Lou Dobbs

Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs issued a truly delicious smack down to America's press Sunday.

In the midst of a lengthy discussion about the so-called “Contraception Controversy” on ABC's This Week, Dobbs said, "It’s awfully nice of the national media and the Democratic Party to help everyone understand the dangers of Rick Santorum" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

While columnist Dana Milbank complained about "The irrelevancy of the Obama presidency" -- noting Republican laughter during the Obama speech (especially the line "This isn't political grandstanding") and Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) reading the newspaper -- TV critic Hank Stuever sat at the Tom Shales Desk of Obama Speech Puffery. "Obama reiterates his mastery of medium" was the headline on the front of the Style section.

Stuever's expert of choice on Obama was Lou Dobbs of Fox News, whom he plucked out for declaring it was "The best speech he's ever given." That's not exactly what Dobbs said on The O'Reilly Factor after the speech. Dobbs said it was the best speech of his presidency. But then Dobbs agreed with Bill O'Reilly that it was extremely political and not a transparent proposal:

“Frankly, $48 Million is just scratching the surface,” MRC’s Gainor said of left-wing billionaire George Soros’ funding of liberal media outlets and organizations. “We found 180 liberal outlets that he’s funding, we came out with that today, an astonishing reach,” he told Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs on May 25. “They talk on the Left about this echo chamber, and that’s exactly what they’ve created for themselves, and it bubbles all the way up into the mainstream media.”

Video below the fold.

Earlier today Fox Business Channel announced that it's hiring former CNN talker Lou Dobbs to host a new program on its schedule. Once again Fox has demonstrated that it is alone among cable networks in being willing to routinely offer conservative opinion.

Dobbs left CNN last year after CNN president Jonathan Klein gave him an ultimatum: "Mr. Dobbs could vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN."

Good Morning America on Friday promoted an attack piece by the liberal magazine The Nation against Lou Dobbs. In the two segments devoted to whether or not the populist host hired illegal immigrants, the show's hosts never identified the left-wing agenda of the publication.

Instead, an ABC graphic speculated, "American Hypocrite?" (This is also the title of The Nation's article.) Isabel MacDonald, the reporter who filed the story for the magazine, appeared with Dobbs to debate the issue. Co-host George Stephanopoulos teased, "One of America's loudest opponents of illegal immigration is called a hypocrite."

During the four references to The Nation on Friday's program, none of the show's journalists labeled the magazine  left-wing or liberal. Instead, reporter David Muir would neutrally begin sentences by asserting, "The Nation magazine says..."

It is crunch time for President Barack Obama and Democrats. The writing on the wall suggests the president and his party will suffer severe losses and will ultimately lose control of one, if not two chambers of Congress in November. And this was something Obama addressed in a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee on Sept. 6, but he also complained about how he has been personally treated by his critics, suggesting he has been talked about "like a dog." That was something former CNN anchor and syndicated radio host Lou Dobbs said it was time for Obama to get past.

On the Fox News Channel's Sept. 7 broadcast of "America Live," host Megyn Kelly asked Dobbs about Obama's hypersensitivity and comments about how he is treated by his detractors. According to Dobbs, the president needs to man up and be less concerned about his critics.

"Megyn when you talk about the lies that are told - that happens in any political arena at anytime as you well know," Dobbs said. "But the lies aren't what are hurting this president. What is hurting this president is the truth. And it is - it's critically important to this administration, this White House, I believe, for this president to quit whining and start leading all of the people - not just groups, not just certain identities but all of the American people."

Don't you hate when people assume the worst of the motivations of others? Especially people who shouldn't be making any social commentary, like Sarah Silverman, comedian and author of "The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee."

In her book, Silverman attacks the Tea Party movement and "right-wing Americans," suggesting their efforts aren't for the sake of fiscal responsibility and the fear the country is headed toward an entitlement state, but instead - veiled racism. Silverman, who had her own run-in with Guy Aoki, president of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, for using the word "chink" in a joke, said his cause, to combat racism against Asians, is more difficult today because of this so-called camouflage.

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell will be Lou Dobbs's guest at about 4:20 p.m. EDT.

