This blog will discuss many issues pertaining to current events and encourages others to discuss and do the same. The goal is to raise the level of discourse and hopefully have a good time sharing thoughts and ideas.
Lou Dobbs, freshly departed from his gig at CNN, stopped by The Daily Show last night. Jon Stewart extended the segment into a three-part conversation that is posted at The Daily Show's website and also right here:
I thought Stewart was pretty good in this conversation, but it wasn't his best. The conversation stayed very down to Earth and Stewart was able to challenge Dobbs on a few key points, but Stewart didn't touch on Dobbs' controversial stance on "illegal" immigration or on his recent birther comments. Stewart also allowed Dobbs to paint President Obama as a "far left" President which, in turn, framed Dobbs as being a centrist. Then again, Stewart is just the host of a satirical comedy show right?
One of the more important points that Stewart did bring up, which I believe is both revealing and central to this conversation, is the past silence of those who are suddenly criticizing the so-called destruction of our freedoms by the government. I have stated this in the past, but it is quite clear that during the last eight years, the tea-partiers and 9/12'ers were totally silent on these issues. It is only now, when there is a black Democratic President in the White House, when there is sudden outrage from the right and being adopted as a viable business strategy by a major "news" corporation.
If you want to take a look at a really interesting interview of Dobbs and a subsequent discussion, I point you to this interview that was conducted by Democracy Now! hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez in December of 2007. Dobbs is confronted and forced to try and explain apparent inaccuracies that he stated on his broadcast. I will post some of the transcript below, but I highly recommend you follow that link and watch the entire conversation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Lou, you said a third of the prison population are illegal aliens.
LOU DOBBS: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: The fact is, it’s something like 6% of prisoners in this country are non-citizens, not even illegal, just non-citizens.
LOU DOBBS: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: And then a percentage of that would not be documented.
LOU DOBBS: Well, it’s actually—I think it’s 26% in federal prison.
AMY GOODMAN: But you said of all prisoners.
LOU DOBBS: I said about—yes, but I—and I misspoke, without question. I was referring to federal prisoners.
AMY GOODMAN: But you didn’t say that, and so it leaves people with the impression—
LOU DOBBS: Well, I didn’t, but then I just explained it to you.
AMY GOODMAN: But you have a very large audience on CNN.
LOU DOBBS: I have a very large audience and a very bright audience.
AMY GOODMAN: And you told them that a third of the population of this country are illegal immigrants. 6% , which is under the population of immigrants—
LOU DOBBS: 6% , right.
AMY GOODMAN: —in this country, of prisoners—
LOU DOBBS: In state prisons.
AMY GOODMAN: —are immigrants.
LOU DOBBS: In state prisons. In state prisons.
AMY GOODMAN: No, 6% overall are immigrants. You said 30% are illegal.
LOU DOBBS: Well, I think we’ve established—we could sit here and say this all day, Amy. The fact is, the number is 26% in federal prisons. That’s what I was referring to. I did not—I misspoke when I said “prisons.” I was referring to the federal prisons, because that’s the federal crime: immigration. And that—
AMY GOODMAN: Have you made a correction on your show to say that 30% of—?
LOU DOBBS: I’m sure we have. We’ve reported—absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: We didn’t see it.
[...]
AMY GOODMAN: Another guest that you’ve had on the show—now, this is a very important point, and this is one that you would agree that you’ve covered, and that is Arizona—this is very important—the Protect Arizona Now referendum. In late 2004, it was revealed that the new head of the national advisory board to Protect Arizona Now, an anti-immigration organization, was a longtime white supremacist who was also an editorial advisor to the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. Although Virginia Abernethy’s controversial selection was reported prominently in virtually every Arizona paper, and despite the fact that Lou Dobbs heavily cover the anti-immigration referendum that Protect Arizona Now was advocating, you never mentioned the affair at all, her controversial selection as head of this group.
LOU DOBBS: And she was featured in how many reports?
AMY GOODMAN: The point is, you covered Protect Arizona Now extensively, and this is certainly significant, when it turns out that the head of the board of Protect Arizona Now is—
LOU DOBBS: And when was the last time she was on the show?
AMY GOODMAN: No, the important point is, you didn’t report the news of this very controversial—
LOU DOBBS: Is it possible—
AMY GOODMAN: —racist woman who headed Protect Arizona Now, which was virtually in every Arizona paper. The question is—
LOU DOBBS: Concurrent with our reporting?
AMY GOODMAN: —what you report and what you don’t.
LOU DOBBS: Concurrent with our reporting?
AMY GOODMAN: Of course. This is in 2004. The point is, what you report, Lou, and what you don’t report.
LOU DOBBS: Well, you know, Amy, I don’t know what to tell you, because, you know, based on your focus here today, you have focused on probably three or four reports, as best I can figure, out of more than five years of reporting on the issue. If that smacks at all to you of reasonable proportionate journalism on your part, I mean, God bless you. If that’s what you believe, God bless you. But I think you’re coming from an ideological position that has just absolutely skewed that perception and that perspective.
Orly Taitz has been dubbed the "mastermind" behind the birther movement due to her legal attempts in trying to prove that President Obama is not really a U.S. citizen and should therefore not be legally allowed to hold the office of the Presidency.
