Lou Dobbs Tonight

CNBC's Santelli Rebuts Lou Dobbs' Populism in Kudlow Appearance
By Jeff Poor | November 20, 2009 | 10:43 AM EST

Now that former CNN host Lou Dobbs has been freed of his duties with his former network, he has been making the rounds on other networks - Fox News "The O'Reilly Factor," Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and now with his long-time rival's show CNBC's "The Kudlow Report." 

One of the issues debated among a panel consisting of Dobbs, host Larry Kudlow, former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and CNBC CME Group reporter Rick Santelli on Nov. 19 was the issue of wage stagnation - which Dobbs blamed on outsourcing, immigration policy and technological advancement.

"I believe that the issue of unemployment in this country and job creation fundamentally will have to be taken on as a matter of government policy," Dobbs said. "It will also have to be taken on as a matter of business leadership. As to the idea that wages have been stagnant in this country for 35 year, point of fact, we have to understand what the causes are."

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Surprise! Lauer Asks If Dobbs Was 'Too Conservative' For CNN?
By Geoffrey Dickens | November 17, 2009 | 11:42 AM EST

<div style="float: right"><object width="240" height="194"><param name="movie" value="http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=GdqGkU8zkU&amp;c1=0x373D77&... name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=GdqGkU8zkU&amp;c1=0x373D77&... type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="240" height="194"></embed></object></div>NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show, actually asked Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, if he and the network parted ways because he was &quot;too conservative&quot; and if CNN was okay with Dobbs' push for immigration reform when he was attacking George W. Bush but wasn't happy when Dobbs started slamming the Obama administration on the issue, as he queried the former CNN host, &quot;You got much less kickback from CNN than when you started to speak out about the policies of Barack Obama. So, was this an issue that CNN wants to appear neutral but maintain a more liberal stance?&quot; [MP3 audio <a href="http://media.eyeblast.org/newsbusters/static/2009/11/2009-11-17-NBC-Laue... target="_blank">available here</a>] <p>For his part Dobbs claimed the home of the very liberal <a href="/people/rick-sanchez">Rick Sanchez</a> &quot;made it very clear, they wanted the network to go middle of the road and to be very neutral.&quot; </p><p>The following is the full transcript of the entire segment as it was aired on the November 17, Today show:

Dobbs Tells O’Reilly He 'Discerned' a Different Tone from Critics Under Obama Versus Under Bush
By Jeff Poor | November 17, 2009 | 12:45 AM EST

Former CNN host Lou Dobbs stuck to his guns when questions were raised if he was forced out at CNN in an interview with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly.

However, Dobbs did make one distinction - how his detractors decided to pile on when he was critical of President Barack Obama instead of former President George W. Bush. He elaborated on this on Fox News Channel's Nov. 16 "The O'Reilly Factor."

"I discerned more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration, whom I was criticizing and now when it is the Obama administration and an entirely different tone was taken, not so much in the case of CNN management certainly, because there is no - my contract is very explicit. I have absolute editorial control. What I reported is what I chose to report."

Did Lou Dobbs's Conservative Views Cause Him to Leave CNN?
By Lachlan Markay | November 13, 2009 | 3:34 PM EST
Lou Dobbs left CNN after years of tensions between him and the network's brass, who consistently objected to his outspoken, often controversial reports. But the issues that seem to have annoyed CNN execs most were ones on which Dobbs took a conservative stance.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that CNN President Jonathan Klein offered Dobbs an ultimatum a few months ago: "Mr. Dobbs could vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN." Klein reportedly complained about Dobbs's reporting on the Birther movement over the summer, and his outspoken opposition to illegal immigration.

According to the New York Post, one "TV insider" said Dobbs was "polluting the CNN brand" of purported political objectivity. Klein issued a statement saying Dobbs had decided to "carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere."
In 1999, Dobbs Covered Los Alamos Chinese Espionage Story Better Than the 'Nets
By Tom Blumer | November 12, 2009 | 1:13 PM EST
LouDobbsAs noted earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), yesterday's resignation from CNN by Lou Dobbs was his second during a storied career there. The first was at least partially driven by clear tensions between Dobbs and CNN head Rick Kaplan, a longtime friend of former president Bill Clinton who arrived at the network in 1997.

That Kaplan was driven to protect Clinton, and to risk journalistic integrity while doing so, is virtually beyond dispute. In 1997, as the Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz noted in a 1999 op-ed whose primary purpose was to comment the significance of "the demolition of CNN and Time's story charging that U.S. forces used the lethal gas sarin to attack American defectors in Laos," U.S. News reported that Kaplan "issued a warning to CNN journalists to limit the use of words like 'scandal' in relation to stories on the president's fund-raising ventures."

So you can imagine how beside himself Kaplan must have been when Dobbs, then the host of a business and finance show, went after the Chinese nuclear espionage story in 1999 while his other CNN colleagues and the Big 3 networks were attempting to downplay and ignore it. Brent Baker's CyberAlert from March 12 of that year has the details:

Newsweek Editor Posts Bizarre Anti-Lou Dobbs Poem: Anchor Wants World ‘Where Aliens Are Put in Stocks’
By Scott Whitlock | November 12, 2009 | 12:40 PM EST

Newsweek senior editor Jerry Adler on Thursday posted a bizarre poem on the publication’s website, mocking Lou Dobbs for leaving CNN and insinuating that the cable anchor might be crazy: "So wily Lou has picked the locks That kept him in his padded box And tiptoed off, in just his socks." [Punctuation original to the poem.]

Adler, whose poem reads like a cross between Dr. Seuss and Calvin Trillin, also trashed Dobbs and his viewers for opposing illegal immigration: "A network just for frat-boy jocks? Where aliens are put in stocks And viewers pelt them with big rocks Before each half-time show?" [Emphasis added.] He concluded by speculating on Dobbs’ future: "Could it be UPN, or Cox? They’d have to open up Fort Knox We know Lou’s crazy, like a Fox."

In addition to composing poetry, Adler also famously made this pronouncement about the environment on December 31, 1990: "It's a morbid observation, but if everyone on Earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect would no longer be a problem."

Dobbs Flashback: Former CNN Host Pushed Liberal Health Care Agenda in 2006
By Ken Shepherd | November 12, 2009 | 11:28 AM EST

<p>While Lou Dobbs has always been an independent populist with some conservative bearings on certain issues -- illegal immigration chief among them -- conservatives should heed the old Reagan maxim when it comes to the former CNNer's populist conservatism: Trust, but verify.</p><p>After all, back in December 2006, fresh after the election which saw the return of Democratic control to the House of Representatives, Dobbs voiced support for Democratic universal health care proposals on a CNN special entitled &quot;War on the Middle Class&quot;:</p><blockquote><p>[T]his country has a responsibility to all the people in this room and Americans, all but the very poor and the very rich, are the ones being hammered because there is no program for the middle-class.</p></blockquote><p>Julia Seymour <a href="http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2006/20061208153540.aspx" target="_blank">documented the story at the time over at the Business &amp; Media Institute Web site</a>. You can find the full story below the page break:</p> <blockquote>

CNN-mity: Tensions With Dobbs Were Evident Many Years Ago
By Tom Blumer | November 12, 2009 | 10:46 AM EST
lou-dobbsLou Dobbs has resigned from CNN, and his final show aired last night. The departure is reportedly on amicable terms.

That said, this is a good time to recall that Dobbs and his employer were at very visible loggerheads a decade ago. In fact, yesterday's move by Dobbs is not his first resignation from the network. Here is Brent Baker's June 9, 1999 CyberAlert item describing what happened:

Lou Dobbs gone from CNN. Forced out by CNN President Rick Kaplan, or just frustrated by him? In a surprise announcement at the end of Tuesday’s The World Today, anchor Jim Moret informed viewers:

"And finally tonight, farewell to a colleague. Lou Dobbs, President of CNNfn and anchor of Moneyline, is resigning to launch a new Internet venture. Dobbs said he is ‘grateful to Ted Turner and CNN News Group Chairman Tom Johnson for the opportunity to have helped build CNN and cnn.com into a first-class television news and interactive institution.’ Lou Dobbs had been with CNN since its inception 19 years ago. He will start up space.com, a Web site for news, entertainment and educational content about space."

No mention of Kaplan and an on-air dispute the two had a couple of weeks ago about whether to carry live a Clinton speech may explain why. As Clay Waters of Bridge News first informed me, the May 25 Page Six column in the New York Post revealed:

Olbermann Makes Victory Lap in Honor of Dobbs Resignation
By Jeff Poor | November 12, 2009 | 12:49 AM EST

Leave it to that bastion of grace and class that waxes poetically on a nightly basis about the wrongdoings of Republicans or conservatives ad nauseum known as MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to do Lou Dobbs resignation from CNN up just right.

Olbermann on his Nov. 11 "Countdown" broadcast honored Dobbs 30-year CNN career by naming him his "third worst person in the world."

"The bronze to Lou Dobbs, who tonight, as of tonight, has just quit his CNN show," Olbermann said.

Although it isn't quite clear why Olbermann decided to bestow that honor upon Dobbs, if for no other reason than for his decision to resign, Olbermann cherry-picked portions of Dobbs resignation speech from the Nov. 11 broadcast of "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and even ad-libbed in his comments (actual transcript of Dobbs here).

Report: Dobbs to Resign from CNN; Last Show Tonight
By Jeff Poor | November 11, 2009 | 7:02 PM EST

Confirmed: Lou Dobbs announced his resignation from CNN on his Nov. 11 broadcast. Transcription at bottom.

Has Lou Dobbs been forced out at CNN by the left-wing attack machine and other liberal forces? Quite possibly.

According to New York Times reporters Brian Stelter and Bill Carter, CNN's Lou Dobbs will announce his resignation from CNN on his Nov. 11 show.

"Lou Dobbs, the longtime CNN anchor whose anti-immigration views made him a TV lightning rod, plans to announce Wednesday that he is leaving the network, two network employees said," Stelter and Carter wrote. "A CNN executive confirmed that Mr. Dobbs will announce his resignation plans on his 7 p.m. program. His resignation is effective immediately; tonight's program will be his last on CNN. His contract was not set to expire until the end of 2011."

Dobbs Excoriates Obama for Double Standard: Compares President’s Post-Cambridge to Post-Fort Hood Remarks
By Jeff Poor | November 11, 2009 | 1:34 AM EST

Some of the mainstream media intelligentsia following the Fort Hood, Texas massacre have cautioned people to reserve judgment about the suspect Major Nidal Malik Hasan and have bypassed many key details in order to live up to what could be construed as a politically correct standard. CNN's Lou Dobbs isn't one of them.

Dobbs, on his Nov. 10 radio program, didn't reserve judgment and criticized President Barack Obama for telling people to do so in a speech following the tragic event. Dobbs played a clip from the speech Obama gave last week in which he warned, "We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts."

"Isn't that remarkable, telling the American people not to jump to any conclusions?" Dobbs said. "Not to speculate, not to be curious about what is happening to our men and women, who should be the center of all of our attention and concern and care. Let's compare that statement by our president to what he said at the end of a press conference about health care shortly after the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, his good friend."

CNN's Lou Dobbs Claims Shot Fired at Home, Wife
By Jeff Poor | October 29, 2009 | 2:50 AM EDT

Recently a lot of hubbub had been made about the possibility that the peaceful tea party protests and some conservative voices would stir up emotions that could lead to violence. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was even one of those sounding that alarm.

But what has gone unsaid by those same voices has been the possibility of violence against those who might take a position antithetical to that of the left.

Case in point: CNN's Lou Dobbs. Dobbs, who has been the target of a smear campaign by the left-wing noise machine, told his radio audience on Oct. 26 that his home had been shot at three weeks earlier. (Unabbreviated audio available here)