Lou Dobbs’ Negative History With Respect To Hispanics Comes Back To Haunt Him Again

Lou Dobbs made a dubious name for himself during his late days at CNN for endlessly whining about illegal immigration and for displaying hostility toward Hispanics. After Dobbs and CNN parted company, it was rumored that he was being considered for a job at CNBC. That possibility caused those who have been most negatively impacted by Dobbs’ bigotry to step forward and make sure their voices were heard by CNBC and will be heard by any other major media organization that considers hiring Dobbs to sit in an anchor chair and give him a platform to potentially spit out more divisive rhetoric.

This is from a Think Progress story:

This past Wednesday, CNBC dispelled rumors that were circulating throughout the week that former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs would be joining the business network. Meanwhile, Dobbs affirmatively told Fox Business News shock jock Don Imus that he didn’t even talk with CNBC and that he had “no idea where they even got that.” However, National Hispanic Media President Alex Nogales told ThinkProgress today that CNBC was in fact talking with Dobbs and that his hiring was, at least in part, thwarted by the same coalition of Latino, civil rights, and media-watchdog groups that successfully campaigned to get Dobbs off CNN airwaves.

Who knows whether these groups had an impact on Dobbs’ not being hired by CNBC. One thing is for certain, however, the demons of Lou Dobbs’ past (in spite of the fact he has weakly attempted to soften his image among with Latinos since his departure from CNN) will continue to haunt him in the future.

He may find a position (even Don Imus did), but he will be watched and he will be challenged by those he has attacked throughout his career.

Open Letter From Media Matters For America To CNN About Disgraceful Lou Dobbs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, August 28, 2009

CONTACT Jessica Levin (202) 772-8162 jlevin@mediamatters.org

Washington, D.C. — Today, Media Matters for America President Eric Burns issued an open letter to CNN President Jonathan Klein regarding prime-time anchor Lou Dobbs’ scheduled appearance on September 15 and 16 at the “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” legislative advocacy event and rally sponsored by the anti-immigration organization Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR, an organization that has been designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center and that has been sharply criticized for its racially-tinged ads, was founded by John Tanton, who has a long history of making racist statements and espousing racist beliefs.

A FAIR press release announced that Dobbs will broadcast his show from the rally and will be joined by 47 conservative talk radio hosts.

Burns writes, in part:

“Mr. Dobbs represents an ongoing threat to CNN’s credibility as a serious news organization, in no small part because of his polemical coverage of immigration issues and his continued use of his CNN show to lend prominence to groups such as FAIR. The attention and legitimacy he gave to the “birther” movement — and CNN’s condoning of his actions — did real damage to that credibility. His participation in the upcoming FAIR rally would do further, serious damage. We urge you to finally acknowledge that Mr. Dobbs’ actions in this and other contexts are inconsistent with the reputation that CNN strives to maintain.”

The complete text of the letter reads:

August 28, 2009

Dear Mr. Klein:

On September 15 and 16, Lou Dobbs is scheduled to broadcast from Capitol Hill as a leading voice of the annual “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” two-day legislative advocacy conference and rally sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Including Mr. Dobbs, the event will feature 47 conservative talk radio hosts from around the country. We write to urge you to prohibit Mr. Dobbs from participating in this event.

FAIR is a rabidly anti-immigrant organization founded by an unrepentant racist, who remains on its board. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated FAIR a “hate group.” Mr. Dobbs’ participation — and, inextricably, CNN’s — would bestow legitimacy on the rally and on FAIR, as the group itself recognizes and touts. In announcing its 2008 “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” conference (from which Mr. Dobbs was allowed to broadcast his CNN television show), the FAIR Congressional Task Force boasted in a press release that Mr. Dobbs’ “prominence will add to the visibility and stature of an event that has already had an enormous impact on the national debate about immigration policy.” FAIR’s website approvingly stated that in 2007, “talk radio and cable news programs such as Dobbs’ ” helped turn the public against immigration reform efforts, which it labels as “amnesty.” The press release announcing this year’s rally notes that it will be “led by Roger Hedgecock … and Lou Dobbs.” In addition, the group has given Mr. Dobbs its “People’s Voice Award” for “his continued efforts in leading the immigration reform movement through both his talk radio show and his television show.”

