Lou Dobbs Is Ready for Prime Time
To prop up Campbell Brown, CNN turns to a familiar face
MORE
NYTV
At around 7:30 on Monday night, at a CNN studio on the seventh floor of the Time Warner Center, Lou Dobbs stood in front of a bank of cameras and waited for the show he hosts to return from a break. Via an earpiece, he chatted with a producer about an upcoming segment on how some 21,000 people had entered the country illegally by passing through government-controlled border checkpoints.
Mr. Dobbs cocked his head to the side and flicked a pen back and forth in his right hand. “This is an incredible story,” he said. “Unbelievable. How many times a night do we say that?”
To judge by Monday night’s show: often. Over the course of an hour, Mr. Dobbs and his correspondents chewed over stories about Mexican murderers trying to enter the U.S., soaring home foreclosure rates, increased gasoline prices, and a group of illegal immigrants in Arizona known as the Zip Tie Bandits. CNN political analyst Bill Schneider weighed in with the results of a poll showing that 81 percent of Americans were “angry about something.”
Again, and again, during breaks, Mr. Dobbs cocked his head, and shook his pen. Unbelievable.
Over the past several years, Mr. Dobbs and his head-shaking outrage—alternately focused on illegal immigration, amnesty advocates, corporate honchos and government bureaucrats—have transformed his program from a buttoned-down business broadcast into a nightly showcase for Mr. Dobbs’ own populist opinions. Since the start of the year, according to figures provided by CNN, Lou Dobbs Tonight averaged 866,000 viewers, and 236,000 in the crucial 25-to-54–year-old demographic—both increases of 12 percent over the same period last year—making it the second-highest-ranked show in CNN’s nightly lineup.
Those numbers have made Lou Dobbs Tonight a crucial chess piece in CNN’s ongoing effort to catch up to Fox News. To wit: Monday night’s telecast marked Mr. Dobbs’ arrival in prime time. Henceforth, his powdery populist mien will appear at 7 p.m. rather than 6 p.m. By moving the show back an hour, CNN executives have sandwiched their two most popular broadcasts, Lou Dobbs Tonight and 9 p.m. fixture Larry King Live, around their most problematic time slot: the 8 p.m. hour, previously occupied by Paula Zahn. CNN hopes that when Campbell Brown kicks off her new show in that time slot in February, she will benefit from the so-called programming “hammock”—with Mr. Dobbs and Mr. King pulling up her numbers from either end.
And the move to prime time isn’t the only reason this was a big week for Mr. Dobbs, 62. On Tuesday, Viking Press would release his fourth book, Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit. Throughout the week, Mr. Dobbs would be crisscrossing the city in a fevered promotional blitz, with stops ranging from Larry King Live to Borders. Elsewhere, the full moon of Mr. Dobbs’ pale face hangs over the city on billboards from Times Square to Madison Square Garden.
Independents Day—a foot-stomping polemic that inveighs at every turn against what Mr. Dobbs sees as the government’s assault on the middle class—weighs in at a modest 213 pages. The index includes such entries as “Elites, dangers of,” “Criminality, of illegal aliens” and “Cocaine, Mexico as a source.” In a brief introduction, Mr. Dobbs employs some form of the word “elite” (“these lofty elites,” “the elites of politics,” “the elite establishment,”) no less than 17 times.
And on the phone with NYTV on Monday afternoon, Mr. Dobbs, with a little prompting, took another shot at his Public Elitist Number One—Governor Eliot Spitzer, who he has been criticizing night in and night out for the past month, thanks to the governor’s plan to give driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. “He is a man who behaves as if he’s in a monarchy,” said Mr. Dobbs. “It’s an arrogance, an elitism that I find repugnant.”
Mr. Dobbs also makes a habit of disparaging the two major political parties, arguing that both have sold out ordinary Americans in favor of corporate interests. (“I consider the political parties to be … opposite wings of the same bird with the American people getting the bird,” he told NYTV.) He said he would use his show to spotlight any viable third party candidates, should they emerge. Next Page >
So... Lou Dobb's television program will be moving up one hour.
