There are reports that CNN's Paula Zahn, a beautiful and sensible host, is being replaced by Campbell Brown of NBC News. However, that's not the alarming part. (Excerpt) Imagine an nightly newscast filled with almost nothing but nativist resentment of immigrants and dubious opinion about the so-called "costs" of immigration. I certainly hope that it isn't true that Dobbs will host CNN's evening news. It would be a disaster for diversity and openness in America. See: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser...imeslot_as_campbell_brown_joins_cnn_61101.asp
Uh, enty, Dobbs is a lefty-nativist. We have 'em, we've always had 'em. He's an idiot on immigration, but that's a position that largely cuts across the normal left-right divide, even if it's more common on one side than the other.
Interesting comments, Liet. For me, the most important current political issue is hatred of immigrants, because I think that it exposes a very ugly side of America. To the extent that both the left and the right, as you claim, manifest this deep-seated phobia, it remains necessary for progressive forces to rise to the occasion and defend decency from this nativist bent. Dobbs may or may not otherwise be liberal, but on mmigration, he is right-wing, in part because it is the extreme right that has always most vociferously opposed progress toward a more unified country and a better and more socially integrated world. Whatever his supposed liberal tendencies, Dobbs served time commenting on his corporate idols -- he was originally CNN's business anchor -- and thus he might have subconsciously assimilated the proto-fascist consciousness of the Wall Street types on which his livelihood depended. This worship of power -- and you see quite a lot of it on the right -- is also evident as a subconscious motive in nativist hatred of immigrants. I leave it to you to draw the necessary conclusions, if any. Of all the major networks today, CNN was in the best position to dispute the white-supremacist fantasies that serve as the primary engines of anti-immigrantism. CNN was still the only network that avoided airing the views of Michelle Malkin, whose anti-immigrant screeds are carried with apparent approval by that seemingly supremacist-tolerant website, VDare.com, or Ann Coulter, or Michael Savage (who at one time hosted a program on the supposedly liberal MSNBC), or any others of their regrettable mien. CNN, of all networks, was still relatively respectable, despite the presence of Dobbs' daily diatribes. Now all of that is put to the test. Will CNN keep its sanity, or will it, instead, defer to the demagoguery of the daft? Only time will tell, but the signs are not exactly encouraging.
