Corruption? Hardly. CNN is a profit-making entity, and engages in profit-making behavior. If they skew their debate questions toward their own pundit, they risk losing the audience's interest, but it's their risk to take.
More troublesome, to me, is the possibility that CNN coordinated with operatives from a) the Democrat National Committee, or b) one or more of the candidates. Given the number of Democrat activists asking questions during the Democrat debate back on the 17th, and the high profile that general had in Clinton's campaign, this sort of collaboration is not out of the question.
hunter_123
· 2 years ago
Corruption is right, but he is wrong about it being due to immigration.
upnorth
· 2 years ago
Lou Dobbs does not oppose immigration. It is always interesting that the term "illegal" is always omitted in the discussion with those who oppose his views and others.
Paul Albers
· 2 years ago
"I think Rutten overreaches here, however. It's true that Dobbs likes to harangue on immigration" Above copied from your post. I believe Mr. Dobbs was talking about ILLEGAL immigration.
AnonymousDrivel
· 2 years ago
Which Pew Poll is he referring to? By my read, the immigration issue (from an open ended poll) was tied for third on the list of things of which to be concerned. (See Nov. 27, 2007 Pew Poll) Iraq was first but dropping; Economy was second and rising fast; Healthcare, Energy, and Immigration were statistically tied and rounded out the top five. By Rutten's calculus, the nation doesn't care about healthcare or energy either, so why waste any time on those issues because they're irrelevant and unimportant? Somehow I don't think Rutten would agree if someone else made such an assertion.
No, this isn't about corruption at all. It's an attempt by Rutten to minimize the importance of illegal immigration as a political issue in the upcoming election by citing a poll and intentionally misinterpreting/misrepresenting the results. Conservatives are intensely interested in this issue and it should have been covered by CNN just like it should have been covered in the previous CNN-hosted debate where Clinton famously made the faux pax that dinged her impenetrable armor. I noticed a few Democrats in liberal New York were pretty interested in the topic and those licenses-for-illegals and to such a degree that Spitzer took a public beating that may cost him his office.
If anything CNN brought this up to get the GOP candidates to fight amongst themselves and tear each other apart in the hopes of creating collateral damage that would split the party... or at least damage Giuliani, the more liberal conservative the Beltway figures will win the primaries. Were that to happen, that Giuliani were considered too weak on illegal immigration concerns, it would absolutely contradict Rutten's thesis.
NahnCee
· 2 years ago
AGree absolutely. Every poll I've seen in the last few months has immigration in the top three, along with health care and the economy. The fact that Rutten doesn't list what he think the top priorities ARE makes me think he knows that and is tap-dancing around it.
And we know how the LA Times feels about illegal Mexicans: they want to let them *all* in so they can register as Democrats and vote ARnold out.
It is an interesting conspiracy theory, though, that CNN threw the debate to get higher ratings. If it makes CNN look bad and does anything to their stock value I'm happy to get behind the effort.
docjim505
· 2 years ago
AD: Conservatives are intensely interested in this issue [illegal immigration] and it should have been covered by CNN...
I agree with the thrust of AD's post. Illegal immigration is, I think, a VERY big deal among Republicans / conservatives; witness the reaction to the amnesty bill earlier this year. It doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me that the debate would feature this subject pretty heavily, whether it is good for Lou Dobbs' ratings or not.
unclesmrgol
· 2 years ago
Incompetence? If the Brig. Gen. (CA) episode is any indication, this wasn't incompetence -- this was partisan activity. Rutten makes the same points at least one poster here made -- that rather idiotic questions centering about Confederate flags and other oddball (and certainly non-Presidential) topics were there. Rutten fails to mention that they might have been there for a reason, which was, by inference, to color the Republican candidates a certain way via "do you still beat your wife" type questions.
Rutten's number one priority is getting us out of Iraq. His whole article is geared in that direction. He's just as disingenuous as CNN in advancing his agenda. I'm surprised the Captain even gave Rutten another column inch over the 34 that the Times alloted him in its print edition.
Bithead
· 2 years ago
Sorry, Ed. I'm not buying. Incompetency, by definition, produces an inconsistent product. The product under discussion, has been anything but inconsistent ; it has constantly been leaning left for decades.
