CNN's Lou Dobbs Gets Last Laugh on Lesley Stahl of CBS

Jim Capo
JBS
Thursday May 10, 2007 

Informative reporting by Lou Dobbs on illegal immigration and plans to merge the United States with Mexico and Canada ala the European Union have struck a cord with Americans across the country. The TV ratings for his CNN show continue to climb rapidly. Someone at CBS news decided it was time to have a chat with their rival. Lesley Stahl, ace news journalist on 60 Minutes, got the call. She took her assignment up with apparant enthusiasm, but a fateful lack of awareness.

Taking her own self far too seriously, Ms. Stahl turned up her nose at Mr. Dobbs for being an "advocacy" journalist given to presenting his own view of reality in the place of "fair and balanced" reporting.  

There is nothing funnier though than watching an oblivious hypocrite in action. Treat yourself to a few examples of what ace CBS news journalist Lesley Stahl considers "fair and balanced" reporting....

Her lead intro line to the interview with the "mad-as-hell" news anchor Dobbs:

If you're looking for your traditional, detached, impartial news show, do not come knocking on Lou Dobbs' door. His show on CNN has become a nightly rage fest.

Her decision to use the "fair and balanced" Southern Poverty Law Center to put words into Mr. Dobbs mouth:

But that does not sort of give one the go-ahead to say that, you know, "These are a group of rapists and disease-carrying people who are coming to, you know, essentially destroy the culture of this country." You know, I think that's a long leap, Potok says.

After developing the perception early on that Mr. Dobbs' position on illegal immigration might have something to do with racism, towards the end of the interview Stahl lets on:

...there's something even more surprising, something he never brings up: the fact that his wife Debi is Mexican-American.

Hmmmmm, maybe the detractors of Mr. Dobbs might be way off base trying to play the race card against him? No, apparently this did not occur to the just the facts ma'am Stahl. Here is how she saw it, in her own reality:

Given his family, the crusade against illegal immigrants may seem like a disconnect. But Dobbs is full of contradictions...

(That is, Dobbs, the racist-misogynist, is full of contradictions not the "report" Ms. Stahl is providing us.)

Much earlier, before we were told about the ethnicity of Mr. Dobbs' wife, who he has been happily married to for over 25 years, here is how the fair-minded Ms. Stahl describes the 300-acre New Jersey horse farm that the successful Dobb's lives on with his extended family:

The farm is sort of a compound. He lives there with 25 horses, four dogs, a cat, his wife, his 97-year-old mother, and his wife's parents, the in-laws.

Again, back in Ms. Stahl's objective reality, if you take care of your 97-year-old mother and your Hispanic in-laws all on the same piece of property, what else can we call your homestead but a compound? Perhaps Ms. Stahl found the dogs to be particularly fierce?

Should we be amazed that Ms. Stahl apparently takes herself seriously on the topic of objective reporting? Probably not.  Lou Dobbs got the last laugh on her though. At the end of the interview Ms. Stahl and the 60 Minutes news team had to confess with an endnote what kind of in-depth research they put into their hard hitting report on their "advocacy" journalist target:

While Stahl was talking to Dobbs, unbeknownst to 60 Minutes, he was talking to CBS News and has now joined The Early Show as a weekly commentator.

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