Photo by: Paul Teeling

From the NYT

She appeared on her way to a career as an AIDS-policy advocate when a funny thing happened: on a lark she auditioned to be the news reader and sidekick on a wacky FM morning radio program in the area. She got the job, which had her occasionally donning an inflatable calculator costume at a local Ford dealer. She acknowledged that the work was not exactly what she had in mind when she graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and from Oxford University, which she attended on a Rhodes Scholarship and where she earned her doctorate.

In 2004 she somehow parlayed her varied academic and drive-time radio experiences into a job as a co-host on a new morning program on Air America. That put her onto the booking lists of any number of cable news programs desperate for a fresh liberal voice.

“If you want a left-right fight, in 2004 or today, there’s this roster of dozens, if not hundreds, of conservative talk-show hosts to book,” she said. “On the left there’s Alan Colmes. Oh, wait a minute, he’s taken. I think I got booked, initially, by default.”