Trashing Lou Dobbs…
Yes, I know we’ve had a ton of Lou Dobbs stories appear this week. But this one is a wee bit different from the previous week’s stories. The LA Times’ Tim Rutten writes about Dobbs’ success at CNN but isn’t happy about it…
“Fair and balanced” already is taken, so one supposes that Dobbs’ slogan will have to be “bully and bluster.”
His program doesn’t actually add up to much more than that, but its recklessness and violent rhetoric on immigration unsurprisingly attracts a following — and in cable it doesn’t take much of a following to boost your numbers. This week, Jonathan Klein — who runs CNN, for now — assured the New York Times that Dobbs’ anti-immigrant advocacy “is not a harbinger of things to come at CNN. He is sui generis, one of a kind.”
That’s a sort of relief.
But it didn’t stop Klein from plastering Dobbs, a onetime financial journalist best known for fawning interviews with corporate chief executives, and his views across every inch of the network all week long. (Why does the image of drowning men and ropes come to mind?)
If that wasn’t enough criticism for you, there’s lots more where that came from…
Spud, talk about SPIN! By reading your synopsis, one would think that Dobbs is against ALL immigration. We all know that is not the truth; he has been rallying against ILLEGAL immigration for years.
And even Mr. Rutten, the author of the article, makes it clear that it’s ILLEGAL immigration to which Dobbs refers.
You should probably re-word your posting.
Comment by Missy — April 1, 2006 @ 10:25 am
Spud’s synopsis? Hasn’t he just quoted from the article for most part? Personally I’m finding Lou Dobbs a bit irritating lately.It’s fine to have an opinion but his rantings are tiresome and he often misrepresents the facts.
Comment by anon — April 1, 2006 @ 12:05 pm
hey anon..in that case its Mr. Rutten who is doing the spinning AND NOT defining exactly what Dobbs is against. But I find everything Lou has to say about ‘Broken Borders’ true and very disturbing.
Comment by Me — April 1, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
Spud, talk about SPIN! By reading your synopsis, one would think that Dobbs is against ALL immigration.
Did I mention Immigration? Nope. Did I make any pronouncements on Dobbs stance? Nope again. Frankly I’m at a loss to understand what you’re griping about.
Comment by Spud — April 1, 2006 @ 11:38 pm
Rutten’s article makes it very clear that it’s ILLEGAL immigration that Dobbs rallies against, yet the portion you excerpted makes no mention of the word ILLEGAL. That word is CRITICAL to Dobbs’ entire “mission”.
Comment by Missy — April 2, 2006 @ 9:08 am
You’re reading WAYYYYYYYY too much into that. I just posted the section because the author was making a comment on Jonathan Klein.
Comment by Spud — April 2, 2006 @ 11:13 am