CNN’s association with FAIR through Mr. Dobbs is nothing less than a stain on an organization that calls itself “The Most Trusted Name in News.” FAIR was founded by John Tanton, who still sits on the organization’s board of directors. Tanton has a long history of making racist statements, espousing racist beliefs, and funding racist organizations. In 1986, Tanton reportedly wrote: “As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night?” In 1993, he reportedly wrote: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” In 1997, Tanton was quoted by the Detroit Free Press as saying that without a reduction in immigration levels, the United States will be overwhelmed by people “defecating and creating garbage and looking for jobs.” In 2001, Tanton reportedly praised the work of John Trevor, a notorious Nazi sympathizer, saying his work should form “a guidepost to what we must follow again this time.” Tanton is not a relic of FAIR’s past: In the organization’s 2004 annual report, chairman of the board of directors Nancy Anthony wrote that Tanton’s “visionary qualities have not waned one bit. He stills floods us with more ideas than we can possibly absorb.”

In March, Dobbs’ CNN show reported that FAIR “supports a temporary moratorium on immigration.” FAIR executive director Dan Stein has been quoted saying the following: “Many [immigrants] hate America, hate everything the United States stands for. Talk to some of these Central Americans.”

FAIR has been sharply criticized in the media for racially tinged ads. A 2000 campaign ad the group ran against former Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Lebanese-American, attacked his support for making more visas available for foreign workers and accused him of “trying to make it easier for terrorists like Osama bin Laden to export their way of terror to any city street in America.” In 2004, a group of FAIR-backed ads targeting former Texas Democrat Martin Frost and former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel featured dark-skinned men loitering on street corners and running from the police. The Dallas Morning News denounced the ads in an April 2004 editorial, calling them “as racially tinged as those Willie Horton ads the late Mr. [Lee] Atwater put together for the first President Bush during his 1988 White House bid.” In an April 24, 2004, editorial, the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star called the ads “trash” that “incite hate,” “play upon stereotypical racial fears,” and “are full of half-truths and lies.’”

And yet, rather than denouncing the group, Mr. Dobbs’ CNN show has cited FAIR as a credible source on immigration issues no fewer than six times in the last year while also routinely failing to disclose his close association with the group.

There should be no doubt concerning the content of the upcoming rally. It will give a platform to precisely the type of radio host you, Mr. Klein, reportedly said would no longer be invited on CNN. Speakers last year included Les Kinsolving, a WorldNetDaily.com columnist who asked Robert Gibbs at a White House press briefing why the president won’t release his “long-form birth certificate.” Another speaker from last year, South Florida radio host Joyce Kaufman, has reportedly said of undocumented immigrants: “If you commit a crime while you’re here, we should hang you and send your body back to where you came from, and your family should pay for it.” Also on the roster last year was Steve Gill, a Nashville radio host who has said of President Obama: “This man, and his evil minions, really do hate this country.” Jeff Katz, while a radio host in Sacramento, reportedly “said motorists should be awarded a sombrero-shaped bumper sticker for every illegal immigrant hit while attempting to cross the border from Mexico,” adding, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, that “[f]or every 10 bumper stickers … a motorist would earn a free drink or meal at Taco Bell.”

As Media Matters has highlighted repeatedly, Mr. Dobbs represents an ongoing threat to CNN’s credibility as a serious news organization, in no small part because of his polemical coverage of immigration issues and his continued use of his CNN show to lend prominence to groups such as FAIR. The attention and legitimacy he gave to the “birther” movement — and CNN’s condoning of his actions — did real damage to that credibility. His participation in the upcoming FAIR rally would do further, serious damage. We urge you to finally acknowledge that Mr. Dobbs’ actions in this and other contexts are inconsistent with the reputation that CNN strives to maintain.

We await your response.

Sincerely,

Eric Burns

President

Media Matters for America

CNN’s Lou Dobbs Has It Mixed Up

Media Matters for America quotes CNN right-wing commentator Lou Dobbs saying the following:

DOBBS: It’s just killing the left wing in this country that they can’t force CNN to fire me.

No, it’s killing CNN that it doesn’t have the guts to bring under control a right-wing, hysteria-fueling nutjob from spreading garbage on its airwaves.

How Much Of A Nose Dive Can Lou Dobbs’ Ratings At CNN Take?

CNN’s conservative host Lou Dobbs, who is severely damaging the credibility of CNN as a true and honest-to-goodness news organization, may be taking a hit in the ratings according to The New York Observer. This is no surprise. Dobbs has been so one-side and so pig-headed in pushing this birther non-story, that he is behaving more like a Fox News operative placed at CNN to destroy it from within. In many ways, Dobbs’ obsession with the birther story fits his conservative xenophobic pattern (his other obsession is barking endlessly about illegal immigration).

