Lou Dobbs.
You love him or you hate him. Personally, I can't stand his show. I turn CNN off when he comes on the air.
He's
clearly anti-immigrant and was recently was a guest speaker at a rally
organized by the anti-immigrant group FAIR, the Federation for American
Immigration Reform, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has
identified as a hate group. Their founder once compared immigrants to
"bacteria."
Now the nation's leading Latino civil rights organization is supporting a campaign to pressure advertisers to pull their ads from Dobbs show. It's called the Drop Dobbs campaign and one of the people promoting it is Janet Murgia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), who I interviewed about Sonia Sotomayor on this blog over the summer.
Murgia explained why NCLR supports the Drop Dobbs campaign in an essay on the Huffington Post.
"Lou Dobbs, as a private citizen, has every right to speak at whatever event he pleases. As a representative of CNN's "best political news team in America" however, Dobb's appearance at this rally provides FAIR the legitimacy of the CNN brand and signals an intensification of the lopsided coverage Dobbs has provided during the debate over immigration reform," Murgia wrote.
Murgia is right that Dobbs, like all of us, is entitled to his freedom of speech. Now more than ever we are seeing more and more talking heads on the news and in the blogosphere with a diversity of opinions. We are lucky to live in a country where we have that freedom of speech.
But why does CNN give such a platform to an anti-immigrant voice and not have someone with an opposing viewpoint host a prime time program?
On this site, Chicago Now, you'll find extreme liberals like myself but you'll also find bloggers who often disagree with my viewpoints too. The point is here you'll get a diversity of viewpoints exploring the myriad sides of different issues.
But not on CNN. There are no liberal Latinos defending undocumented immigrants on a regular basis on CNN.
In fact, the only Latinos I've seen as regular commentators on CNN have been Republicans like Leslie Sanchez. Of course, CNN has Rick Sanchez, anchor, and Soledad O'Brien, reporter, but you don't see them voicing their personal viewpoints about immigration like Dobbs.
Roberto Lovato, a writer for New America Media, called Dobbs "the Most Dangerous Man for Latinos in America" in a Huffington Post blog and he is a leader in the Drop Dobbs campaign and the sponsor of www.bastadobbs.com.
Advertisers are already pulling out of shows like Fox News' Glenn Beck after he called President Obama a racist. Will Dobbs be next?
We live in a capitalist country folks and it will remain so despite irrational fears about socialism stoked in this health care debate. Time will tell if advertisers decide to pull out of Dobbs' show.
I guess it depends on whether they think there is more money to be made on the growing
Hispanic population in this country now at 15 percent but predicted to double to 30 percent by 2050. You do the math.
Don't get me wrong. I can't stand Dobbs as I've blogged about him before. But I can't say he should be boycotted for his extreme viewpoints because if I do then someone could make the same argument about me.
I say that if CNN insists on supporting Dobbs they should give equal time to an extreme leftist who will tell the other side of the immigration debate and advocate for undocumented immigrants.
Sooner or later I'm confident Dobbs will go away, either due to retirement or loss of ad revenues. Then I'll be able to watch CNN again at 6 p.m. central.