David Nick
· 2 years ago
Keep in mind that Lou Dobbs is no dummy. He's Harvard educated and very sure of his position on many issues including illegal immigration. While I don't agree with some of Lou's position's I do think illegal immigration is the most important issue facing this country. It has ties into healthcare, welfare, spending/taxation, homeland security, executive branch law enforcement (or lack thereof), sanctuary city policies and whether or not federal law trumps state law (or lack of enforcement), which also alludes to whether or not we unjustly convict border patrol agents who do their jobs and tossed in jail for doing them.
In regards to the PEW poll, great, illegal immigration is tied for 3rd. Whooppee. I think what is a shame is the American people in general could give a rat's ass about polls, political issues, especially when elections don't "affect them any way".
When citizens go out to exercise their GOD GIVEN RIGHT TO VOTE, then perhaps we have something to talk about here.
:D
Mwalimu_Daudi
· 2 years ago
I am sure that CNN would not mind getting a reputation for pursuing its financial interests ahead of journalistic ethics. It would certainly be an improvement over their current one of being terrorist-worshippingClinton supplicants.
Noel
· 2 years ago
"the nonpartisan and highly reliable Pew Center "-- Sorry; I don't buy it.
From the Pew Center:
"The [Far-Left Pew Charitable] Trusts provides the vast bulk of the Center's financial support and appoints three of the five voting members of the Center's governing board. However, the Center is solely responsible for its own surveys, reports and findings. In order to preserve the Center's independence and impartiality, The Trusts maintains a wall of separation between its support for the Center's information work and its support for projects that seek to advance policy solutions, just as most newspapers separate their news operation from their editorial pages."
You mean like that impenetrable, iron-clad "wall of separation" Pinch has at the Times?
The Trusts use the supposedly unbiased info provided by the Center to advocate leftist policy positions . The Trusts are not above manipulating public opinion by secretly funding sock-puppet organizations to create the false impression of a groundswell. Sorry Pew Center; you're known by the company you keep and the Leftists who buy your suits.
"When producers exercise that level of selectivity, the questions -- whoever initially formulated and recorded them -- actually are theirs."--Exactly. I don't agree with the author's Dobbs-conspiracy, but that is why CNN is responsible for the plants and trying to portray conservatives as fringe freaks through their selections.
Neo
· 2 years ago
It's time for the Democrats to go on Fox News.
Neo
· 2 years ago
As a figleaf for the uneasy Democrats, FoxNews should have a Democrat, like Bob Novak (AKA The Prince of Darkness), moderate.
(Yes Virginia, Bob Novak is a registered Democrat)
viking01
· 2 years ago
I tend to agree that the CNN and Leftist / Socialist debacle isn't simply explainable by corruption.
It's psychiatric.
Where else but in the Democrat cult could Bubba shagging the hired help be only about sex? Their slow-witted, cardboard ex-vice president making bizarre claims of inventing the internet, throwing his tantrum after losing in 2000, then be proclaimed Goracle the jet set high priest of the pseudo scientific Warmist Cult? Which on a few occasions this week has had meetings canceled by ice storms? Harry Reid and Pelosi realize they can't starve the troops out of Iraq so Reid makes his demented war is lost claim. Where else does a dubious hostage situation resolve just in time for network news broadcast with a certain candidate and her press lackeys eagerly awaiting to proclaim her as calm and presidential in a "crisis" a few hundred miles away? Careful with those railroad flares Eisenberg. You don't want to scorch any campaign literature. My cat was calm during the entire hostage incident therefore my cat must be equally qualified as angry Hillary to be president. Calm, cool and collected until feeding time when demands for swift action were vocalized. The feline's equivalent of Hil' throwing ashtrays at Bubba, I reckon'.
