Lou Dobbs is a Racist Pig

UPDATE: Oops. Jeff beat me to it, but I typed out the transcript, so I'll leave this one up for my Shaker deafies.

Not exactly news, I know—but even despite his well-known reputation, it's sickeningly hilarious to hear him stumble away from using "cotton-picking" in the middle of a tirade about how black politicians (like the named Condi Rice and unnamed Barack Obama) shouldn't be the "moderator" on a national discussion of race. Presumably because a hero of race relations like him should be.



[Transcript and commentary below.]

Blitzer: …check in with Lou, uh, he's got a show coming up in about an hour, but I want to pick his brain on some intriguing comments from Condoleezza Rice involving race in our country. You saw what she said?

Dobbs: I saw what she said, that the United States has a "birth defect" on the issue of race. Uh, I think it's really unfortunate that Secretary of State Rice believes as she does. The fact is, most Americans don't have a problem talking about race. What we have is a problem, uh, talking about race without fearing, uh, recrimination and distortion, uh, and someone using whatever comments are made for their own, uh, purposes, usually political purposes.

The reality is, this is the most socially, ethnically, religiously, racially diverse society on the face of the earth. Now, Wolf, we don't make enough of that in the national media; we listen to some idiot say "You can't talk about race" or "There ought to be these responses when you talk about race or ethnicity." And too often, in fact, nearly always, we fail to point out that there is no country on the face of the earth as progressive, as racially and ethnically diverse, as our own.

It's something for us to be proud of. And if any—and to hear a politician, whoever it may be, talk about how difficult it is to talk about race, well, the heck with 'em! We're living with the issue of race; we've gotta be able to talk about it. And I can guarantee you this: Not a single one of these cotton—myah—these—just—ridiculous politicians should be the moderator on the issue of race. We have to have a far better discussion than that.

Blitzer: Lou, we'll see you back here in one hour. Thanks very much.

Dobbs: You got it.

The irony would be delicious if it weren't so nauseating.

I love, by the way, how Dobbs: King of the Strawmen casts Rice's comments (and, obliquely, Obama's) as some sort of PC-policing, telling "most Americans" (i.e. whites) that they can't talk about race except in specific and rigidly-defined ways acceptable to people of color—as opposed to reality, in which Rice and Obama were both addressing not "race" generally so much as institutionalized racism and exhorting people to consider their nation's difficult and complex history with regard to race.

Tomato tomahto.

Also kudos for his taking a brave stance on noting that "most Americans" (i.e. whites) "don't have a problem talking about race" except insomuch as they fear "recrimination and distortion." Uh-huh. It's too bad "most Americans" can't make their astute observations about race—like "nappy-headed hos"—without some cotton-picking brown person using it against them!