The topic: The media's coverage of Obama. Are the mainstream media finally starting to criticize him and his administration for their response to the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill?

You can listen live by clicking here, or to listen the old-fashioned way, click here for your local radio listings.

On Tuesday’s Joy Behar Show, HLN host Behar again suggested that an activity by the state of Arizona could be compared to Nazi Germany, as she discussed plans by the state’s education department to stiffen English-speaking requirements for teachers. Introducing the subject with comedians Mo Rocca and Colin Quinn, after taking a shot at former President Bush’s speaking skills, she asked does the requirement "remind you of any country, 1940ish?" Behar:

The Arizona Department of Education is cracking down on teachers with thick accents or who make grammatical errors when speaking. Well, there goes Snooki`s shot at teaching Algebra in Phoenix. Okay, and what about George Bush and his grammatical errors all those years? They are getting rid of teachers because they have accents in Arizona. Remind you of any country, 1940ish?

Over the past several weeks, during debates over Arizona’s attempt to enforce laws similar to federal immigration laws, Behar has repeatedly made direct and indirect references to Nazi Germany both on the Joy Behar Show and on ABC’s The View to disparage the Arizona law.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Tuesday, May 25, Joy Behar Show on HLN:

The left wing seems to know no bounds in its efforts to ideologically cleanse CNN of any seemingly rational point-of-view when it comes to the issues of the day.

Although liberal were successful in their effort to rid the network of Lou Dobbs, some elements are now hung up on also eliminating recently hired contributor Erick Erickson from CNN's programming.

And now a liberal group called Campaign for America's Future (CAF) is attacking CNN for planning to air a documentary called "I.O.U.S.A.: Solutions," suggesting the network is "fanning the flames of deficit hysteria." The group's co-director Roger Hickey is demanding CNN impose a "Fairness Doctrine" on itself.

"This weekend, CNN is giving four hours of free airtime to the leading propagandist fanning the flames of deficit hysteria, Pete Peterson, along with his lackeys," Hickey wrote in an e-mail sent to supporters and also posted on the Huffington Post. "[A]nd if they do go ahead with this programming, tell them to provide balance to Pete Peterson's deficit hysteria. Give equal time to defenders of Social Security, Medicare and public investment."

Since Lou Dobbs left CNN in November, citing a mutual agreement between he and CNN President Jonathan Klein that involved CNN going in a different direction, CNN's ratings have plummeted.

But Ted Turner, founder of the first truly 24-hour cable news channel, doesn't see anything wrong with the channel's heading. CNBC's Joe Kernen asked Turner if he had any problems with CNN's direction during a "Squawk Box" appearance Jan. 14.

"I know you love CNN," Kernen said. "It's your baby. I know you're not involved in running it anymore, but when you look at the way Fox News in 10 years has sort of risen above CNN in terms of ratings and profitability and other metrics, would you advise - should CNN stay the course with their idea it's just straight news, or do they need to change with the times and become more opinion-based."

Perhaps there is something obstructing the view overlooking Rockefeller Plaza, where MSNBC broadcasts "Countdown" nightly because the show's host, Keith Olbermann fails to see the existence of a news media with a liberal bias.

On MSNBC's Dec. 14 broadcast of "Countdown," Olbermann came to the defense of NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" executive producer and noted left-winger Dick Wolf. The Dec. 9 episode of Wolf's program featured a killer who targeted the children of illegal immigrants and in that episode, one of the characters, played by John Larroquette, blamed conservatives "like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck" for inciting violence against immigrants. That prompted O'Reilly on Dec. 10, the next broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," to fire back at Wolf.

And that led Olbermann to respond to O'Reilly, five days later, which deteriorated into Olbermann making the seemingly laughable assertion there is no such thing as the liberal media. Olbermann began his tirade by attacking Andrew Breitbart, who is launching a Web site called "Big Journalism," which will take on "the Democratic-media complex."

Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter insists the concept of populism is getting ruined by Fox News. In a piece titled "Enter the Foxulists: The faux populism of Palin, Dobbs, and Beck," Alter cringes at the thought of these people running for president:

Lou Dobbs, the modern incarnation of the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, is dropping hints about running for the White House in 2012, presumably without the benefit of the Hispanic vote. And Glenn Beck is planning a huge rally next summer in Washington dedicated to "Re-founding America." If Beck pulls a big crowd and wins some credit for decimating Democrats in the midterms, it's not hard to guess what he might try next.

One might almost laugh at the admission of guilt when Alter insists "We haven’t elected a populist president since Andrew Jackson 180 years ago. But we haven’t had a black guy with no experience and a Muslim name as president either."

He says our "science-fiction society" with its instant communication has created a "Tower of Babel" that encourages would-be populists:

Now that former CNN host Lou Dobbs has been freed of his duties with his former network, he has been making the rounds on other networks - Fox News "The O'Reilly Factor," Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and now with his long-time rival's show CNBC's "The Kudlow Report." 

One of the issues debated among a panel consisting of Dobbs, host Larry Kudlow, former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and CNBC CME Group reporter Rick Santelli on Nov. 19 was the issue of wage stagnation - which Dobbs blamed on outsourcing, immigration policy and technological advancement.

"I believe that the issue of unemployment in this country and job creation fundamentally will have to be taken on as a matter of government policy," Dobbs said. "It will also have to be taken on as a matter of business leadership. As to the idea that wages have been stagnant in this country for 35 year, point of fact, we have to understand what the causes are."

Video Below Fold

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show, actually asked Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, if he and the network parted ways because he was "too conservative" and if CNN was okay with Dobbs' push for immigration reform when he was attacking George W. Bush but wasn't happy when Dobbs started slamming the Obama administration on the issue, as he queried the former CNN host, "You got much less kickback from CNN than when you started to speak out about the policies of Barack Obama. So, was this an issue that CNN wants to appear neutral but maintain a more liberal stance?" [MP3 audio available here]

For his part Dobbs claimed the home of the very liberal Rick Sanchez "made it very clear, they wanted the network to go middle of the road and to be very neutral."

The following is the full transcript of the entire segment as it was aired on the November 17, Today show:

Former CNN host Lou Dobbs stuck to his guns when questions were raised if he was forced out at CNN in an interview with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly.

However, Dobbs did make one distinction - how his detractors decided to pile on when he was critical of President Barack Obama instead of former President George W. Bush. He elaborated on this on Fox News Channel's Nov. 16 "The O'Reilly Factor."

"I discerned more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration, whom I was criticizing and now when it is the Obama administration and an entirely different tone was taken, not so much in the case of CNN management certainly, because there is no - my contract is very explicit. I have absolute editorial control. What I reported is what I chose to report."

A seventeen year veteran of CNN claimed Sunday that Lou Dobbs' surprising exit from the network was because "his opinions are out of lockstep with the rest of the mainstream news media."

Discussing the issue with Howard Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Chris Plante, a former CNN correspondent and current talk radio host, said Dobbs, as "the last conservative voice on the channel," no longer fit in.

"They had Glenn Beck, he's gone. They had [Dobbs], now he's gone," claimed Plante.

When Plante said CNN hosts Campbell Brown, Anderson Cooper, and Larry King weren't "completely neutral," Kurtz asked, "Are you suggesting that those hosts lean to the left?"

Plante marvelously responded, "Yes, I am" (oftentimes contentious video embedded below the fold with full transcript, file photo): 

Lou Dobbs left CNN after years of tensions between him and the network's brass, who consistently objected to his outspoken, often controversial reports. But the issues that seem to have annoyed CNN execs most were ones on which Dobbs took a conservative stance.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that CNN President Jonathan Klein offered Dobbs an ultimatum a few months ago: "Mr. Dobbs could vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN." Klein reportedly complained about Dobbs's reporting on the Birther movement over the summer, and his outspoken opposition to illegal immigration.

According to the New York Post, one "TV insider" said Dobbs was "polluting the CNN brand" of purported political objectivity. Klein issued a statement saying Dobbs had decided to "carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere."

As noted earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yesterday's resignation from CNN by Lou Dobbs was his second during a storied career there. The first was at least partially driven by clear tensions between Dobbs and CNN head Rick Kaplan, a longtime friend of former president Bill Clinton who arrived at the network in 1997.