Much like Dan Rather, CNN refuses to accept that in the Internet Age the excrement they're used to shoveling the public is less easily de-scented when uncovered by sharper minds online monitoring the Leftist agit-prop. This evening's ABC radio news was little better than a blatant, free Hillary advertisement. I don't buy the excuses by Old Media that their "errors" are mere screw ups. Those screwups are contrivances justifiable in their poor Borderline Personality brains. A warped sense of entitlement consistent with a Sixties "if it feels good, do it" mindset. That same warped Lefty mindset which blames vast Right-wing conspiracies for inconvenient blue dresses, Karl Rove for Hurricane Katrina, or the Swift Boat veterans for revealing John Kerry's true nature faster than Lurch's refusal to release his military records after he was for it. Then there's Scott Beauchamp and Jayson Blair feeding the lies the New Republic and NY Times so desperately wished were true.
So there you have it. The Democrats lie incessantly because their minds require it as surely as an alcoholic must reach for his bottle. Once caught they suffer the very same withdrawal symptoms: distract, disparage, denial, claim it will never happen again, then they attempt to rationalize their psychiatric defect as good intentions. One only has to guess whether the rationalization will be "fake but accurate" or require a prolix 14 page explanation as the New Republic has proffered to explain their Beauchamp (Baghdad Diary) total fabrication. In the next Democrat debate expect CNN or other Lefty activist media to be reaching for that bottle of deception not so much to deceive others but to deceive themselves of the warped psychiatric force which now controls them. CNN, however, stays barely afloat because they have become the dealer which provides the daily fix for others dependent on those same Socialist lies. Pinch Sulzberger's folly is sinking much faster because those same scatterbrained Lefties realize there's an actual cost borne by them. It may only be pocket change but unless there's some government subsidy or freebie to purchase it for them they naturally must feel jilted and envious of those sneaky capitalist willing to pay their own way.
ChessOwl
· 2 years ago
"Don't blame conspiracies for what can be explained by incompetence." You guys were very fond of that point on the radio show Saturday. But I think you are making an equal error. You are excusing hostility by letting it pass as incompetence.
Tecas Dude
· 2 years ago
CNN was born in corruption.
In its infancy, it made a deal with SAddam to spike negative stories about Iraq (you know ... about torture and the like) for continued access to the Iraqi regime in Baghdad.
So, with this culture it was created in, should it surprise anyone that such things happen today?
gh
· 2 years ago
Change "partner" to "business partner" ...
Jay
· 2 years ago
It's so amusing to read the Captain's liberal, neo-con views that Lou Dobbs "bashes" immigrants. First of all el Capitain, illegal aliens are not "immigrants". Comprenda? They are more than likely lying, cheating and stealing. How can I say that?
Because they are more than likely using fake or stolen ID's, social security numbers, driver licenses, etc., and they provide illegal labor. Comprenda? It's nothing but illegal, black market labor, nothing more. Hire the little brown people to mow your lawn, while you watch your HDTV and your country is taken over, one amigo at a time.
Jorge Bush, Miquel Medved, "Larry" Kudlow, etc. and the other moneyed liberals are so out of touch with the American people, it's laughable.
Redgoose
· 2 years ago
"don't blame conspiracies for what can be explained by incompetence."
True enough, but flying the queer Brigadier all the way acroos the country and then picking him out of a large crowd, supposedly "at random" and allowing him to bleat his manifesto stretches incompetence a bit too thin for my particular tastes.
The rat smell is overpowering...
RG
Jay
· 2 years ago
Whether it's the MSM, the Captain, National Review, Weekly Std, etc....these people ARE elitists who have no problem with giving our country away on the one hand to Chinese in terms of loss of manufacturing and to Mexico in terms of erasing our borders and not enforcing immigration laws.
Dobbs is not right on everything but by God at least he is willing to bring up topics that those mentioned above are too spineless or too payed off to even want to debate. It is not "nativist" nor "xenophobic", nor even just plain "mean-spirited' to insist on immigration enforcement. It's in fact patriotic to do so but then again, many of the transnational elites consider themselves "citizens of the world" and not truly American anymore.
NahnCee
· 2 years ago
I want Ted Turner back. He was Lefty enough to marry Jane Fonda and donate money to the UN, but at least you knew what he stood for and he's no fool.
viking01
· 2 years ago
Helen Thomas? Is that really you?
I now completely concur with hunter_123's contention. The plant is an obvious idiot and a Dallas fan perhaps.