Max Blumenthal has a new piece over at The Daily Beast highlighting a conversation he recently had with Taitz. Here are some of the highlights:
Almost as soon as Orly Taitz answered her cellphone, before I could even ask a single question, the leader of the movement determined to disprove President Obama’s American citizenship breathlessly told me the president was “connected” to 39 bogus Social Security numbers, including one for a deceased person born in 1890. “If Obama is not stopped, we will be in Nazi Germany!” Taitz, who has a thick Russian accent, shrieked. “Forgery is a criminal matter and he committed it. Obama should be in the Big House, not the White House!”
[...]
Among Taitz’s “biggest supporters,” she said, is CNN anchor Lou Dobbs. “I did Lou’s radio show for half an hour and he was very understanding,” she told me. “He became a supporter and since then he became a supporter of the whole [Obama eligibility] issue.” Indeed, during the July 15 broadcast of Dobbs’ radio show, he praised Taitz’s work, suggested Obama might be “undocumented,” and demanded the president “show the documents” to prove he was born in the United States.
[...]
“This is Nazi Germany! These are brownshirts in action!” Taitz exclaimed when asked about recent segments by Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Jon Stewart mocking her campaign and questioning her credibility. “Anybody who does not take Obama’s word at face value will be harassed by brownshirts like Rachel Maddow.”
[...]
“I realized that Obama was another Stalin—it’s a cross between Stalinist USSR and Nazi Germany,” she said.
[...]
Taitz told me that Dobbs invited her on his nightly TV program to discuss the Cook case but wound up calling in sick. Instead, Dobbs’ fill-in, Kitty Pilgrim, covered the story. Pilgrim was visibly embarrassed by the topic, remarking, “CNN has investigated the issue, found no basis for the questions about the president’s birthplace… There is overwhelming evidence that proves the president’s birth certificate is real.”
Taitz told me Dobbs assured her after the broadcast that he would bring her back on his program for a sympathetic treatment. But Taitz’s appearance was canceled when CNN President Jon Klein declared Dobbs’ questioning of Obama’s citizenship a “dead story,” then told Variety’s Brian Lowry, “It would not be legitimate for Lou or anyone else at CNN to explore whether Barack Obama is an American citizen.”
How much traction are people like Taitz getting within the mainstream? According to a new Kos/Research 2000 poll that was just released, 28% of Republicans think that Obama wasn't born in the United States, 30% are not sure, and 42% believe that he was. That means 58% of those polled either outright endorse the viewpoint of Taitz or are not sure.
Couple that with the legitimacy that members of Congress are giving to this movement and you really have to wonder about the driving motivation behind this movement.
I posted an entry last week about the resurgence of the "birther" movement and Jon Stewart's insightful and hilarious take on the topic.
Despite being repeatedly debunked, there are still a group of people in this country that insist on advancing the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore is illegally occupying the office of the Presidency. CNN host Lou Dobbs was one of the most visible members of the so-called mainstream media to raise questions surrounding President Obama's birth certificate:
Then, when Dobbs was criticized for advancing this argument even in lieu of evidence to the contrary, he lashed out at the "Limp-minded lily-livered lefties" who were "attacking" him:
CNN's President, Jonathan Klein, tried to reign in Dobbs:
"Since the show's mission is for Lou to be the explainer and enlightener, he should be sure to cite this during your segment tonite. And then it seems this story is dead - because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef."
but apparently, in an interview with Greg Sargent, Klein appears to be backing off strong criticisms of Dobbs:
“Look, Lou’s his own show, and CNN in general has repeatedly and thoroughly reported on the facts behind this situation,” Klein said to me, adding that Lou had merely hosted “a few conversations with people representing a wide range of opinions.”
Klein said that Dobbs has repeatedly stated that he believes that Obama was born in Hawaii, and has simply been examining the “phenomenon that for some people this won’t go away.”
Hmmm, I wonder why this is a "phenomenon that for some people...won't go away", maybe because people like Lou Dobbs continue to host guests who raise these questions? By pretending that there is some sort of debate on this issue and continually hosting guests who baselessly give these claims, Dobbs only gives a kind of legitimacy to these arguments - regardless of whether he personally believes the claims or not. In the clip from Media Matters, Dobbs is even proud that he had the "temerity" to "actually raise a question of this great president."
Dobbs is not alone either. There are actually some members of Congress who either endorse the claims of the birther movement outright or will give you a vague statement like "I understand that some people are concerned about this issue and I will leave it to them to get to the bottom of it." Statements like these are nothing more than a wink and a nudge to a part of the conservative base of the Republican Party. Take a look at Politico's coverage of a statement made by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) (emphasis mine):
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) has also tried to find the elusive middle ground.
"They have a point," he said of the birthers last week. "I don't discourage it. ... But I'm going to pursue defeating [Obama] on things that I think are very destructive to America."
Inhofe put out a statement Monday clarifying his comment:
"The point that they make is the Constitutional mandate that the U.S. president be a natural born citizen, and the White House has not done a very good job of dispelling the concerns of these citizens," he said. "My focus is on issues where I can make a difference to stop the liberal agenda being pushed by President Obama."
Two noteworthy items about the quote. The first is the obvious, that Sen. Inhofe doesn't discourage the birther movement from raising these questions. The second is the wording of Politico's coverage - "Sen. Inhofe has also tried to find the elusive middle ground...". What "middle ground" is there to find? How is there a middle ground between something that is true and something that is not?
Mike Stark has been making the rounds in Washington in recent days to speak with members of Congress on the issue of health care on behalf of Firedoglake. In his spare time he has been asking Republican members of Congress if they believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Watch the varied responses he gets (including one Congressman taking off in a sprint):
and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' take on the issue today:
