I’m sitting here trying to watch Lou Dobbs, and as he goes from story to story ranting incoherently, sucking back in his dentures, I imagine this is what it was like to have a crazy grandfather at the holiday dinners. The cognitive dissonance of the contradictions as he whiplashes the audience from one topic to the other is just brutal, and there really are only three ways to watch him and maintain your sanity:
1.) Drink heavily.
2.) Pretend he is suffering from a multiple personality disorder, and that you should not try to balance what he said two minutes ago in a previous segment with what he is saying right now. Ditto for what he says two minutes from now.
3.) Every time he takes a pause, use the Davenoon approach to analysis and pretend that Dobbs has also said “I’m a crazy person” in between every sentence.
It really is pretty funny. “Obama isn’t doing enough for Wall Street!” Two minutes later: “Don’t bail out Wall Street! Why are we giving these shmucks more money!” then thirty seconds later feature a two minute segment in which you don’t even bother to wait to contradict yourself, you do it right then and there and insist that Obama listen to Warren Buffett, note Buffett’s own stock is down 39%, and then ignore the sound clip of Buffett saying the economy will be fine in five years anyway. Then chide Robert Gibbs for taking on an affected persona in his press conference, then sneer that “Isn’t change I can believe in!”
Lou Dobbs, standing athwart history shouting “Get off my grass, you Mexicans!”
srv
You did see this Defense of Rush against intolerant liberals?
Comrade Stuck
His whole show has become a bashpalloza on Obama. When Kitty Pilgrim does it on Fridays, it’s the same claptrap. It seems the Wingnut Bloggers who were running the Mccain campaign have found new work.
srv
And then there’s the new 14 year old whiz kid of the right.
Who brilliantly observes that Obama is the most left-wing president of his lifetime!
You can’t make this shit up!
Almost as good as that wingnut Kyle kid at WND, who went awol from the party line. Wonder what happened to him.
DRD 1812
I’m a schizophrenic, and so am I.
rob
I can’t stand to watch him- he is one crazy Mofo.
NonyNony
My laptop is lucky I wasn’t drinking anything by the time I got to this sentence.
But I don’t think I’ve read a more apt summary of Dobbs anywhere ever. That’s pretty much nailed it.
srv
Is that before or after they mowed the lawn?
Dennis-SGMM
I refuse to pay attention to anyone whose name sounds like that of a character in Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt.
On another note, Dobbs was born in 1945. He married his High School sweetheart in 1969.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
John, if you really need to watch an old white guy sucking his teeth, dump Lou for Jacques Pepin. Jacques has been cooking like an angel for a decades, is a sweetheart to work with, and you’ll actually learn something useful from him.
Just about all his tv shows stream for free here. I think I very much prefer Jacques’ approach to patriotism.
And even his tooth-sucking becomes endearing after a while.
Comrade Kevin
SPECIAL
PJTV Interview of Geert Wilders
Who will be next, Jean-Marie Le Pen? Nick Griffin?
AnotherBruce
You know, there is a lot of crap on TV. But at least I can kind of understand glitzy crap like "American Idol" where there is a bit of talent, drama and for the most part attractive people to look at. But why anybody wants to actually watch sour old men like Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck rant and bitch every night is beyond me. I know that their ratings are mostly in the toilet, but there are apparently hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are so in the toilet that they watch these guys on a nightly basis. Christ, they oughtta go out once in awhile. Or at least do something more attractive and useful like cleaning the bathroom.
gnomedad
Meme synthesis of the millennium!
Rick Taylor
Simon Johnson on Fresh Air saying what he thinks should happen to the banks. I’m in no position to judge, but he certainly makes it sound straightforward.
Dennis-SGMM
@Comrade Kevin:
The dumb bastards at PJTV could make millions if they did pay-per-views of Wilders and those others being kicked in the junk. They could make even more millions by putting the position of junk-kicker up for bid on EBay.
Doctor Cleveland
You watch him with the sound on?
Why?
I only see him at the gym, because I can’t avoid the screens there, and he’s muted. Just watching Dobbs’s face without hearing the words is instructive: you’re clearly watching someone pathological.
Comrade Stuck
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
Yes, but you don’t have an Alabama.
Comrade MattF
@Comrade Mary
"If you want freedom, you have to cook ahead". Yessss.
MikeJ
OT, but since John seems to think we’re near peak wingnut, politico (which I never actually read) reports that the GOP may be near bottoming out. If they mean dragging their undercarriage along the pavement or more of a BDSM milieu, I don’t know.
Wile E. Quixote
I prefer Lou’s cooler older brother, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs myself. He’s the real surreal deal!
donovong
Watching Dobbs (or Hannity or O Really? or Glenn Butt) is something I would do only when intentionally hitting my thumb with a hammer is no longer painful. Only then could I stand to sit though any of it.
Dennis-SGMM
@Wile E. Quixote:
Not to mention their grandfather, Fred C. Dobbs, whose immortal "Nobody makes a fool of Fred C. Dobbs!" has so inspired us through the years.
camchuck
Well said John. I’m imagining Jack Cafferty reading your rant on the air. I would pay top dollar to see such a thing.
Comrade Jake
The polls are the best:
"Which would you rather have running the country: Republicans in Congress or evil Chinese communists who threaten to take over our entire way of life?"
90% of you said you want Republicans to run the country.
Ricky Bobby
You could scrape the self tanner and make-up off that fat fucker’s face and spackle shut a levy down in Naw’lins if you were so inclined…
Just play him on a loop in Gitmo, worse than enduring those dying rabbit screams.
