One Parent to Another: Matt Lauer Grills Dina Lohan on Momager Skills - Who's Really to Blame for Lindsay's Messy Life

Every once in a while, a great journalist will put a clueless, irresponsible celeb in the hot seat during an interview, asking all the right questions and making sure they don't get off the hook, much to the delight of the viewers.

Matt Lauer's chat this morning on the "Today" show with Dina Lohan was one such interview. The father to three children himself, Lauer questioned Dina Lohan from one parent to another on her personal responsibility regarding Lindsay Lohan's four stints in rehab, her trips to jail, and her once flourishing, now floundering career, according to PopEater.com.

Dina Lohan unsuccessfully attempted to navigate the conversation about her daughter. Ducking direct questions and changing the subject, Lohan was obviously uncomfortable and embarrassed by Lauer's more aggressive interview style, so much so that she acted like a guilty politician throughout most of the piece.

It was clear that she showed up on the "Today" show set hoping to give an interview about the judge on the case who, Lohan says, "played hardball," a phrase she used awkwardly several times throughout the 11-minute segment. But Lohan was surprised when Lauer wanted to discuss Lindsay's personal problems in a less forgiving manner.

"Dina felt ambushed by Matt," a Lohan family friend said of the interview, reports PopEater.com. "She was surprised how many tough questions he asked."

Still, many critics of the troubled starlet and her checked-out mom cheered Lauer on as he kept steering the conversation away from Judge Marsha Revel's alleged mishandling of Lindsay's case, and into a discussion about Dina and Michael Lohan's parenting skills and the future of Lindsay's mental and physical health.

Lohan denied any negligence in raising her daughter, who's been generating negative headlines since 2007 when she was first arrested for a DWI. The stage mom said she had to let the former teen queen face her own challenges when she moved to the west coast as a teenager.

"As a parent, you have to let them go a little bit. When she went out to Los Angeles when she was 19, I had to let her live and fall and fail and survive. Without failure, there's no success," Lohan said, insisting that she doesn't enable her daughter to engage in dangerous behavior. "You can't make your child not go out and go to a club and not get behind the wheel of a car," Lohan said.

Actually, you can. But Lauer didn't press her on that comment.

The momager refused to take responsbility for her daughter's wrong doing, and downplayed many of Lindsay's legal issues and drug problems. Lindsay's father, she added, has done nothing to help his daughter. "Yes, she has spoken to and seen Michael, but he hasn't been a father or a husband for over 15 years."

After the incredibly awkward interview this morning, Lohan canceled another interview she'd scheduled for the afternoon. The mother of four cited exhaustion.

The reality is, no child gets into trouble just because they're bad eggs. Someone in their life had to either condone, enable or turn a blind eye to their behavior. And Lindsay Lohan is no exception to that rule.

Dina Lohan is a bad parent. Period. Matt Lauer did a commendable job of showing us that this morning. She needs to pick her daughter up from rehab whenever she's released - Lohan told Lauer that the 24-year-old will likely be released early - bring her home, get her into therapy, get her a job volunteering at local homeless shelter or children's hospital, and teach her what really matters in the world.

Otherwise, many people don't think Lindsay Lohan will live to see age 30.