Immigration -- CNN's Lou Dobbs Problem

October 26, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Pat Garofalo, and Zaid Jilani

IMMIGRATION

CNN's Lou Dobbs Problem

Last week, CNN aired the four-hour documentary, "Latino in America," which explored "how Latinos are reshaping our communities and culture and forcing a nation of immigrants to rediscover what it means to be an American." The documentary has become a "rallying cry for activist groups" that are attempting to get CNN to take action against nightly news anchor Lou Dobbs. As one of CNN's leading TV personalities, Dobbs has used his stature to infuse hate and vitriol into the immigration debate. Latino and immigrants' rights activists have launched several campaign -- including Drop Dobbs, Tell CNN Enough is Enough, and Basta Dobbs (Basta is Spanish and Italian for "stop" or "enough") -- that are aimed at pressuring CNN to hold Dobbs to journalistic standards or drop him altogether and raising awareness about Dobbs to his show's advertisers. "Lou Dobbs is the gigantic anti-immigration elephant in the room at CNN," said Roberto Lovato, one of the organizers of Basta Dobbs. "If CNN won't drop Dobbs, it's time that his advertisers did. It's time to do more than simply highlight the damage Dobbs does and the threat he poses," wrote John Santore of Media Matters for America, one of the organizations behind the Drop Dobbs campaign. Dobbs has responded to the efforts against him by claiming that liberals think Hispanics "are so stupid that they'll believe that I am some sort of racist."

DOBBS' CONSISTENT HYSTERIA: "Over the years, Lou Dobbs has consistently used his CNN platform to spread hatred and fear," states Drop Dobbs. Indeed, Dobbs has accused immigrants of bringing leprosy to the U.S. and promoted the "Aztlan" conspiracy theory that Mexicans are trying to reconquer part of the country. He has also "repeatedly amplified the falsehood that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately violent" and even discussed whether President Obama has a "document issue," indulging the fringe "birther" movement. He has called a high-skilled foreign-worker visa program an "assault on middle class working men and women" and refers to those who advocate for sensible levels of legal immigration as "open border lobbyists." More recently, he has promoted the myth that a "gaping loophole" in the proposed health care legislation will provide health care coverage for "illegals." With the immigration debate once again beginning in Congress, rhetoric of this sort can be dangerous. In fact, a report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund revealed a close correlation between the increasingly volatile immigration debate and a growing number of hate crimes against Latinos and "perceived immigrants."

CNN CIRCLES THE WAGONS: With "Latino in America," CNN is displaying a level of hypocrisy by trying to "woo Hispanic viewers with a prime-time documentary while still giving Mr. Dobbs a nightly forum." And not only does CNN provide Dobbs with a platform, but the network did not address his positions in the documentary at all. CNN has defended the choice to leave Dobbs out of the film by saying that "just because Dobbs talks about the issue on his weeknight CNN show, it doesn't mean that anyone else on the network who reports on immigration has to talk about Dobbs." If people feel that the topic has been avoided, "they should do that documentary then," said Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN's documentary unit. "This is the documentary we did." "A lot of things aren't in," added the program's host, Soledad O'Brien. Not only did CNN fail to mention Dobbs in its documentary, but it edited out criticism of him from a taped interview that aired on Anderson Cooper 360 last week. According to the New York Times, civil rights lawyer Isabel Garcia asserted during the interview that CNN was "promoting lies and hate about our community" by airing Dobbs' program. "They heavily deleted what I did get to say," Garcia said. "We believe CNN should not cover up Lou Dobbs' falsehoods, if it wants to maintain its journalistic credibility," editorialized the Spanish language daily La Opinion. "In serious journalism there is simply no room for liars."

DOBBS TO FOX?: The New York Times reported earlier this month that News Corp. is "keen" on luring Dobbs over to the Fox Business Channel, and that Dobbs "met for dinner with [Fox News chief Roger] Ailes last month." As Mediaite's Rachel Sklar wrote, "Dobbs, for his part, has shown that he has no problem picking fights; it only makes sense for him to find a home at a network where they do, too." However, not everyone at Fox seems excited by the prospect of Dobbs joining the team. New Fox hire John Stossel, formerly of ABC, said that he doesn't "subscribe" to "the Lou Dobbs-kind of rants about immigrants wrecking America." "I think immigrants by and large do good things for America," he added. (In typical fashion, Dobbs proceeded to rip Stossel as a "self-important ass" with his "own brand of myopic idiocy.") Fox News host Geraldo Rivera, meanwhile, said, "One of the aspects of our reality in the United States now is the defamatory tone of the immigration debate and how that immigration debate has slandered an entire race of people" -- a reality for which Rivera largely blames Dobbs. "He discovered that one of the way to get people to watch was to make of the image of a young Latino trying to get into this country a profoundly negative icon," Rivera said. "Lou Dobbs is almost single-handedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country." Rivera added that one of his bosses assured him that Dobbs "is not coming to Fox News."