I've merely listed things which got the Dems booted and >the GOP in power.< That was the topic of this section of the thread to those capable of more than pasting the Dem talking points. If someone's memory banks are too fried to understand that they're probably too fried to notice the similarity between Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and Jim Wright and Nancy "Syria's envoy" Pelosi and Dan "untouchable" Rostenkowski. Empty suits in the Internet Age where media fabrications are insufficient to keep many in office except when their dupes are too busy watching Dallas.... or Michael Moore... or excusing William Jefferson / Ray Nagin to grasp history. Again, get the soap because the hippie sure could use a bath.
BurfordHolly
· 2 years ago
Oh pshaw. We were coming off a week of all the networks batting around Hillary's fumbling over the question of NY drivers' licenses for illegals, despite the fact the she is NOT, as far as I know, in charge of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
So if that issue was low-hanging fruit for the networks and blogs when the Dems were in the spotlight, why shouldn't CNN push it with the Republicans? It sure seemed like an issue that got the GOP all excited when HRC was the butt of the joke.
unclesmrgol
· 2 years ago
But note that no Presidential candidate has ducked that issue -- and that some states are fighting tooth and nail against drivers licenses which meet federal standards as identification documents. Certainly there is a role here for the President -- as the head of the executive branch, he/she sets enforcement priorities. To put it bluntly, some laws are more equal than others. But since you consider confederate flags, interpretation of the Bible, and other such non-Presidential tripe to be fair game, lets see what us undecideds can come up with for the next Democratic debate. Hmm....
BurfordHolly
· 2 years ago
>To put it bluntly, some laws are more equal than others. >But since you consider confederate flags, interpretation >of the Bible, and other such non-Presidential tripe to be fair game
Tripe? No, those are the wedge issues that put the GOP in power. For me to say they matter and for you to scoff makes me the Republican and you the dirty hippy. I gotta lay down.
hunter_123
· 2 years ago
If you think those are the issues that put Republicans in power, you are an idiot.
BurfordHolly
· 2 years ago
Abortion, gun control, school prayer, flag burning, creationism, God, and gays.
Torture is the new one.
Which ones are you taking off the table?
viking01
· 2 years ago
Peanut Carter wrecking the economy, the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, Slick's inability to keep campaign promises in Pelosiesque fashion, Jim Wright's Kennedyesque bribe, uh, book deal, Dan Rostenkowski, Tony Coehlo and Dem friends cashing of checks at the Capitol Post Office, Hillary's memorable memory lapses under oath about Castle Grande and Whitewater, Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones before the days of Newsweek's Monica coverup.
I could go on but bandwidth is limited and uncle and hunter summed it up nicely. Sniff, sniff. Let's start a soap fund for those smelly hippies.
BurfordHolly
· 2 years ago
Huh? Thanks for the history lesson and all, but these were the GOPs big issues as recently as last Wednesday. Does that mean you're bailing on all of them? I did not get that memo.
Is this going to be like the show "Dallas" where "it was all a dream?"
unclesmrgol
· 2 years ago
Then the Democrats won't mind if they get asked the same, eh?
All Comments
More troublesome, to me, is the possibility that CNN coordinated with operatives from a) the Democrat National Committee, or b) one or more of the candidates. Given the number of Democrat activists asking questions during the Democrat debate back on the 17th, and the high profile that general had in Clinton's campaign, this sort of collaboration is not out of the question.
Above copied from your post.
I believe Mr. Dobbs was talking about ILLEGAL immigration.
No, this isn't about corruption at all. It's an attempt by Rutten to minimize the importance of illegal immigration as a political issue in the upcoming election by citing a poll and intentionally misinterpreting/misrepresenting the results. Conservatives are intensely interested in this issue and it should have been covered by CNN just like it should have been covered in the previous CNN-hosted debate where Clinton famously made the faux pax that dinged her impenetrable armor. I noticed a few Democrats in liberal New York were pretty interested in the topic and those licenses-for-illegals and to such a degree that Spitzer took a public beating that may cost him his office.
