Lou Dobbs mystified by Obama-birth 'taboo'
'I don't know where the national media was in 2008 – or now'
by Joe Kovacs
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs says he’s mystified by an apparent “taboo” Republicans and the national media have as they continue to bury any question or news story probing the eligibility of Barack Obama to be president of the United States.
On Friday night’s edition of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network, the veteran broadcaster was having a political discussion with National Research founder Adam Geller.
“Let me ask you a question,” Dobbs said to Geller. “Why aren’t the Republicans talking about what was all over Drudge which is from 1991 to 2007, a publisher’s document talking about him being born in Kenya? I mean, there’s like there’s a taboo about it. How did this wall come up around that?”
Image from Breitbart.com
“The straightforward answer is,” Geller said, “by the time this is all said and done, there will be some entity that probably talks about that. But the reality is, the independents, the people in the middle, they care about one thing and one thing only: fix this economy. And as a corollary to that, let’s create some real private-sector jobs.”
“I buy all of that except for one thing,” Dobbs responded. “I don’t know where the national media was in 2008. I don’t know where it is now.”
The story on the Drudge Report to which Dobbs was referring is research by Breitbart.com and WND revealing a literary agent’s promotional brochure from two decades ago declared Barack Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.” Promotional material saying Obama was Kenyan-born remained online through 2007, as Obama began his presidential quest.
A video clip of the exchange has been posted at Media Matters.
This is not the first time Dobbs has touched on the subject of Obama’s eligibility.
In fact, as WND previously reported, his refusal to drop “birther” stories about challenges to Obama’s constitutional eligibility was reportedly a major source of contention with CNN management, leading the unconventional anchor to walk away from the network and lucrative paycheck.
The New York Post, citing anonymous sources, said the beginning of the end of a long-simmering dispute came in July 2009, when CNN President Jonathan Klein told Dobbs’ staff in a memo to stop reporting on lawsuits that demand Obama produce evidence he’s a natural-born American citizen, as required by the Constitution.
“It seems this story is dead because anyone who still is not convinced doesn’t really have a legitimate beef,” Klein’s memo said.
A source told the Post Klein’s move incensed Dobbs.
“They have been talking pretty regularly since then,” the source said. “And it’s been pretty bad.”
Dobbs, who also hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, told his radio audience in July 2009 that “even though I said I believe the president is a citizen of the United States, I don’t understand why he shouldn’t produce a birth certificate. My God, you’re talking about the third rail of American journalism, baby! That’s it. I’m not going to back off.” |
