Did anyone see Lou Dobbs kick Howard's (CNN anchor) ass on CNN this AM?

[CottonBear]

Howard (name? I'm not sure of his last name.) was interviewing Dobbs (live TV) RE: truth vs. opinion and how Dobbs is "too outspoken."
Dobbs said there is only one version of the truth and he totally knocked down the "fair and balanced reporting" meme that Howard threw at him. He said there are not just Dem and Repub "views" but many "views" of the truth but only one truth and he reports and discusses the truth. It sounds like CNN management is trying to discredit Dobbs because of his recent honest and truthful reporting of the illegal immigration issue.

This interview was on CNN about 10:15 EST. Dobb called "fair and blanced reporting" political rhetoric that has nothing to do with the truth.

Dobbs was really angry and dealt body blows, upper cuts and a final knockout punch to the CNN anchor who interviewd him.

[Halliburton]

1. I guess Kurtz didn't learn his lesson after the Lara Logan fiasco

[0007]

2. Howard Kurtz is a bigger asshole than CNN.

[CottonBear]

6. I agree. I don't watch enough CNN to know much about him

but this morning's interview leads me to believe that he is a total asshat.

[warrens]

25. Kurtz is just asking a question that is going around about Dobbs

He does tend to get on his high horse and keep beating it long after it is dead. However, he's usually extremely honest about his opinion, and even when I think he's wrong, he makes a good case. His defense of Arthur Andersen was brilliant, and in retrospect, there is no one who can say he was wrong.

I think he's a principled guy who has just spent too much time around rich Repukes. But Kurtz is right to ask the question; it's all over the media sites.

[CottonBear]

5. Was she the reporter who is Iraq? I haven't yet seen the video.

It sounds like she really smacked down Kurtz. (Thanks for telling me his name.)

[leftchick]

7. She did indeed. Here is the transcript...

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/26/rs.01.html

KURTZ: There is no question that the dangerous conditions for journalists there are making it much harder to report on some of these signs of progress, as you point out. But I look at just the last couple of weeks of your coverage. Besides covering the Saddam trial, you reported on allegations that U.S. troops had killed a group of civilians. Then you reported an attack on a police station, the bombing of a police convoy, you talked about the threat of a civil war. All legitimate stories. But critics would say, well, no wonder people back home think things are falling apart because we get this steady drumbeat of negativity from the correspondents there.

LOGAN: Well, who says things aren't falling apart in Iraq? I mean, what you didn't see on your screens this week was all the unidentified bodies that have been turning up, all the allegations here of militias that are really controlling the security forces.

What about all the American soldiers that died this week that you didn't see on our screens? I mean, we've reported on reconstruction stories over and over again, but the order to (ph) general for Iraqi reconstruction says that only 49 of well over 100 planned electricity projects happened.

So we can't keep doing the same stories over and over again. When a police station's attacked, that's something new that happened this week. If you had any idea of the number of Iraqis that come to us with stories of abuses of U.S. soldiers and you look at our coverage over the last -- my coverage over the last few weeks, or even over the last three years, there's been maybe two or three stories that have related to that.

So, I mean, we have to do the stories that when we've tested them and tested them and checked all our sources, and that they are legitimate stories on that day, that that is the biggest news coming out of Iraq, then that's what we have to do.


And video here...http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/26.html#a7669

[Bozita]

26. I recommend the video -- The anger doesn't show as well in the transcript

[Atman]

3. This "fair and balanced is bullshit" meme is cropping up frequently

I like it.

It is soooo true. "News" is no longer news. Fox has bullshitted half of America into thinking that if Joe Dem says "the sky is blue," that they MUST offer "balance" in the form of a Republican chairman saying "No, the sky is RED!"

I don't know whether it is a concerted effort to thump Fox (finally), coincidence, or just a general recognition that the "news" is broken, but I'm all for this line of thinking. If it exposes Fox News for the charade that it is, even better. America can become better informed and better educated about what journalism is supposed to be at the same time. That can't be a bad thing.

[CottonBear]

8. It is a good thing! Dobbs was great! He spoke truth to power!

I woke up and turned on the TV and just happened to catch the interview (it had already started) and only caught part of it. Mr. CB and I sat and watched in stunned silence! We couldn't beleive what we were hearing! (This was prior to any coffe on the time change morning.) :)

[teryang]

11. "Fair and Balanced" originated with the tobacco compaines

...PR firms when they were fighting all the scientific studies which proved cigarette smoking caused cancer.

The same with "sound science."

Interesting the faux news adopted it as their misleading trade jingo.

[Atman]

12. Interesting Freudian typo...

"Interesting the faux news adopted it as their misleading trade jingo."

Faux's "trade jingo." LOL!

As is "jingo-ism?"

[teryang]

14. Thanks for pointing that out

Yes, as in "jingo-ism."

[Ian David]

4. Thank god for Lou Dobbs...

We'll never win Republicans over to vote for Democrats unless they think that Democrats are racist and Xenophobic, too!

Ironic that Dobbs complains about immigrants waving foreign flags, but not about all the anti-gay people waving the foreign flag of The Vatican.