If anything CNN brought this up to get the GOP candidates to fight amongst themselves and tear each other apart in the hopes of creating collateral damage that would split the party... or at least damage Giuliani, the more liberal conservative the Beltway figures will win the primaries. Were that to happen, that Giuliani were considered too weak on illegal immigration concerns, it would absolutely contradict Rutten's thesis.
And we know how the LA Times feels about illegal Mexicans: they want to let them *all* in so they can register as Democrats and vote ARnold out.
It is an interesting conspiracy theory, though, that CNN threw the debate to get higher ratings. If it makes CNN look bad and does anything to their stock value I'm happy to get behind the effort.
I agree with the thrust of AD's post. Illegal immigration is, I think, a VERY big deal among Republicans / conservatives; witness the reaction to the amnesty bill earlier this year. It doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me that the debate would feature this subject pretty heavily, whether it is good for Lou Dobbs' ratings or not.
Rutten's number one priority is getting us out of Iraq. His whole article is geared in that direction. He's just as disingenuous as CNN in advancing his agenda. I'm surprised the Captain even gave Rutten another column inch over the 34 that the Times alloted him in its print edition.
I'm not buying.
Incompetency, by definition, produces an inconsistent product.
The product under discussion, has been anything but inconsistent ; it has constantly been leaning left for decades.
In regards to the PEW poll, great, illegal immigration is tied for 3rd. Whooppee. I think what is a shame is the American people in general could give a rat's ass about polls, political issues, especially when elections don't "affect them any way".
When citizens go out to exercise their GOD GIVEN RIGHT TO VOTE, then perhaps we have something to talk about here.
:D
From the Pew Center:
"The [Far-Left Pew Charitable] Trusts provides the vast bulk of the Center's financial support and appoints three of the five voting members of the Center's governing board. However, the Center is solely responsible for its own surveys, reports and findings. In order to preserve the Center's independence and impartiality, The Trusts maintains a wall of separation between its support for the Center's information work and its support for projects that seek to advance policy solutions, just as most newspapers separate their news operation from their editorial pages."
You mean like that impenetrable, iron-clad "wall of separation" Pinch has at the Times?
The Trusts use the supposedly unbiased info provided by the Center to advocate leftist policy positions . The Trusts are not above manipulating public opinion by secretly funding sock-puppet organizations to create the false impression of a groundswell. Sorry Pew Center; you're known by the company you keep and the Leftists who buy your suits.
"When producers exercise that level of selectivity, the questions -- whoever initially formulated and recorded them -- actually are theirs."--Exactly. I don't agree with the author's Dobbs-conspiracy, but that is why CNN is responsible for the plants and trying to portray conservatives as fringe freaks through their selections.
(Yes Virginia, Bob Novak is a registered Democrat)
It's psychiatric.
Where else but in the Democrat cult could Bubba shagging the hired help be only about sex? Their slow-witted, cardboard ex-vice president making bizarre claims of inventing the internet, throwing his tantrum after losing in 2000, then be proclaimed Goracle the jet set high priest of the pseudo scientific Warmist Cult? Which on a few occasions this week has had meetings canceled by ice storms? Harry Reid and Pelosi realize they can't starve the troops out of Iraq so Reid makes his demented war is lost claim. Where else does a dubious hostage situation resolve just in time for network news broadcast with a certain candidate and her press lackeys eagerly awaiting to proclaim her as calm and presidential in a "crisis" a few hundred miles away? Careful with those railroad flares Eisenberg. You don't want to scorch any campaign literature. My cat was calm during the entire hostage incident therefore my cat must be equally qualified as angry Hillary to be president. Calm, cool and collected until feeding time when demands for swift action were vocalized. The feline's equivalent of Hil' throwing ashtrays at Bubba, I reckon'.