That Kaplan was driven to protect Clinton, and to risk journalistic integrity while doing so, is virtually beyond dispute. In 1997, as the Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz noted in a 1999 op-ed whose primary purpose was to comment the significance of "the demolition of CNN and Time's story charging that U.S. forces used the lethal gas sarin to attack American defectors in Laos," U.S. News reported that Kaplan "issued a warning to CNN journalists to limit the use of words like 'scandal' in relation to stories on the president's fund-raising ventures."

So you can imagine how beside himself Kaplan must have been when Dobbs, then the host of a business and finance show, went after the Chinese nuclear espionage story in 1999 while his other CNN colleagues and the Big 3 networks were attempting to downplay and ignore it. Brent Baker's CyberAlert from March 12 of that year has the details:

Newsweek senior editor Jerry Adler on Thursday posted a bizarre poem on the publication’s website, mocking Lou Dobbs for leaving CNN and insinuating that the cable anchor might be crazy: "So wily Lou has picked the locks That kept him in his padded box And tiptoed off, in just his socks." [Punctuation original to the poem.]

Adler, whose poem reads like a cross between Dr. Seuss and Calvin Trillin, also trashed Dobbs and his viewers for opposing illegal immigration: "A network just for frat-boy jocks? Where aliens are put in stocks And viewers pelt them with big rocks Before each half-time show?" [Emphasis added.] He concluded by speculating on Dobbs’ future: "Could it be UPN, or Cox? They’d have to open up Fort Knox We know Lou’s crazy, like a Fox."

In addition to composing poetry, Adler also famously made this pronouncement about the environment on December 31, 1990: "It's a morbid observation, but if everyone on Earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect would no longer be a problem."

While Lou Dobbs has always been an independent populist with some conservative bearings on certain issues -- illegal immigration chief among them -- conservatives should heed the old Reagan maxim when it comes to the former CNNer's populist conservatism: Trust, but verify.

After all, back in December 2006, fresh after the election which saw the return of Democratic control to the House of Representatives, Dobbs voiced support for Democratic universal health care proposals on a CNN special entitled "War on the Middle Class":

[T]his country has a responsibility to all the people in this room and Americans, all but the very poor and the very rich, are the ones being hammered because there is no program for the middle-class.

Julia Seymour documented the story at the time over at the Business & Media Institute Web site. You can find the full story below the page break:

John King will be replacing Lou Dobbs in the newly-vacated 7PM Eastern timeslot.

As NewsBuster Jeff Poor reported Wednesday, Dobbs announced his departure from the network during last evening's broadcast. 

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz just reported his replacement:

Lou Dobbs has resigned from CNN, and his final show aired last night. The departure is reportedly on amicable terms.

That said, this is a good time to recall that Dobbs and his employer were at very visible loggerheads a decade ago. In fact, yesterday's move by Dobbs is not his first resignation from the network. Here is Brent Baker's June 9, 1999 CyberAlert item describing what happened:

Lou Dobbs gone from CNN. Forced out by CNN President Rick Kaplan, or just frustrated by him? In a surprise announcement at the end of Tuesday’s The World Today, anchor Jim Moret informed viewers:

"And finally tonight, farewell to a colleague. Lou Dobbs, President of CNNfn and anchor of Moneyline, is resigning to launch a new Internet venture. Dobbs said he is ‘grateful to Ted Turner and CNN News Group Chairman Tom Johnson for the opportunity to have helped build CNN and cnn.com into a first-class television news and interactive institution.’ Lou Dobbs had been with CNN since its inception 19 years ago. He will start up space.com, a Web site for news, entertainment and educational content about space."

No mention of Kaplan and an on-air dispute the two had a couple of weeks ago about whether to carry live a Clinton speech may explain why. As Clay Waters of Bridge News first informed me, the May 25 Page Six column in the New York Post revealed:

Leave it to that bastion of grace and class that waxes poetically on a nightly basis about the wrongdoings of Republicans or conservatives ad nauseum known as MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to do Lou Dobbs resignation from CNN up just right.