I recall some years ago ol' Lou confronting the President of Mexico by
asking (paraphrasing) "Why don't you create a society that provides a
decent standard of living for its people so they don't HAVE to risk their
lives to escape to this country? You don't see Americans sneaking
across the border for a better life." Dobbs kinda grabbed me for a
moment. As a frequent visitor to Mexico and a witness to the awful
povery of the indigenous people there, I often compaired the dramatic
wealth to the other extreme. Of course, we cannot afford decent health
insurance for the poorest of our own citizens.
I have long found it difficult to believe that Lou Dobbs actually embraces what he utters. It is very difficult to find an economist who embraces his anti-trade, anti-immigrant positions, which have been demolished by mainstream thought from Adam Smith to Lord Keynes.
Really the most amazing thing to me is the impression I get of Dobbs' thinking. It flies in the face of the evidence.
Sonny Grosso (the French Connection cop) once told me that drug enforcement is like stepping on a tube. As soon as you step on it in one place, it pops up somewhere else. As long as Americans want drugs they will enter the country. American drug policy simply adds to the profit margin for outfits such as the Taliban and the FARC.
So far as immigration is concerned, well, if today's laws had been in place a century ago, I would not exist. Until incomes are put up in Latin America, people there will be drawn to the US. If we are to put up their incomes, we have to make it possible to buy their products. (By the way, admitting more working-age immigrants will go a long way to solving the Social Security problem -- working age people pay the tax that supports the seniors.) Yet we still levy a tax on ethanol from Brazil -- even when their product can help us reduce dependence on oil from OPEC.
Mr. Dobbs supports a fence along the Mexican border to keep out terrorists. No terrorist has ever been known to enter the US from Mexico. However, there have been indigenous terrorist plots in Canada, and there are recorded instances of terrorists attempting to enter the US from Canada. Mr. Dobbs, to my knowledge, has never asked that the Canadian border be fenced.
Could it be that Mr. Dobbs ignores the Canadian border because there is no anti-Canadian hysteria in the US?
The problem with Mr. Dobbs and many like him is a refusal to accept reality. That refusal leads to costly, doomed endeavors, not to mention human misery.
It is time to put emotion and pandering aside and address the facts. The Dobbs of the world are merely speedbumps on the road to progress.
I don't know how somebody racist like you can have one spot at CNN,
You are the biggest bigot in USA.
Shame on you!
Lou Speaks for a large swath of unrepresented middle Americans. Hey Ted Farone, we are for LEGAL immigration, not uncontrolled ILLEGAL immigration. Warping our way of life and culture in such a short period of time had to have a backlash at somepoint. We are not racist. My mom married a second generation Mexican immigrant. What you and your Mexican illegal immigrant apologists fail to address is the complete failure of the corrupt Mexican country to do anything about its poor other than export them illegally. Start shooting some of them at the border and it will stop.
Dobbs for president? Anger and ignorance on the hands of this articulate nazi talking head is destroying America' goodwill. CNN' selfish quest for higher ratings is a blatant disrespect for American values. Dobbs arrogance is hurting the American image throughout the world. Dobbs for president? Perhaps during prewar Germany.
Dobbs for president? Anger and ignorance on the hands of this articulate nazi talking head is destroying America' goodwill. CNN' selfish quest for higher ratings is a blatant disrespect for American values. Dobbs arrogance is hurting the American image throughout the world. Dobbs for president? Perhaps during prewar Germany.
Lincoln appealed to what he called "the better angels of our nature." That's a contrast to the self-described 'populist' Dobbs who prefers instead to exploit base human instincts.
Immigration is the signature issue on which Dobbs developed his style, which essentially boils down to giving CNN viewers condescending lectures telling them what it is they are supposed to be angry about, making them afraid of it, and telling them who's to blame for it all. Just look at his series of reports called War On the Middle Class. Provocative title, isn't it? But it's appropriate for a cable newsman who is relentless in trying to keep viewers whipped up into a frenzy. That's the stuff of which demagogues are made.