From The New York Observer:

To wit: According to The Observer’s analysis of Nielsen data, in recent weeks, as criticism of Mr. Dobbs has continued to go up, his ratings at CNN have continued to go down.

Mr. Dobbs’ first began reporting on Obama birth certificate conspiracy theories on the night of Wednesday, July 15. In the roughly two weeks since then, from July 15 through July 28, Mr. Dobbs’ 7 p.m. show on CNN has averaged 653,000 total viewers and 157,000 in the 25-54 demo.

By contrast, during the first two weeks of the month (July 1 to July 14) Mr. Dobbs averaged 771,000 total viewers and 218,000 in the 25-54 demo. In other words, Mr. Dobbs’ audience has decreased 15 percent in total viewers and 27 percent in the demo since the start of the controversy.

Arguably, interest in cable news has slumped across the board since early July when attention over Michael Jackson’s death was still at a fever pitch.

But, that said, Mr. Dobbs’ ratings over the past two weeks, during the height of the “birthers” controversy, are also down significantly compared to his overall numbers during the second quarter of 2009 when he averaged 769,000 total viewers and 222,000 in the 25-54 demo.

In summary, if Mr. Dobbs’ affinity for “birthers” is a ratings ploy, it’s a pretty ineffective one.

But, how far can a man’s ratings truly nose dive if he already is at the bottom of the barrel?

It’s a relatively short fall for Lou Dobbs.

CNN’s Dwindling Credibility, Lou Dobbs Joined At The Hip

Lou Dobbs is an anchor holding (if not dragging) down CNN’s lofty status as the most trusted name in news.

Lou Dobbs To CNN: Who’s Your Daddy?

This whole birther flap between conservative mouthpiece Lou Dobbs and his CNN superiors is beginning to reflect an episode of the Maury Povich Show. Lou Dobbs would be sitting in one chair, CNN President Jon Klein is sitting in another chair and Maury is in a third.

The script is all too familiar:

“When it comes to who is in charge at CNN … JON KLEIN … YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER.”

Media Matters for America:
http://mediamatters.org/press/releases/200907240039

I’m going to go out on a limb and question whether Lou Dobbs’ dance skills are up to par, but he is the daddy at CNN.

Foolish Right-Wing Nuts Still Sounding Crazy About Barack Obama’s Birth Certificate

The nuts on the far right of the political spectrum are beginning to look increasingly unstable as they manufacture conspiracy theories about President Obama’s place of birth and whether or not he really is a citizen of the United States of American (one of the necessary requirements to become president). These nuts, led by bitter Alan Keyes who has been whipped politically by Obama, continue to advance useless speculation and waste time and resources pursuing ghosts.

Here is the transcript from Lou Dobbs’ CNN show guest-hosted by Kitty Pilgrim. Even as Pilgrim confronts the two player-hater guests with a mountain of evidence and facts, they still are unsatisfied.

Frankly, I thought Keyes was nuts, but that lawyer (Orly Taitz) makes him look composed, rational and credible.

Here is the transcript from Media Matters for America:

PILGRIM: Well, an Army Reserve major is again raising controversy over President Obama’s place of birth. Now, the major challenged his deployment orders, claiming that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, and that renders his orders illegal.

Now, a former presidential candidate, Alan Keyes, also filed a lawsuit challenging the president’s right to hold an office, and a hearing will be — on that suit will be held on Monday.

Now, questions about the president’s place of birth have been asked and answered many times since before the election, and the president’s birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii. The state’s Republican governor and other officials have backed that up. CNN has fully investigated the issue, found no basis for the questions about the president’s birthplace, but the controversy lives on, especially on the Internet.

Joining me now is Orly Taitz, and she represents the Army major and filed the Keyes lawsuit. Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes joins us. And on the other side, John Avlon, who is a columnist for the DailyBeast.com and author of Independent Nation; and Errol Louis, columnist for the New York Daily News and a CNN contributor, also an attorney.

And so, let me, just before we start, bear with me a bit. There’s overwhelming evidence that proves that his birth certificate is real, and that he was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. If you’ll just bear with me, I’ll run through a little bit of the evidence, and then we can get to this discussion. Now, the Annenberg Political Fact Check, which is a nonpartisan group, went to Chicago to view the birth certificate last year, and they released photos and this statement, “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he always has said.”

The Republican governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, on record, she says Obama was indeed born in her state, and we should note, she did support John McCain. So, we also have a copy of the Honolulu Advertiser, the newspaper, August 13, and the Hawaii Star-Bulletin, August 14, 1961, both announcing Barack Obama’s birth.

