to hear, they’ve also shown a nefarious ability to shape the political discourse simply by broadcasting any crazy rumor (Obama’s a Maoist! Death panels kill!) to millions. Still, though, Dr. Laura is worse. She spits a different, more powerful sort of awful. And it all has to do with the bizarre psychological dynamic between her and her audience.

Other right-wing hosts have a very simple, superficial relationship with their audiences—one couched in a comfortable sycophancy. Rush fans proudly proclaim themselves “dittoheads,” since they agree with everything he says. Sean Hannity’s fans greet him on the air by calling him a “great American.” When liberals call in to these shows, they yell at the hosts and the hosts yell back. It’s all sport: everyone knows her part and no one goes home with scrapes or bruises.

Dr. Laura’s show is another thing altogether. Her callers are sycophantic, yes, but also desperate and masochistic. They wait breathlessly to seek her wisdom even though they know she is likely to yell at or humiliate them. She’s erratic. Sometimes she’ll let callers fully tell their stories. Other times she’ll get immediately impatient. During one recent, surreal sequence, she told a caller with stepmother issues to sum up her problem in a single sentence, then, a minute later, told her to stop being so vague. Then she told her again to sum up her problem in a sentence. And then again she excoriated her listener for being too vague. “I’m not gonna get anywhere here,” she sighed, and one can’t help but think the hapless caller felt the same way.