Lou Dobbs Cures Leprosy

David Weigel | May 31, 2007

After pressure from newspaper writers and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lou Dobbs has apologized for the shaky (read: false) claim that Mexican migrants had brought with them a wave of leprosy infections. In fact, he'd relied on an old factoid by a less-than-entirely-credible scientist, Madeleine Cosman, who had overstated the leprosy rate by a factor of 10. So Dobbs walked back the report. Sort of.

Let's look at a few other issues, however, raised by The New York Times, including that columnist's statement that none of the enemies of the middle class, he said I said, "play a bigger role than illegal immigrants."

Well, again, that's just not true. I've made perfectly clear over the years that corporate power, expressed by lobbyists spending billions of dollars each year in Washington to influence both political parties and public policy, represents the greatest single threat to this nation's middle class.

That columnist also said I gave air time to white supremacists, and mentions one by name: Madeleine Cosman, who wrote the article that Christine Romans used as a source for her later leprosy statement.

The fact is, I made a mistake, and I've said we would never have used her as a source if we had known of her controversial background two years ago, at the time of the offending ad-lib. But the columnist fails to note that his own paper wrote a glowing obituary of Madeleine Cosman when she died last year.

Are there more reporters and interest groups trying to discredit Dobbs than your average, non-Buchananite talk show host? Absolutely. So why's Dobbs making their job so easy?

Comments

|5.31.07 @ 10:43AM|#

"[W]hy's Dobbs making their job so easy?"

....because there's no such thing as bad publicity?

|5.31.07 @ 10:46AM|#

That columnist also said I gave air time to white supremacists, and mentions one by name: Madeleine Cosman . . . [b]ut the columnist fails to note that his own paper wrote a glowing obituary of Madeleine Cosman when she died last year.

Of course, it's the responsibility of every single NYT columnist to be aware of every single editorial decision made by other departments at the paper and react accordingly. How dare this columnist fall down on the job like that!

|5.31.07 @ 10:51AM|#

If Dobbs were worth a damn he'd call it Hansen's Disease instead of the outdated "Leprosy" and remind folks that dispite conventional wisdom it's both easily treatable and not really contageous.

|5.31.07 @ 10:58AM|#

Evidently you've never had the "Extremity Burrito" at Qdobas.

Jack|5.31.07 @ 11:02AM|#

Much like Lou, I try the "if everyone's mad at me I must be doing something right" every time I'm arrested

It'll work eventually!

|5.31.07 @ 11:06AM|#

A few days ago, I clicked through to Cosman's obit in the NYTimes.

Embarassingly, it seems she was an Objectivist.

|5.31.07 @ 11:11AM|#

I'm amazed he was able to jump the shark, as crapulous as his girth is.

|5.31.07 @ 11:14AM|#

I used to (twenty years ago) think Lou Dobbs was a fairly smart guy. Maybe he suffered some sort of oxygen-deprivation brain damage while he was out in space.com.

Stephen the Goldberger|5.31.07 @ 11:19AM|#

He's just shell shocked from fighting "the war on the middle class".

|5.31.07 @ 12:00PM|#

less-than-entirely-credible scientist, Madeleine Cosman

David, she isn't a scientist, or even a medical doctor.

|5.31.07 @ 12:01PM|#

Lou Dobbs, the ICON of CNN, getting caught using questionable journalist methods?

Say it ain't so!

So... when will Dobbs do the honorable thing and join Dan Rather in Foot-In-Mouth Ex-Anchor Club?

|5.31.07 @ 12:09PM|#

OK so the astrophysical event, known as the Dobbsian implosion is overdue. I'm sure it will be spectacular and worth the wait when it finally arrives, any day now. However, the viewers responcible for over inflating Lou Dobbs, will remain to infect the land with their malicious ignorance.

|5.31.07 @ 12:39PM|#

I worked for 4 years at Northwestern High School in Prince George's County, Maryland. We had a very high percentage of illegals and MS13 in my school and a big big TB problem. I had to be tested for TB exposure at least three times when I was there due to student after student being diagnosed with active TB.

You may be giving Dobbs grief over the leporsy stats, but you realy can't be challenging the concept and reality that illegals are a health problem.

I've been through it personally. I feel Dobbs and his issue.

|5.31.07 @ 12:49PM|#

You may be giving Dobbs grief over the leporsy stats, but you realy can't be challenging the concept and reality that illegals are a health problem.

And this has to do with Dobbs' horrific reporting skillz and complete null value of credibility how?

I don't think that anyone is making the argument that illegals are a free lunch of nothing but good times, but conflating TB with leprosy is meaningless.

And NW is a punk compared to Parkdale and Oxon Hill.

|5.31.07 @ 1:47PM|#

"Embarassingly, it seems she was an Objectivist."

Yes, most Objectivists are embarassing.

Cesar|5.31.07 @ 2:13PM|#

I expect his implosion/Don Imus moment to happen when someone investigates him and finds that he is employing illegal gardeners/maids/nannies in his mansion.

|6.5.07 @ 10:06PM|#

Cesar, it's been long known in Colorado that Tom Tancredo hired a company that used illegals to work on his basement. Still doesn't stop him from pandering to the Minutemen and other Tanton-associated vermin.