"Divided Loyalties," you know.

[Skidmore]

9. That is complete and utter nonsense.

It is not xenophobic or racist by any means to insist that the laws of the nation are upheld nor to be concerned about the integrity of the nation. It is neither xenophobic or racist to insist on that we not participate in this system right now which is hellbent on establishing a permanent subclass of exploited people. This is a reality.

[Ian David]

10. Agreed. Those concerns you raised are legitimate. n/t

[CottonBear]

16. Amen Skidmore. I agree and Mr. CB does as well. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. I go back and forth on Lou Dobbs

I think a lot of his coverage of the immigration issue has been one sided and way too inflamatory.

[lovuian]

15. I love Lou ... He has been pounding outsourcing and the

opening of our borders for years everyday pounding the truth...

The truth
Bush opened our borders to millions of mexicans for cheap labor
Outsourcing our high tech jobs to India and China
destroying our manufacturing jobs in textiles and auto industries
Bush's destuction of the American middleclass
He was on the Dubaii Port saga pounding away at our security of the nation

Lou is a hero in journalism in my book...
Inflammatory ya he's pissed and he and Americans have a right to be ... we've been taken to the cleaners by the biggest crook in history!!!

[ToeBot]

18. And when outrage over outsourcing gets 10's of thousands in the streets...

protesting, I'll give give Lou some credit, maybe. As it stands he's helping Republicans with his demagoguery, enabling them to distance themselves from the WH with hardline anti-immigration positions.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. He is too biased

That's my concern.

[radio4progressives]

19. Lou Dobbs has deep Racist and Xenophobic Streak that Blinds Him

to his own rhetoric of reporting the "truth". His focus on the Corporations in general has been fairly good,(and the only one in the MSM really doing it at all) and that gets us progressives sucked in to thinking that every issue he focuses on is "fact based" and "non-partisan" - because he goes after the Repukes as much as he does the Dems if not more recently.

But as soon as he starts in the "illegal immigration" issue, he takes on David Duke's cause which is EXACTLY the issue which gave rise to Hitler's power and ultimately the Third Reich. (and the neo-nazi movement in this country vis a vis KKK leader David Duke et al) ..

Hitler generated hatred, racism and xenophobia, by blaming the severe economic conditions that Germany was suffering on ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION coming in taking all their jobs.

Those were the seeds that led to the holocaust which should not be forgotten, people!

LEARN FROM HISTORY, DO NOT REPEAT IT!

Inflaming the issue by targetting the impoverished with vigilantism is not the way to deal with the problem - sanctioning CORPORATIONS with FINES and Criminal PENTALTIES is the way to get at this in a hurry. Strengthening Unions and enacting Living Wage LAWS is the other way to get at this problem. Once Corporations can no longer get away with hiring at low wages, and union busting - the economic conditions will begin to return to stronger Middle Class, and for the better.

But inflaming racial hatred is not the way to go about this, and it is exactly what Dobbs is doing when he focuses on this issue.

The other thing that is indicative of his blindness on this issue, is when he raises the specter of the Mexican Flag, failing to understand that this is about ETHNIC PRIDE (not Nationalism) just the same as the Irish Flag is flown on St Patrick's parades and the like - he denounced all flag waving at all events except the American flag the other day in response to this double standard hypocrisy, but I have never heard Lou Dobbs go after the Confederate Flag - which is wholly UNAMERICAN and represents a part of our history that Americans have supposedly denounced vis a vis the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement.

Obviously, not all Americans have denounced the Confederacy, has Lou Dobbs ever dealt with that issue head on? I haven't ever heard him do so, but then I have't watched or listened to his reporting until this past year.

But on DU, I see a lot of huge praises for Lou Dobbs on every issue by a number of postings here.. and that frankly makes me wonder about what is going on here on DU... I don't know if there is an infiltration, or not. But what I do know, is that there is blindness on this "illegal immigration" that is helping to fuel the flames of racism and xenophobia on a level that is beginning to bear a striking resemblence to a past era, apparently already forgotten. And that concerns me deeply.

[NNN0LHI]

24. Strange thing is Rush Limbaugh does the exact same thing as Dobbs does

And no liberal in their right mind would "love" Rush Limbaugh. Go figure?

Don

[Neil Lisst]

17. Saw it. Kurtz needed that beatdown, too. He's such a ...

... typical Inside the Beltway mouthpiece.

[nuxvomica]

21. Oh man, I wish I'd seen that

Kurtz is the most annoying media whore of them all. He is condescending and stupid at the same time. I am so sorry I missed that smackdown. :cry:

[SuperWonk]

22. -->

Anyone see this piece on the Daily Show? Dobbs has really left the reservation...

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/TDS-mmigration-D.mov

Crazy...

[AzDar]

23. Lou Dobbs has become a personal hero of mine in recent months...

Dobbs and Russ Feingold: telling the truth...a revolutionary act these days!

[Bozita]

27. Kurtz gets my nod for "Swiftboater of the Month"

I'm sure his wife, Sherri Annis (GOP spokeswhore), thinks he's wonderful.