As regular readers of this blog know, we’ve had a tangle or two with CNN’s in-house immigrant-basher, Lou Dobbs. In 2007, we had a major dustup with the host of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” over his wholly false claim that 7,000 new cases of leprosy had appeared in a recent three-year period in the United States, due at least in part to immigrants. (The reality was that about 400 new cases appeared during the period, and it’s not known if any of them were linked to immigrants.) The battle subjected Dobbs a series of humiliations, including being described by The New York Times as a man with “a somewhat flexible relationship with reality.”
To the surprise of very few familiar with Dobbs, the CNN host is at it again. Now, he’s joined with the conspiracy nuts pushing the wholly unsubstantiated claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and therefore cannot legally hold the office of president. The fact that this claim has been disproved by CNN’s own reporters seems to mean nothing at all to Dobbs, who has come in for criticism in recent days from all kinds of quarters for joining hands with the “birthers.”
In short, Dobbs' CNN show has become the political equivalent of Coast to Coast -- the late-night talk radio show where nutjobs call in to talk about UFO abductions and "shadow people." From immigration, to the non-existent "NAFTA Superhighway," and now to the birthers, there is no crank position that's too stupid and too lunatic for Dobbs to treat as if it were valid -- although the overriding theme seems to be xenophobia and racism. Calling this "news" is an insult to journalists. CNN should either fire Dobbs or change their name to Cable News (Except When Lou Dobbs Is On) Network.
So, barring becoming CN(EWLDIO)N, SPLC president J. Richard Cohen has written a letter to CNN president Jonathan Klein asking for Dobbs' head.
"Respectable news organizations should not employ reporters willing to peddle racist conspiracy theories and false propaganda," Cohen writes. "It's time for CNN to remove Mr. Dobbs from the airwaves."
I wouldn't hold my breath. Whatever audience it is that he pulls in, CNN must find it worth it to suffer the embarrasment of having this horse's ass on their network.
UPDATE: Greg Sargent reports that Klein's blowing off calls for Dobbs to lose his show.
CNN/US president Jonathan Klein is rebuffing the mounting criticism of the network over Lou Dobbs’ continued airing of “birther” theories, saying that Lou runs “his own show” that merely hosts “panels” with birther theorists and asserting that CNN respects viewers enough to let them “make up their own minds.”
Klein, in an interview with me just now, also took a shot at Dobbs’ critics, saying they’re politically motivated: “I understand that people with a partisan point of view from one extreme or another might get annoyed that certain subjects are aired.”
Yeah, about Dobb's having "his own show" -- turns out that his show is *gasp* really CNN's show. Imagine that. And Klein's assertion that the show's some sort of sovereign nation that CNN couldn't possibly influence is more than a little disengenuous. The UN charter doesn't extend to whatever studio Lou broadcasts from.
In related news, Klein has written Dobbs an internal email calling the birther story "dead" and pointing out that it's all been proved horseshit. We'll see how that goes. He's never let the fact that something's horseshit stop him before. Why on earth would he start now? He's still saying that Mexico's trying to take over the US.