Olbermann on his Nov. 11 "Countdown" broadcast honored Dobbs 30-year CNN career by naming him his "third worst person in the world."

"The bronze to Lou Dobbs, who tonight, as of tonight, has just quit his CNN show," Olbermann said.

Although it isn't quite clear why Olbermann decided to bestow that honor upon Dobbs, if for no other reason than for his decision to resign, Olbermann cherry-picked portions of Dobbs resignation speech from the Nov. 11 broadcast of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and even ad-libbed in his comments (actual transcript of Dobbs here).

Confirmed: Lou Dobbs announced his resignation from CNN on his Nov. 11 broadcast. Transcription at bottom.

Has Lou Dobbs been forced out at CNN by the left-wing attack machine and other liberal forces? Quite possibly.

According to New York Times reporters Brian Stelter and Bill Carter, CNN's Lou Dobbs will announce his resignation from CNN on his Nov. 11 show.

"Lou Dobbs, the longtime CNN anchor whose anti-immigration views made him a TV lightning rod, plans to announce Wednesday that he is leaving the network, two network employees said," Stelter and Carter wrote. "A CNN executive confirmed that Mr. Dobbs will announce his resignation plans on his 7 p.m. program. His resignation is effective immediately; tonight's program will be his last on CNN. His contract was not set to expire until the end of 2011."

Some of the mainstream media intelligentsia following the Fort Hood, Texas massacre have cautioned people to reserve judgment about the suspect Major Nidal Malik Hasan and have bypassed many key details in order to live up to what could be construed as a politically correct standard. CNN's Lou Dobbs isn't one of them.

Dobbs, on his Nov. 10 radio program, didn't reserve judgment and criticized President Barack Obama for telling people to do so in a speech following the tragic event. Dobbs played a clip from the speech Obama gave last week in which he warned, "We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts."

"Isn't that remarkable, telling the American people not to jump to any conclusions?" Dobbs said. "Not to speculate, not to be curious about what is happening to our men and women, who should be the center of all of our attention and concern and care. Let's compare that statement by our president to what he said at the end of a press conference about health care shortly after the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, his good friend."

There were some potentially interesting and concerning admissions on CNN Monday night when Wolf Blitzer said he thought he could identify a marijuana plant by its smell, and Lou Dobbs followed by saying he could recognize it "rather readily" by sight.

Unfortunately, neither mentioned whether or not they inhaled.

Somewhat comically, Dobbs, speaking with Blitzer and Jessica Yellin during the 6PM edition of "The Situation Room," seemed more concerned about the career implications of this incident for them than for himself (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Mediaite): 

A new left-wing organization created specifically to attack Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Brown has ties to ex-Obama green jobs czar Van Jones.

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, StopTheWitchHunt.org was formed to "call out" what it considers "mischaracterizations and hate speech" by the aforementioned quintet.

With the assistance of tipster Bret A. Gehring, NewsBusters has discovered an organizational link to Jones.

Our investigation began with who was listed as the contact person on the STWH press release reported by Reuters Thursday:

A new coalition was launched Thursday to specifically target conservatives Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Brown.

Called StopTheWitchHunt.org, their goal is "to give voice to the millions of Americans who believe it is time for talk-show hosts and elected officials to stop stoking the racial anxieties of the fringes of America."

They accuse the quintet of spewing "lies and hate speech...in a nationwide witch hunt" against President Obama. 

They even call Limbaugh's "I hope he fails" remark "the verbal equivalent of putting a razor blade in a candy apple." 

Their press release is even more hysterical, especially the misspelling of one of the objects of their disaffection:

Recently a lot of hubbub had been made about the possibility that the peaceful tea party protests and some conservative voices would stir up emotions that could lead to violence. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was even one of those sounding that alarm.

But what has gone unsaid by those same voices has been the possibility of violence against those who might take a position antithetical to that of the left.

Case in point: CNN's Lou Dobbs. Dobbs, who has been the target of a smear campaign by the left-wing noise machine, told his radio audience on Oct. 26 that his home had been shot at three weeks earlier. (Unabbreviated audio available here)