TECHNOLOGY -- JOHN McCAIN -- TOP RECIPIENT OF TELECOM CASH -- UNVEILS BILL TO BLOCK NET NEUTRALITY: On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) thrust himself into the technology issues debate by introducing the "Internet Freedom Act." The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from making sure that Internet service providers don't create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications. "This government takeover of the Internet will stifle innovation, in turn slowing our economic turnaround and further depressing an already anemic job market," read McCain's press release. "Outside of health care, the technology industry is the nation's fastest growing job market. ... Just this month, Google and Yahoo both released positive earnings reports." It's ironic that McCain cited Google and Yahoo as examples of why net neutrality rules need to be blocked given the fact that both companies have said that without such measures, the "longstanding openness of the Internet" will be threatened. However, telecoms largely support blocking net neutrality rules, and McCain is a long-time friend of these businesses. McCain was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the telecom industry in the past two years, taking in $894,379. Even as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005, McCain made sure to craft technology rules that benefited his campaign donors. He opposed a program designed to provide discounts to schools and libraries to connect to the Internet and supported large telecom mergers. McCain is an unlikely point person for technology policy. Just last year, called himself a computer "illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get." In July 2008, he said he has "never felt the particular need to e-mail."

Following reports that President Obama was "actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform," White House Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer wrote on the White House blog that "those rumors are absolutely false." "President Obama completely supports" the Democratic leadership's efforts, Pfeiffer wrote.

A new report from Thomson Reuters has found that the U.S. health care system wastes up to $800 billion ever year. "The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada," the report notes.

Democrats are discussing ways to speed up delivery of key benefits in the health reform bill to 2010, "eager to give the party something to show taxpayers for their $900 billion investment in an election year." "We want to be able, within the cost framework and the implementation framework, to have as much start as early as possible, even though we know all of it can't," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).

Congress and the Obama administration are getting ready to address the issue of banking institutions that are "too big to fail." A measure that could be introduced this week "would make it easier for the government to seize control of troubled financial institutions, throw out management, wipe out the shareholders and change the terms of existing loans held by the institution."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) said yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation that he is working with his colleagues to block any increase in U.S. troops levels in Afghanistan. "There will be resistance to [a troop increase] if necessary...We will do what we can to prevent this mistake," the senator told host Bob Schieffer.

Abdullah Abdullah, the challenger to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, "is considering boycotting the upcoming runoff if his demands are not met to remove the leaders of Afghanistan's election commission who he believes are biased against him." An Abdullah pull-out "could create a new political crisis and throw the legitimacy of any new government into question."

Twin car bombs "devastated three government buildings," killed at least 160 people, and wounded at least 540 more on Sunday in Baghdad, marking the deadliest attacks in Iraq since 2007. The blasts were "aimed at destroying faith in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ability to secure the country as the United States withdraws" ahead of January's elections.

The Denver Post reports that simply by checking the "female" box when buying health insurance "is likely to cost extra -- perhaps up to 50 percent more than a man would pay for the same coverage." Federal health reform legislation would ban gender-rating and require maternity coverage.

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a corporate-funded front group for Big Oil, is running ads against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) because he has indicated support for clean energy legislation. Graham accused the AEA of lying. "People can say what they want to say," Graham told McClatchy. "It's a free country, but they can't make stuff up."

And finally: First Lady Michelle Obama went on The Jay Leno Show on Friday, where the host asked her about the President's annoying habits. "He has no annoying habits, right Jay, none. He's perfect," Mrs. Obama said with a laugh. "But you know what, when he beats me in tennis that gets to be pretty annoying, and he beats me quite often." Leno also asked her to name all the Brady Bunch children in under 10 seconds, which she did in eight.

After complaining about false quotes attributed to him, Rush Limbaugh spreads false quotes attributed to President Obama.

Is war itself a hate crime?

A police officer tickets a woman for not speaking English.

Explaining Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) amendment for single payer health care.

Should affirmative action be tied more to class than race?

Mark Kleiman summarizes his plan for less crime and punishment.

Chronicling the Israel-Lebanon hummus war.

A former Fox News contributor says she left the network because she was "uncomfortable" with Glenn Beck.

"Can you imagine the outrage if a Christian group put pro-God ads in the New York City subways? What outrage!"
-- Fox News' Sean Hannity, 10/20/09, complaining about a New York City subway ad raising awareness about atheism

VERSUS

"The problem with this thinking is that Christians have been putting up pro-Christianity ads in the subway for years and nobody cares."
-- Subway Sights, 10/21/09, a blog dedicated to issues involving the New York City subway

Think Progress

CNN's Lou Dobbs Problem

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