Lou Dobbs fights off critics

Lou Dobbs is a CNN commentator who doesn't go along with the News Network's left-wing ideology. He's not particularly right-wing either, but he is very outspoken about his opposition to illegal immigration. And for the sin of believing that the laws on the books should be enforced, he is vilified to no end by the open-borders lobby.

He's on the air nearly every day, and like any other human sometimes he makes mistakes. He once misquoted the percentage of illegal immigrants in prisons (he should have made it clear he was speaking about federal prisons, not all prisons) and he quoted a much higher than accurate figure for leprosy cases among immigrants, basing it on a source that he believed was credible at the time.

Armed with this information, two interviewers all too obviously tried to ambush him on a program called "Democracy Now" earlier this month. His response is a lesson in how you can turn away wrath and remain an absolute gentleman at the same time. A sample of the conversation is below. Mrs. Goodman tries to smear the "Minutemen" (a private border-watching group) by innuendo, and Mr. Dobbs doesn't let her get away with it for a second:

LOU DOBBS: Pro-illegal immigration, pro-open borders, both of you, ideologically—I understand that, and I can deal with that.

But the reality is, there is such a thing as the national interest. There is such a thing as the common good. And it’s not ethnocentric. It’s not group and identity politics. It’s all about this country, because this political system makes this economy possible. And the fact that people are starving in Mexico—and my heart goes out to them—the reality is there are five-and-a-half billion people in the world who are more impoverished than those folks in Mexico. And that land bridge does not give Felipe Calderon or Vicente Fox or any other group of activists the right to dictate the US immigration policy. That’s the reality.


AMY GOODMAN: Are you concerned with, among others, one of the founders of the Minutemen being found with a gun, patrolling the border; issues like these? This is of concern, when there are so many immigrants who are found in the desert dead, not clear why they die.

LOU DOBBS: Oh, are you implying that the Minutemen are killing them?

AMY GOODMAN: No. But just—

LOU DOBBS: Then why would you say such a thing?

AMY GOODMAN: My question is—

LOU DOBBS: That’s terrible, Amy. I mean, good Lord!

AMY GOODMAN: My question is, when—

LOU DOBBS: Let’s answer one question: has there ever been a single incident of violence recorded on the part of the Minutemen on the border?

AMY GOODMAN: I believe—wasn’t there—

LOU DOBBS: There has never been.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m not—haven’t there been cases of immigrants who come over the border, who have been chased, who have been shot at, who have been beaten?

LOU DOBBS: That would be an incident of violence. That would be an incident of violence, wouldn’t it? To my knowledge, there has never been an incident of violence on the part of the Minutemen.

AMY GOODMAN: But the idea of armed men on the border—

LOU DOBBS: Oh, come on!

AMY GOODMAN: —not authorized by the United States?

LOU DOBBS: Does it bother you that there are armed drug cartel members firing on law enforcement officers on the border, killing Mexican citizens, US citizens?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Absolutely.

LOU DOBBS: Does any of this bother you?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Absolutely does, yes.

LOU DOBBS: I would hope to heck it bothers you. Why would the Minutemen even be under discussion by comparison to that issue?

Interested in reading more? Click on any label below to read related articles, bookmark this site, or subscribe to my  RSS Feed