Also, October last year, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health wrote a letter, stating, “I have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Senator Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedure.”

PolitiFact.com reissued their results from their investigation they conducted in June of last year, and they say, quote, “Since we published Obama’s birth certificate, questions about its authenticity have been frequent and fierce. After reviewing the evidence, we are confident of our rulings.”

And this is the last one; thanks for bearing with me. The White House press briefing this week, reporter from the WorldNetDaily pressed again about the birth certificate. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said this following comment:

GIBBS (video clip): Do all of your listeners and the listeners throughout this country the service to which any journalist owes those listeners, and that is the pursuit of the noble truth, and the noble truth is that the president was born in Hawaii, a state of the United States of America.

PILGRIM: Now, Alan Keyes, you’ve been patient letting me get through all that, but what more do you need to be convinced?

KEYES: Some evidence. And the evidence is something that President Obama is strenuously blocking. You ask me to prove that I was born in New York City at the time and hospital I say, and I will give you a certified copy of a full birth certificate with a doctor’s signature, the hospital, and everything else. I won’t direct you to some photograph on the Internet and a bunch of hearsay statements that would not be accepted as evidence in any court of law.

And so the very simple question is: Why spend $800,000 to a million dollars blocking the birth certificate, blocking records at school and college that would in any way have a bearing on the question –

PILGRIM: All right, Alan –

KEYES: — both of his birth and of his citizenship claims at various times in his life.

PILGRIM: Let me let –

KEYES: Why is he going to all this trouble if, as they say, the matter is resolved? Can’t be resolved by a bunch of statements and assertions.

PILGRIM: OK, Orly, we have to keep this quicker –

TAITZ: Yes.

PILGRIM: — but please tell me what you –

TAITZ: OK, Obama never provided his birth certificate. What he provided is certification of live birth that was issued last year that does not have the name of the doctor, does not have the name of the hospital, does not have any signatures. Do you know that Hawaii has a statute, 338, that allows foreign-born children of Hawaiian residence to get Hawaiian birth certificates? Did you know that?

PILGRIM: Errol, I would like you to respond.

LOUIS: Listen, I think — I think what we have here is a case where under the guise of saying, well, we can’t trust whether or not he should be president because we don’t have the evidence, it’s actually the reverse. These are folks — and there are a number of them, and some of them are raising money, like WorldNetDaily, which is as far as I’m concerned, running a scam, where they’re selling all kinds of bumper stickers and stuff like that. And I don’t know what Miss Taitz is taking in the way of legal fees.

TAITZ: Excuse me, if you –

LOUIS: They’re raising legal fees from across the country –

TAITZ: I’m doing this pro bono.

PILGRIM: All right.

LOUIS: — and the reality is they don’t accept –

TAITZ: It’s pro bono.

LOUIS: — they don’t accept that the president is the president –

TAITZ: No, no, no, no.

LOUIS: — and, therefore, they work backward and there will never be enough proof to satisfy them.

PILGRIM: All right, John, I have to let –

AVLON: You’ve offered a mountain of evidence in addition to two birth announcements. That’s a pretty deep conspiracy. What we have here –

TAITZ: Can I respond to this?

AVLON: No.

PILGRIM: In just one second.

AVLON: What we have here is Obama derangement syndrome. This is pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism.

TAITZ: This is nonsense. This is total nonsense. You have never investigated this.

AVLON: Ambassador Keyes says that President Obama has called him a radical communist.

TAITZ: This is absolutely irrelevant. Sir, this is absolutely irrelevant.

AVLON: You on your blog have repeatedly referred to the administration as Gestapo SS. Which is it? Get your story straight. Is he a Nazi or a communist? You guys are nuts.

TAITZ: You don’t know what you’re talking about.

PILGRIM: Orly, I have to ask you to let everyone at least have their say before you respond to it.

TAITZ: OK.

PILGRIM: I believe we’re out of time, I’m sorry to say. Great discussion. Orly Taitz, Alan Keyes, Errol Louis, and John Avlon.

TAITZ: You know what, let me just mention one more thing. In order to be the president, you have to have two parents that are citizens. Obama’s father was never a citizen of this country.

PILGRIM: All right.

TAITZ: He was a British citizen.

PILGRIM: Orly, we have to call it there. I’m sorry. Thank you very much — all of you — for joining in this very lively debate.

Another attack on Barack Obama that I doubt few (if any) other people who served as president of the United States of America ever had to deal with.

It makes me wonder why.