In Defense of Lou Dobbs

[Jackpine Radical]

I think CNN is making a mistake in dumping Lou. After all, doesn’t the political Right deserve fair treatment?

If, as Stephen Colbert once observed, “The truth has a well-known liberal bias,” then isn’t the Right entitled to present a counterbalance of disinformation and deception?

As CNN's rival Fox News has so effectively demonstrated, there is ample room for half-truths, deceit, and outright lies in American broadcast journalism. Story fabrication in order to advance conservative causes has a long history in the American press, and there is no good reason why CNN should surrender Lou's chunk of this viable and highly lucrative market to the likes of Hannity and O’Reilly.

Put simply, if Americans don’t have Lou to lie to them, we will have to turn elsewhere to find the fuel to sustain our endemic bigotry and otherwise indefensible hatred. CNN's viewership can only suffer if they shortsightedly deny a voice to the opinions of the large batshit-crazy segment of the population.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Back when the RW was trying to make illegal immigration the next big Jewish Menace....

Back when we had those big pro-immigrant rallies, and the Day Without a Mexican and what not...

There were a lot of DUers defending Lou Dobbs. I mean a lot.

But I've forgotten who they were. Maybe it's time to revisit the archives.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. There were a lot of DUers defending Lou Dobbs. I mean a lot.

i remember that as well.

[Warpy]

4. There were, but not after he settled on Mexicans

as being responsible for all the world's ills.

He had actually made sense once in a while before he went loony about 3 or so years ago.

I think he'll probably retire, at least I hope so, after exploring what it takes to run for office.

Then again, there will always be a place for him guest hosting on Pox News.

[abelenkpe]

7. Dobbs did put out a book on the outsourcing of

America that resonated with many. Then he went insane.

Sometimes I wonder if it is a symptom of aging? Cause my mother used to be a democrat, and somewhere around 1999 went totally batty. The battyness went off the charts after 911.

Please please please don't let that happen to me....

[louis-t]

9. My uncle explained it to me once.....

"One day all of your aunts woke up and decided they were Republicans." :shrug:

[Hippo_Tron]

15. No, he's always been the same xenophobic asshole

Lou Dobbs propagates the far right libertarian conspiracy theories that international organizations and international trade are a threat to the sovereignty of the United States. Anybody with a brain knows that international organizations don't have power in themselves and that the power is vested in their members. Case and point, even though the United States is bound by certain obligations as a member of the United Nations (among them not to go to war unless attacked or with Security Council approval) the UN couldn't do jack shit to stop Bush from invading Iraq. International organizations can be a mechanism through which stronger countries trample on the sovereignty of weaker countries. But anybody who really thinks they are a threat to the sovereignty of a country as powerful as the United States is out of their mind.

Anyway, my point is that Dobbs doesn't give two shits about the effects that outsourcing has on American workers or workers in other countries. He just pretends that he does so that he can get liberals to buy his book and support his idiotic conspiracy theories about world government.

[madokie]

16. At one time years ago I liked Lou

but when he started on his crusade against the people who were not the problem and completely ignored the ones who are/were he lost me. The problem is the business persons or in some cases average Joe's and Jane's who provided them the jobs they were only willing to pay little for rather than try to help to make their lives a little more bearable in their own homes in their own communities. Lou directed his anger toward the wrong parties even though he is married to a lovely person who happens to be Hispanic herself. Lou railed against the wrong people and that is what did him in.

I say we work to make life better for our southern neighbors, I'd like to go there and visit sometime but in todays climate and my health I don't think I'll ever get the oportunity.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Sure, lots of people defending Lou Dobbs, and STILL lots of people...

who sound practically right-wing on the immigration issue.

[abelenkpe]

5. Do you think that effort has ended?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. No, it's subsided.

The good guys are winning.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. It is Capitalism. If Loud Dobbs can not make money for CNN, he has to go.

The truth may have a liberal bias, but the media has a money bias.

Besides, as I understand it Dobbs quite, he wasn't fired. Qutting is what right wing hacks do when they get their feelings hurt.

[Lasher]

8. No, that's a case of false equivalency.

He's had a point or two regarding control of illegal immigration, although there are reasonable people here who disagree with me on this assessment. But when he jumped the shark recently with promotion of birther conspiracy theories, CNN told him to back off, and appropriately so.

In a discussion about the shape of the earth, I might argue that it is spherical and you might assert that its shape is not perfectly round and therefore cannot be described as such. But if you believe the earth is flat, don't expect your views to be given equal consideration in such a debate.

It's the same thing.

[H2O Man]

11. Yes, but what if

Loud Dobbs wanted to take the position that the earth was created in the image of his head? Should he be forced to merely broadcast this delusion within his head? Or does CNN have an immoral obligation to allow him hot air head time?

[Lasher]

12. No, that's another case of false equivalency.

It is well known that the earth does not have a hollow core.

[Berry Cool]

14. I demand that half the weather maps on TV from now on have warnings on the edges

saying "Here there be dragons" and "Don't go any further than here or you'll fall off the edge."

[Hubert Flottz]

13. I think CNN will still have plenty of liars to take up the slack.

Wolf will get some overtime.

[marmar]

17. A counterbalance from the right is one thing.....

..... Wild racist xenophobic conspiratorial rantings are another.