Miscellaneous

Lou Dobbs Nearly Flushes Career

If there's one news anchor that I absolutely cannot abide by, it's fucking Lou Dobbs. the gas-baggiest windbag on cable news this side of Bill O'Reilly (who is at least a little more open about his political leanings). Dobbs has disgracefully created a second career for himself out of the immigration issue, basically advocating the rounding-up and torching of immigrants.

Anyway, the video above features Lou Dobbs halting mid-statement before he fully utters "cotton pickin'". Now, if he were discussing anything else -- say Wall Street -- using the term would probably go unnoticed. It's a fairly innocuous expression, and until I saw this video, the obvious never occurred to me, namely that it's a expression with slavery origins. Which is why, in the context of a discussion about race, Dobbs catches himself here (at the 1:25 mark) after "cotton ..." and then a light flicks on in his head, and you can almost see what's churning through his mind: "Nappy-headed hos, Don Imus, the end of his career" and he miraculously saves himself.

Either that, or he just highlighted his near-gaffe, where it otherwise may not have been noticed. Or would it have? I dunno. I have to say: It's kind of tough being a assbag news anchor who goes off the teleprompter ... and I actually commend the guy for catching himself because, in that half second, he realizes it could be construed as a racist statement in this context and he not-so-smoothly pulls out of the tailspin.

Full post as published by Quiz Law on April 02, 2008 (boomark / email).