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View Full Version : Lou Dobbs: The Haters Are Wrong




bobbyw24
11-23-2009, 11:58 AM
Lou Dobbs has quit his news anchor job at CNN, his network home for three decades. Currently he's considering all kinds of offers, including opportunities in politics.
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Dobbs has a reputation as an anti-immigration racist and a right-wing nut. His detractors lump him in with Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. And, of course, Hitler.

I confess – for years I watched the now-defunct "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on CNN. Whenever I let that detail slip, friends respond with shock or horror. Or both. But that's because they assume I watched Dobbs for his politics. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Lou is the grandfather I never knew. If you factor in his use of language – words like balderdash and phrases like "preening buffoons" and "lily-livered cowards" – he's the great-great grandfather I never knew.

Like a proud papa, Dobbs would use airtime on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" to broadcast snapshots of newborn babies, the offspring of his staff. It's the kind of thing you'd expect in a small-town newscast. In 1959. But for me, such sentimental touches served as a counterbalance to Wolf Blitzer's eerie placidity and Anderson Cooper's razzle-dazzle.

Lou and I go back a long ways. In olden times, Lou hosted CNN's "Moneyline." But that was a very different Lou Dobbs.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Dobbs reported on the stock market, interviewed captains of industry and played verbal ping-pong with Myron Kandel and other financial analysts.

But after clashes with CNN President Rick Kaplan, Dobbs left the news channel in 1999 to found space.com. Two years later Kaplan was gone and Dobbs was back, but he wasn't the same old Lou who'd hosted "Moneyline."

Wall Street Journal deputy editor Daniel Henninger wrote, "Old admirers are aghast. It's as if whatever made Linda Blair's head spin around in 'The Exorcist' had invaded the body of Lou Dobbs and left him with the brain of Dennis Kucinich."

Conservative James Glassman put it this way: "How did he transform from a business sycophant to a raving populist?"

Kinda makes you wonder what happened out there in outer space.

Last week New York Magazine asked if the trademark Dobbs outrage was "a wee bit manufactured" for our entertainment. No, Dobbs replied. He's completely sincere.

"These are the most perilous times of my lifetime, and that includes the Cold War," Dobbs said. "With my [radio show] listeners, I sense outright fear; people are scared, and I can't tell them that their fear is wrong."

Continue:

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/23/lou-dobbs-the-haters-are-wrong/

Dunedain
11-23-2009, 12:58 PM
Lou would make a better president than Obongo or Dubya. However, he is still pretty middle of the road for me. His stance on immigration is very liberal dispite what his critics say. Still, a STEP in the right direction.

angelatc
11-23-2009, 01:02 PM
Lou would make a better president than Obongo or Dubya. However, he is still pretty middle of the road for me. His stance on immigration is very liberal dispite what his critics say. Still, a STEP in the right direction.

Pffft. He thinks more government is the answer to more government. I turned his show off forever when he started talking about how the consumer product committee should be bigger, to keep us all safe.