Lou Dobbs is pathetic
Over at Orcinus, David Neiwert dismantles Lou Dobbs and his pathetic attempts to avoid responsibility for spreading lies claiming that immigrants have a tremendously high rate of leprosy:
As Neiwert points out, Dobbs has never been held accountable for using the white supremacist movement as a source.
What's tragi-comic about the entire immigration "debate," which is not so much a debate as a Republican talking point, is how much it has turned into an exploding cigar for the GOP. There's not a lot funny about the racist overtones of the immigration "debate," but apparently a lot of Republicans are so ticked off at Bush over immigration they stopped giving much money.
The whole thing would be hilarious, except for the plight of very real human beings who come to this country to seek economic opportunity and liberty -- you know, those cornerstones of American values that conservatives always talk about but like to reserve for a particular type of person when possible. (Read: white, straight, Protestant, for starters.)
As long as the underlying conditions are favorable to immigration, such as extreme poverty in portions of Mexico and Central and South American, people will seek to come here. We could build walls from now until eternity and it wouldn't do much to slow the tide, although some individuals might find themselves blocked. Dobbs has generated ratings for himself by exploiting racist tendencies in this country, and just because he also throws in some economic populism doesn't excuse Dobbs his falsehoods nor his deliberate role as a political actor. You can call what Dobbs does by many names, but it's not traditional journalism.
We need a leader, and with his popularity at Nixonian levels Bush doesn't have much of his vaunted political capital left. And that is, strangely enough, too bad on this issue, because if nothing else, when it comes to immigration, Bush doesn't seem nearly as whacked out as people like Dobbs.
Not Punny: Via Eschaton comes this priceless smackdown by Alison Stewart. You may recognize the evil-speakers as John "Stroll in the Park" McCain and none other than the Infamous Bill-o the Clown:
Actually, Dobbs reasserted the false statistics as "factual" as recently as three weeks ago. And nowhere in this entire diatribe does Dobbs clear the air and explain to his audience that the leprosy statistics he cited -- 7,000 cases -- referred to a thirty-year period, not a three-year period. He claims that a separate report did so, but if it did, it was (a) buried, and (b) completely inadequate as a correction.CNN is really shredding whatever tiny amount of credibility they had left, which is too bad, because at times some of their reporters do some pretty decent stories. But that gets overshadowed when propagandists like Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs are allowed to spread their filth. It's offensive.
As Neiwert points out, Dobbs has never been held accountable for using the white supremacist movement as a source.
What's tragi-comic about the entire immigration "debate," which is not so much a debate as a Republican talking point, is how much it has turned into an exploding cigar for the GOP. There's not a lot funny about the racist overtones of the immigration "debate," but apparently a lot of Republicans are so ticked off at Bush over immigration they stopped giving much money.
The whole thing would be hilarious, except for the plight of very real human beings who come to this country to seek economic opportunity and liberty -- you know, those cornerstones of American values that conservatives always talk about but like to reserve for a particular type of person when possible. (Read: white, straight, Protestant, for starters.)
As long as the underlying conditions are favorable to immigration, such as extreme poverty in portions of Mexico and Central and South American, people will seek to come here. We could build walls from now until eternity and it wouldn't do much to slow the tide, although some individuals might find themselves blocked. Dobbs has generated ratings for himself by exploiting racist tendencies in this country, and just because he also throws in some economic populism doesn't excuse Dobbs his falsehoods nor his deliberate role as a political actor. You can call what Dobbs does by many names, but it's not traditional journalism.
We need a leader, and with his popularity at Nixonian levels Bush doesn't have much of his vaunted political capital left. And that is, strangely enough, too bad on this issue, because if nothing else, when it comes to immigration, Bush doesn't seem nearly as whacked out as people like Dobbs.
Not Punny: Via Eschaton comes this priceless smackdown by Alison Stewart. You may recognize the evil-speakers as John "Stroll in the Park" McCain and none other than the Infamous Bill-o the Clown:
And then there‘s Senator John McCain and Bill O‘Reilly. Let‘s just say you know you‘re watching Fox News when Mr. O‘Reilly said immigrants would, quote, “break down the white Christian male power structure.”Ouch. First they laugh at you, Bill, then they laugh at you some more, then they vote for people who will actually help the country instead of try to tear it apart.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “THE O‘REILLY FACTOR,” FOX NEWS CHANNEL)
BILL O‘REILLY, HOST: That would sink the Republican party, I believe, so we‘d have a one-party system, and change, pardon the pun, the whole complexion of America. Am I wrong?
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, you‘re right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART: Personally, I don‘t really pardon the pun.
