CNN Wages War for Bigger Government

Last night Lou Dobbs hosted a one hour-long "War on the Middle Class" special on CNN. The biased town hall forum shares a title with Dobbs's big-government-friendly book that bears the same title.

Dobbs is part of CNN's ramped-up pre-election coverage that, surprise, surprise, has been gloomy and pessimistic about the economy, the war in Iraq, and pretty much everything else touching on the Bush administration or Republican Congress.

Dobbs has two more evening specials before the election and CNN's Jack "X-Files" Cafferty has a special tonight which, I'm sure is also a must-TiVo.

Here's an excerpt of the take my colleague Julia Seymour and I had on Dobb's program after reviewing it. You can find the full article here:

Lou Dobbs’s hour-long special “War on the Middle Class” should have been titled “Vote for Bigger Government This Election Year.”

With barely an attempt at journalistic objectivity, against the backdrop "America Votes 2006," the October 18 special painted a teary-eyed picture of a suffering middle class and placed blame squarely on the shoulders of those currently in power.

“We begin tonight with the complete failure of Congress to represent the interests of the largest group of constituents in the country: middle class Americans,” Dobbs said.

He insisted that “Republicans and Democrats alike have been putting their own partisan interests ahead of the concerns of working American families,” but over the course of the next hour he pressed for left-wing, big-government solutions that liberal Democrats tend to favor.

Reporter John King took over, touting the upcoming election and featuring Claire McCaskill, a Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri, and Sen. Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent.

After McCaskill spoke, Democrat talking points filled the screen. The graphic included items such as raising the minimum wage and “affordable health care.”

But these Democratic action items match the talking points Dobbs regularly pushes on his daily “Lou Dobbs Tonight” program and in his book, “War on the Middle Class.”

• In October 17’s “Lou Dobbs Commentary” on CNN.com, Dobbs wrote: “When our representatives are actually in session, they're constantly at odds with the will of the people. There's been no Congressional action on raising the minimum wage since 1997, and inflation has eroded wages as a result.”
• On page 173 of his book, Dobbs wrote, “Health care – and the ability to afford it – is something we used to take for granted. Now it is so expensive that even our biggest companies are trying to get out of providing basic coverage to their employees,” and “The United States is one of the only industrialized nations that doesn’t provide health care to all its citizens…”

Another theme underpinning Dobbs’ special was that America’s best days are long behind us.