Lou Dobbs, friend of the Latinos
Rick Ungar has the scoop:
As Dobbs contemplates a third party run for a New Jersey U.S. Senate seat in 2012 against the Senate’s only Hispanic member, Robert Menendez, it suddenly occurs that the people who have been on the business end of his hate talk for all these years turn out to be pretty important when it comes to elections.
Who knew?
Fortunately for Lou, he’s just been kidding all along. He never actually meant any of it.
Sitting for an interview with Maria Celeste on Spanish-speaking television network, Telemundo, Dobbs spoke directly to his ‘peeps’ –
Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together.
It gets better.
Dobbs, who has made billions of pesos and built his career vilifying anyone who dared suggest an amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally, now says, “we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.”
Again, I couldn’t make this up. I’m not that clever.
It turns out that Dobbs doesn’t just hate Latinos because they have the gall to try and care for their families doing jobs that Americans won’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Now we know that ‘Politician Lou’ believes that Hispanics are among the stupidest people on the planet because who else but an idiot could possibly buy such a mouthful of absolute crap?
You know a fair amount of the anger directed at Lou Dobbs really is a response to what they think he’s saying and not his actual positions.
Without weighing in on Dobbs’ character, appropriateness, or penchant for pin stripes, there is an instructive lesson to be learned about how America’s legacy of ethnic hatred has made discussing race or ethnicity a veritable minefield, which makes it very hard for us to talk about identity-related issues in the context of a broader political community, when discussing various groups, of which we’re not a part.
The only avenue really open is the trial lawyer approach. If you’re not part of a group the only safe comment one can really make is, “you’ve been wronged and/or I want you to get something for it.” Somewhat ironically, I felt this was Dobbs’ approach towards the ever-so-victimized American middle class.
I think Dobbs is largely responsible for his own image in this regard but I’m not sure his leaving CNN is anything more than a palliative Zozobra. To some degree, that we don’t have someone talking about immigration issues outside of a campaign seems like a step towards
notdealing with race through omission or a ten-foot pole and calling it progress or postracial.Report