Thanks for protecting us from all the lawnmower riders Lou, you are a true patriot!
gnomedad
@srv:
Krohn / Dobbs 2012!
Extremely Silly Party ticket of the week.
El Cid
How to Read Donald Duck.
Carol A.
Your comparison of listening to Lou Dobbs rant and listening to a crazy-talking relative made me laugh out loud. Watching his show is torture; even my conservative, Republican 85-year-old mother can’t stand it, and that’s saying something! Like Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, Limbaugh and other conservative wacko-jobs, Dobbs is an entertainer. He has no credibility. He doesn’t care what he says, the veracity of it, or how he says it, just as long as it draws attention of viewers. As long as we watch, listen, talk about, read about, blog about or react to him, Dobbs wins. The only thing that will kill the beastly blowhard is to tune out and ignore him completely. If people refused to tune in his show would die, and he would fade away. I’m working on that.
Church Lady
When I got to the last sentence, I think I peed myself just a little. Good stuff.
used to be disgusted
I can watch Fox, if it’s on at the gym. I just reverse everything they’re saying, and read it as a symptom.
But I can’t watch Dobbs. He doesn’t *have* a point of view, he just has a sneer that he applies to everything. Kitty Pilgrim is, if possible, worse, because her sneer is even less authentic.
Comrade Jake
It was a good deal of fun to watch Dobbs’ face on election night on CNN. He was clearly upset Obama had won. I suspect that for a brief moment there, he considered the possibility that his worldview was backwards.
Of course, the moment was brief.
Anton Sirius
I heart Smilin’ Lou.
He’s like a senile, rather dim Howard Beale. "I’m mad as hell, and I want crab cakes!" He’s simply impossible to take seriously.
Farley
I just put on my Tom Servo costume and MST3K him, while drinking, until the room starts to sway.
MikeJ
Farley, TMI.
Anton Sirius
Kitty Pilgrim, though… ugh. I can’t imagine what sort of childhood trauma would make someone model their personality after Patricia Neal’s performance in the Fountainhead, but there she is.
Bob In Pacifica
"Get off my lawn, Mexicans." That would be after they mow it for him, right?
Honestly, when I come across him I just keep clicking. I rarely seek news on television, and there is absolutely no reason to use an asshole as your filter to the world.
cleek
FFS, dude…
i get that you watching this stuff provides the fodder that you use to entertain us… but, for your own health, you gotta lay off this MSM nonsense. they are for stupid people. and you’re not stupid.
Just Some Fuckhead
Maybe he’s yelling at his twin daughters.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
there really are only three ways to watch him and maintain your sanity:
…A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
GP
That piece of shit dobbs needs to go work at fox news. That sack would fit right in..
justaguy2
I refuse to subscribe to cable.
Whenever I do see cable news programs I’m shocked speechless. Why do you give your money to these people?
You don’t have to watch cable to be properly informed or entertained.
Until they offer a la carte cable, I’m happier without it.
GP
Oh and by the way FUCK YOU LOU
kommrade reproductive vigor
@MikeJ: The latter. Definitely the latter, with Rush as the dom.
Note: KRV(C) is not responsible for any mental or emotional trauma sustained by mental images of Rush "Man-mary Glands" Limbaugh clad in leather drag.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
Lou Dobbs is a ratings whore, a liar, and a boor.
Why anyone would watch him, I have no idea.
les
@srv:
Thanks; that was funny as hell.
Mouse Tolliver
Lou Dobbs & the ghoulie that pops out of the toilet — separated at birth?
TenguPhule
Two seconds later, "Hey wait! You missed a spot!"
redbeardjim
He’ll forever be LOUD OBBS to me (h/t to Merkin Patriot on an Atrios thread a while back).
mclaren
Dobbs is a wack job, but he’s one of the only populist voices anywhere in the media. Dobbs is just about the only media personality you will ever see or hear anywhere who rails against outsourcing all America’s high-wage jobs (and most of our low-wage service jobs) overseas. If you look at the rest of the media, they’ve all decided they’re just fine with America shipping every programming job and every engineering job and every medical tech job and every data analysis job and every graphics design job and every materials science job and every math job and every statistical analysis job and every accounting job overseas to the third world, leaving America as a nation of xerox clerks and Starbucks baristas.
Also — if you’ve never lived in Southern California, you won’t understand why Dobbs keeps hammering away about illegal immigrants. That said, Dobbs is still clueless…because if Mexico shut off out-migration across the border into AZ and NM and TX and CA today, their government would have a revolution tomorrow. So the illegal immigrant situation in the American Southwest is godawful, and its destroying American jobs, and it’s overwhelming social services in the southwestern border states — but the alternative is worse.
Emma
Thank God I’m not the only one who was getting cognitive whiplash — I was starting to think my English teachers had failed me somehow. One minute he would be ranting about how we should make corporations stop outsourcing jobs, and two seconds later he would be telling you why "forcing" a corporation to do anything would be the worst possible thing the government could do.
28 Percent
I do not know what you are talking about John Cole if that is you’re real name. It makes perfect sense do not give the banks taxpayer money who knows better how to deposit your money you or the government? And the banks should fail if they do not fail how will they learn? And also stop punishingn the rich that is all LIEBERAL LIES that the rich are responsible who do you think gives you your job poor people? They can not afford to pay you only the rich can do that so it is important to not take there money away or how will they hire people they will not and we will all lose are jobs. It is time to stop the madnes and get the banks back in business it is not right for the government to shut them down and cause so much problems by not giving them back the money they need.