The title of this discussion, “Lou Dobbs: Populist or Prejudiced,” presupposes that these are mutually exclusive terms. In fact, this country has  a long history of prejudiced populism, from Theodore Roosevelt to George Wallace and beyond. Lou Dobbs is a prejudiced populist. His reaction to immigration is so obsessive, so overwrought, so irrational that it can only be explained in terms of bigotry. His wildly inaccurate account of illegal immigrants spreading leprosy is an example of what happens when journalism is dictated by fear, ignorance, and rage, the combustible elements of bigotry. The dirty secret of the debate on immigration is that so much of it is racially motivated. In a way, Dobbs is spreading his own kind of leprosy. 

His timing could not be better. The Republican strategy of diverting public attention from the Iraq war by scapegoating illegal immigration has been enormously successful. “Lou Dobbs Tonight” is both symptom and cause, dehumanizing the designated scapegoat. Once again the powerless pay for the sins of the powerful. So-called illegal immigrants did not start the war in Iraq, draining untold billions from the economy, nor have they eroded civil liberties in this country, yet immigrants shoulder the burden of blame and resentment for the deterioration of the social fabric.

Dobbs’s compassion for working people stops cold if those working people happen to cross the border without legal authority. He piously informs us that these immigrants have broken the law, as if that were the last word on the subject. Yet the law should serve the interests of justice. The law of immigration is unjust and unchanging (imagine Congress, in the current political climate, granting amnesty). People seeking social and economic justice have always violated unjust law, and always will, no matter how many times Lou Dobbs sputters about the leprosy germs in our tacos. 

In the end, satire may be the best response to Lou Dobbs. But how do we parody a man who constantly parodies himself? I’m willing to try. I’m mailing Dobbs a copy of “War of the Worlds,” in the faint hope that I may convince him to chase the other aliens – the ones from Mars.