Much like Dan Rather, CNN refuses to accept that in the Internet Age the excrement they're used to shoveling the public is less easily de-scented when uncovered by sharper minds online monitoring the Leftist agit-prop. This evening's ABC radio news was little better than a blatant, free Hillary advertisement. I don't buy the excuses by Old Media that their "errors" are mere screw ups. Those screwups are contrivances justifiable in their poor Borderline Personality brains. A warped sense of entitlement consistent with a Sixties "if it feels good, do it" mindset. That same warped Lefty mindset which blames vast Right-wing conspiracies for inconvenient blue dresses, Karl Rove for Hurricane Katrina, or the Swift Boat veterans for revealing John Kerry's true nature faster than Lurch's refusal to release his military records after he was for it. Then there's Scott Beauchamp and Jayson Blair feeding the lies the New Republic and NY Times so desperately wished were true.
So there you have it. The Democrats lie incessantly because their minds require it as surely as an alcoholic must reach for his bottle. Once caught they suffer the very same withdrawal symptoms: distract, disparage, denial, claim it will never happen again, then they attempt to rationalize their psychiatric defect as good intentions. One only has to guess whether the rationalization will be "fake but accurate" or require a prolix 14 page explanation as the New Republic has proffered to explain their Beauchamp (Baghdad Diary) total fabrication. In the next Democrat debate expect CNN or other Lefty activist media to be reaching for that bottle of deception not so much to deceive others but to deceive themselves of the warped psychiatric force which now controls them. CNN, however, stays barely afloat because they have become the dealer which provides the daily fix for others dependent on those same Socialist lies. Pinch Sulzberger's folly is sinking much faster because those same scatterbrained Lefties realize there's an actual cost borne by them. It may only be pocket change but unless there's some government subsidy or freebie to purchase it for them they naturally must feel jilted and envious of those sneaky capitalist willing to pay their own way.
In its infancy, it made a deal with SAddam to spike negative stories about Iraq (you know ... about torture and the like) for continued access to the Iraqi regime in Baghdad.
So, with this culture it was created in, should it surprise anyone that such things happen today?
Because they are more than likely using fake or stolen ID's, social security numbers, driver licenses, etc., and they provide illegal labor. Comprenda? It's nothing but illegal, black market labor, nothing more. Hire the little brown people to mow your lawn, while you watch your HDTV and your country is taken over, one amigo at a time.
Jorge Bush, Miquel Medved, "Larry" Kudlow, etc. and the other moneyed liberals are so out of touch with the American people, it's laughable.
True enough, but flying the queer Brigadier all the way acroos the country and then picking him out of a large crowd, supposedly "at random" and allowing him to bleat his manifesto stretches incompetence a bit too thin for my particular tastes.
The rat smell is overpowering...
RG
Dobbs is not right on everything but by God at least he is willing to bring up topics that those mentioned above are too spineless or too payed off to even want to debate. It is not "nativist" nor "xenophobic", nor even just plain "mean-spirited' to insist on immigration enforcement. It's in fact patriotic to do so but then again, many of the transnational elites consider themselves "citizens of the world" and not truly American anymore.
I now completely concur with hunter_123's contention. The plant is an obvious idiot and a Dallas fan perhaps.
I've merely listed things which got the Dems booted and >the GOP in power.< That was the topic of this section of the thread to those capable of more than pasting the Dem talking points. If someone's memory banks are too fried to understand that they're probably too fried to notice the similarity between Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and Jim Wright and Nancy "Syria's envoy" Pelosi and Dan "untouchable" Rostenkowski. Empty suits in the Internet Age where media fabrications are insufficient to keep many in office except when their dupes are too busy watching Dallas.... or Michael Moore... or excusing William Jefferson / Ray Nagin to grasp history. Again, get the soap because the hippie sure could use a bath.
So if that issue was low-hanging fruit for the networks and blogs when the Dems were in the spotlight, why shouldn't CNN push it with the Republicans? It sure seemed like an issue that got the GOP all excited when HRC was the butt of the joke.
>But since you consider confederate flags, interpretation
>of the Bible, and other such non-Presidential tripe to be fair game
Tripe? No, those are the wedge issues that put the GOP in power. For me to say they matter and for you to scoff makes me the Republican and you the dirty hippy. I gotta lay down.
Torture is the new one.
Which ones are you taking off the table?
I could go on but bandwidth is limited and uncle and hunter summed it up nicely. Sniff, sniff. Let's start a soap fund for those smelly hippies.
Is this going to be like the show "Dallas" where "it was all a dream?"