CNN’s Lou Dobbs Accused of Sowing Hate, Inciting Violence
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Lou Dobbs, who used to paint himself as a well-to-do, rational and no-nonsense reporter interested in getting to the bottom of economic matters, has morphed into a pundit who nightly champions violent anti-immigrant groups and seeks to fit all Hispanic immigrants with the label “criminal illegal aliens”. He has lied about the number of undocumented immigrants in US jails and has failed to report that undocumented immigrants are responsible for far less violent crime than US citizens.
This summer, his use of violent rhetoric officially hit fever pitch when he called for someone to “drive a stake” through the heart of former Vermont governor Howard Dean, saying it would be “the only way to stop him”. The insinuation was clear: Dobbs was calling for a violent lethal assault upon a prominent politician who had been partly responsible for winning the last two elections for the Democratic party.
Dobbs “Broken Borders” segment has become a podium for anti-immigrant hate speech, thinly veiled in the language of “national security” and counter-narcotics. Dobbs has referred to an “invasion” by Hispanics, suggesting that the only reason there is a large Hispanic minority in the US is that they have illegally sought to take over and undermine our country.
He ignores the crisis of brutality and human exploitation that results from many of the border policies he promotes, and openly and passionately advocates for vigilantism and the arming of American citizens along the Mexican border. He actually declared on CNN, in one of the wildest and most irresponsible exaggerations seen on a mainstream cable news station, that “Mexico has become our enemy”.
When interviewed on 60 Minutes, Dobbs responded to questions about his routine distortions and defamatory rhetoric by claiming (falsely) “If we reported it, it’s a fact”. He claimed he “misspoke” when he said that one-third of all criminal convicts in US jails are “criminal illegal immigrants”, even though only 6% are even non-citizens, let alone specifically undocumented immigrants.
There are now increasing questions about whether Lou Dobbs has actually actively and knowingly fostered hate and used the language of incitement to violence in order to foment a campaign of attacks on Hispanics and other immigrant groups. CNN is being pressured by a national campaign to drop Lou Dobbs, who is being called the leading proponent of anti-immigrant hate in the United States.
Dobbs is also being accused of spreading lies deliberately and persistently from a national nightly platform on CNN. Among the lies and smears Dobbs has been willing to spread repeatedly is the false claim that Pres. Obama has no American birth certificate. The state of Hawaii produced the document and its authenticity has been confirmed. There is no issue, yet Dobbs unbelievably went as far as to say the following this July on CNN: “I’m starting to think we have a — we have a document issue. Do you suppose he’s un — no, I won’t even use the word undocumented. It wouldn’t be right.”
On 21 July 2009, on his radio program, Dobbs declared “I do believe in a national left-wing media conspiracy” and blamed that “conspiracy” for aiding the state of Hawaii in committing document fraud in order to confirm that Obama is American. In fact, it is Dobbs who is gathering information from extremist blogs and anti-Obama hate groups in order to give aid and comfort to the subversive conspiracy theories designed to sow anger against the president, despite conclusive documented proof that the “birther” allegations are lies.
Dobbs also used his national platform on CNN to spread the dangerous lie that an “invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans”, adding that Americans were now experiencing an outbreak of leprosy. Correspondent Christine Romans said on his show that over the past forty years, only 900 cases had been reported on US soil, while in the three years from 2002 to 2004, over 7,000 cases had been reported.
Dobbs reacted by saying “Incredible”, and has since cited the report and repeated the figures, despite the fact that the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) says there were only 398 cases of Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, during the three year period spanning 2002 to 2004. Dobbs has consistently used such false claims to sow fear and hate for undocumented immigrants.
He has also been a leading voice promoting the conspiracy theory that there are secret plans to scrap the United States Constitution and establish a broader “North American Union”, in which Mexico, the United States and Canada would become one nation. In reporting on efforts to ensure that US and Canadian economic policies are not harmful to either nation’s people, essentially a diplomatic endeavor to ensure peace and stability, Dobbs said the following this March on his radio show:
There is an agenda at work here. I truly believe it’s all about — and Barack Obama referred to it in his meetings with [Canadian Prime Minister] Stephen Harper in Ottawa, in which they talked about harmonization. This is an effort, I truly believe, to extend ultimately to the North American Union — that is, the combination of Mexico, the United States, and Canada. That’s underlying much — that’s subtext for much of what is happening. There’s no other explanation — other than outright corruption and utter madness.
He refers to diplomacy with one of our closest friends and allies as “utter madness”. This is not journalism; this is not commentary; this is pure, unabashed fabrication. He repeated the lies on CNN, asking viewers to answer the following online survey:
Do you think, our question is, maybe somebody should take a vote if we’re going to merge Canada, Mexico and the United States as the leaders of the three countries are attempting to do with the security and prosperity partnership? Yes or no. Cast your vote at LouDobbs.com.
Again, relying on the reporting of Christine Romans, Dobbs CNN program aired the following claim in March of 2006:
There are some Mexican citizens and some Mexican-Americans who want to see California, New Mexico and other parts of the southwestern United States given over to Mexico. These groups call it the reconquista, Spanish for reconquest. And they view the millions of Mexican illegal aliens in particular entering the United States as potentially an army of invaders to achieve that takeover.
Once more, the clear insinuation is that there is a secret plot to destroy America and that Mexican immigrants are a fundamental danger to the United States. There is no plot to “reconquer” the United States, though the period of the “reconquista” in the history of Spain might sometimes serve as an ironic reference in purely cultural terms. Dobbs has illustrated his willingness time and again to use his show on CNN as a platform to spread these kind of potentially violence-inciting lies.
Members of Congress from California have said Dobbs is the single most visible promotor of anti-Hispanic hatred, and that he is shockingly unrepentant for his lies and the nature of the often violent backlash that may ensue. At least one member of the Minuteman border vigilante group he so proudly supports has been accused of gunning down a small girl, allegedly due to her Hispanic ethnicity.
CNN must now grapple with the growing perception that it has allowed this hate-mongering to go on unchecked on its network, for years, as pressure mounts on one after another sponsor to drop Lou Dobbs for his rhetoric of incitement and intolerance. But the larger question which may emerge from this campaign is whether Dobbs himself might be seen as partly responsible if one or more of the lies or distortions he has spread on air played a role in driving someone to commit an act of violence.
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