The Marie Antoinette of CNN, Lou Dobbs, gets his wig lovingly powdered by Bill Carter and Jacques Steinberg in the New York Times this morning, and man-of-the-people (if not exactly "man of the demo") CNN prez Jon Klein weighs in, with his usual high-end nothingspeak, on the most suavely insufferable man in cable news:
The management of CNN denied yesterday that Mr. Dobbs's soaring profile on the immigration issue — and the increased ratings he has garnered along with it — would steer the network toward adding more opinions on other news programs.
"Lou's show is not a harbinger of things to come at CNN," said Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S. "He is sui generis, one of a kind."
And then there's this:
[Dobbs] said he did not believe that traditional objective journalism brought people closer to the truth. Asked if he himself knew what the truth was, Mr. Dobbs said: "I have strong feelings that I do. I have strong evidence I do."
Well, that's all you need in television news, I guess. Strong feelings. Specifically, strong feelings that the unwashed masses need to come around to Lou Dobbs' way of thinking. Call it the Jim Jones school of information management. Lou Dobbs believes very strongly that you need to drink his Kool-Aid if you would be saved.