If you're looking for someone to start a riot, Lou Dobbs is your man. But in the oval office, America needs a calming and steadying voice of reason.
All the people doing this blog needs to get off that far left side. one, I am German and believe me Lou Dobbs is no nazi. Lou Dobbs is try to stand up for the middle class.
He believes in the law. and the law is, Illegal immagration is illegal. It took my father 17 years to be a citizen and was proud of it. He had to know English and all the states capitals. How many of us can do that? He wove the american flag proudly. how many illegals can do any of that? Lou Dobbs would be better than any of the other jokesters running for president. We need someone thats not a politian.
There the ones that have screwed this country up enough. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.
I've been watching Lou Dobbs for about 3 years, 5 nights a week with few exceptions.
He's a great American, a patriot. He and his staff are very complete in their reporting, and, I believe, accurate. He's for the American people, especially the diminishing middle class.
I am thankful that he stands up and speaks the truth to power.
That takes courage, to say the least.
One more thing: he interviews even those opposed to his views.
IN MY VIEW WHO TELLS THE TRUTH ,LOU DOBBS IS THE ONE WHO I BELIVE IS TRUTHFUL ,BUSH IS NOT ,TO MANY THINGS HE TRYES TO HIDE . I THOUGHT BIN LADEN WAS THE ONE THEY WAS AFTER FOR THE 9/11 PROBLEM THEN THEY STOPED AND WENT TO IRAQ EVERY BODY KNOWS THIS, CONGRESS AND SENATE HAS NOT DONE WHAT THEY SAID THEY WOULD DO, NEITHER HAS BUSH. LOU DOBBS IS GIVING US THE FACTS AND I THINK HIM FOR IT I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH LAWFUL IMMIGRATION BUT IT BOTHERS ME WHEN SOME BODY FLYS THE USA FLAG UP SIDE DOWN UNDER THEIRS AND MAKE OUT LIKE THEY WANT TO BE CITIZENS BULL SHIT THEY ARE TROUBLE MAKERS ,WON'T LEARN OUR LAUANGE THEASE ARE THE PEOPLE THAT WANTS A FREE RIDE . I ASK WHAT IS WRONG WITH BEING LEGAL WE HAVE TO GO BY OUR LAWS THEY SHOULD TO. SOME PEOPLE WANTS IN GOD WE TRUST TOOK OFF OUR MONEY AND FEDERAL BUILDENS.LET THEM LEAVE. I WORKED FOR 47 YEARS IN THE TEXTILE FIELD NOW YOU CAN NOT FIND A JOB THANKS TO OUT SOURCEING ,THIS WAS HELPED BY RONALD REGAN,GEORGE H W BUSH ,CLINTON ,AND GEORGE W BUSH. IF I HAD A LOU DOBBS BUMPER STICKER I WOULD BE PROWD TO PUT IT ON MY CAR,AND A SIGN IN MY YARD. I HOPE LOU DOBBS WILL RUN FOR PRESIDENT HE HAS MY VOTE AMERICAN ARE TIRED OF ALL THE LIES THAT HAS BEEN GOING ON IN WASHINGTON WE NEED A CHANGE . I HOPE WE CAN CHANGE EVERY SEAT IN CONGRESS AND SENATE AND OUR JUDGES ,GO LOU DOBBS
Dear lou you know that there is always going to be poor people in this world and no one likes the poor if this was not true there wouldn;t be know poor people try to live on sixhundred dollars a mounth thats about one meal for some people.I wish I could get exsided about one of these people runing for president but you know a poor man cannot run for president payback would be sweet.
Hey Lou if you run for president i will vote for you.
Thank You for all that you do and bringing TRUTH to the airwave's I am sorry to say I just found out about you within the last 2 months. BRAVO Thank you for being a true american and patriot. I just don't get why the american media is not talking on the issues you raise. You have really opened my eyes. Keep your voice strong because America needs you!!
Really the most amazing thing to me is the impression I get of Dobbs' thinking. It flies in the face of the evidence.