Dobbs Is Crazy, Auletta. Deal With It.
Ken Auletta:
[Lou] Dobbs's actual politics are not easily categorized, and his book, like his nightly program, contains opinions that are both satisfying and infuriating to the right and the left. On Dobbs's office wall is a framed drawing with a note from Kurt Vonnegut: 'You, as the only big-time television personality capable of not only feeling but experiencing sorrow for American working stiffs, are our hero.' The left, to which Vonnegut belongs, can embrace Dobbs for his opposition to big corporations and his support for a higher minimum wage, national health insurance, and abortion rights. The right likes him for his views on immigration, political correctness, gun control, the United Nations, and all efforts to limit American sovereignty. Dobbs believes that the middle class, which he has described as being composed of two hundred and fifty million Americans, is taken for granted, an argument that could be challenged by those who point to the growth of middle-class entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, or to the unwillingness of elected officials to offend this constituency by curbing entitlements.
This is disingenuous.
Let's look at Dobbs's resume:
-- "[I]t is hardly a secret that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is something akin to a Soviet-style aggregation"
-- He uncritically quotes the Heritage Foundation
-- Pretends that Iran is this close to a nuclear bomb
-- Loves the Minutemen
-- Is a jingoistic bastard
-- Not too sure about evolution
-- Believes that Jews don't celebrate any holidays in December
Perhaps it makes for a juicier article for Dobbs to be portrayed as something other than a right wing loon, but that's not really the case.
(Thanks MM)
[Lou] Dobbs's actual politics are not easily categorized, and his book, like his nightly program, contains opinions that are both satisfying and infuriating to the right and the left. On Dobbs's office wall is a framed drawing with a note from Kurt Vonnegut: 'You, as the only big-time television personality capable of not only feeling but experiencing sorrow for American working stiffs, are our hero.' The left, to which Vonnegut belongs, can embrace Dobbs for his opposition to big corporations and his support for a higher minimum wage, national health insurance, and abortion rights. The right likes him for his views on immigration, political correctness, gun control, the United Nations, and all efforts to limit American sovereignty. Dobbs believes that the middle class, which he has described as being composed of two hundred and fifty million Americans, is taken for granted, an argument that could be challenged by those who point to the growth of middle-class entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, or to the unwillingness of elected officials to offend this constituency by curbing entitlements.
This is disingenuous.
Let's look at Dobbs's resume:
-- "[I]t is hardly a secret that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is something akin to a Soviet-style aggregation"
-- He uncritically quotes the Heritage Foundation
-- Pretends that Iran is this close to a nuclear bomb
-- Loves the Minutemen
-- Is a jingoistic bastard
-- Not too sure about evolution
-- Believes that Jews don't celebrate any holidays in December
Perhaps it makes for a juicier article for Dobbs to be portrayed as something other than a right wing loon, but that's not really the case.
(Thanks MM)
2 Comments:
thanks for this. aside from his beliefs, i'm put off by his inherent arrogance - that he thinks he is sufficiently different from his peers, i.e., that it's OK for someone who reads the news on TV to spout his opinions as if they matter. he makes me feel grateful for the dopery of the usual anchor.
the silver lining is that it seems inevitable that, like every other opinionated blowhard, he'll eventually take himself down in some unforeseen way - as a natural fall-out to the quintessential order he's disrupting by trying to stand outside the boundaries of his gig.
Lou Dobbs is teacher-in-chief.
Tom Tancredo will be commander-in-chief.
God Bless America.
Its the econ not the nativism
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home