01/09/2010
H/T RC who sent me this startling You Tube clip of Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly piously sweeping their skirts away from any possibility of stain by patriotic immigration reform movement. It ran January 7. There’s a good discussion by Glenn Spencer of American Patrol here.
VDARE.COM readers know that we never regarded Dobbs as anything other a modestly good thing, partly because of his habit of trying to buy cover by praising legal immigration. (Which didn’t work, of course). O'Reilly has been even less of a factor in the immigration debate in recent years, although I remain grateful for his support on my Teacher Union book. (Dobbs kept scheduling and cancelling and eventually went away. Stuff happens).
But this interview is appalling. Both O'Reilly and Dobbs agree that the current illegal immigration population cannot be deported ("absolutely not", says Dobbs), with no discussion of the attrition option. Dobbs flat-out endorses amnesty and a guest-worker program and seems to be suggesting tripling legal immigration, an idea he’s flirted with before. (It’s hard to tell because O'Reilly, typically, keeps interrupting him). In his introduction, O'Reilly is quite clearly shaping up to do the same ("now we have the border fence" — what border fence?), even speaking favorably of the recently-introduced Guterierrez Reconquista Acceleration Bill.
To me as a long-time print journalist, it’s always amazing how careless with facts these TV talking heads are. Dobbs said there are three million legal immigrants a year (it’s actually about a million). O'Reilly seems not to realize that legal immigrants can sponsor in their relatives. Both confuse legal immigration with citizenship. On legal immigration especially, they just don’t know what they're talking about. And it doesn’t matter.
Based on this performance, I'd guess that Dobbs does indeed plan to run for office, but has put himself in the hands of conventional, difference-minimizing Karl Rove-type political consultants who have talked him into the usual grovelling. It won’t work as well for Dobbs as a Jesse-Helms style polarizing campaign on immigration, but it’s all they know, or care to know.
The broader point: put not your trust in [Main Stream Media] princes. As I've noted before, any deviation from the immigration enthusiast party line is met with such intense pressure from peer groups and publishers that as a practical matter no-one who wants to survive in the MSM can stand it.
Only the alternative media, like VDARE.COM, can carry this issue. There is no other way. That’s why I am so grateful to those of you who helped us in our Christmas fundraising drive.
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