Lou Dobbs: Immigration 'hypocrite' or liberal-media target?

Anti–illegal immigration crusader Lou Dobbs knowingly had illegal immigrants tending to his show-jumping horses and the grounds of his multiple estates, according to a yearlong investigation by Isabel Macdonald in The Nation. Dobbs, on his radio show and in an MSNBC face-off with Macdonald, denied that he or his Dobbs Group had directly hired illegal immigrants and called the article a "fairly typical hit piece" by the liberal magazine. Is it, or is Dobbs, as The Nation claims, an "American hypocrite"? (Watch a report by The Nation about the investigation)

Of course Dobbs is a hypocrite: Frankly, says Andrew Leonard in Salon, I'm surprised "it took this long to hoist Dobbs on his own vile, demagoguing, nativist petard." Every "multimillion-dollar estate" in the U.S. probably employs undocumented workers, and every estate with thoroughbred horses is even more likely to do so. Still, given the "sputtering" rage Dobbs poured nightly on those who employ illegal immigrants, this unmasking is something "special."

"Lou Dobbs' illegal immigrants"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

This is a classic smear job: Anyone who says that Dobbs hired "illegal aliens" is either a lazy reader or "intentionally lying," says the anti-immigration site 24ahead. Not even Macdonald makes that claim. If there were any illegal workers, they were hired by his contractors. All this story proves is that "you can't trust the illegal immigration-supporting establishment."

"Isabel MacDonald admits Lou Dobbs didn't hire illegal aliens"

We're all guilty of Dobbs' sins: Whether or not "Dobbs knowingly hired illegal immigrants," says Steven L. Taylor at Outside the Beltway, "I think he is smart enough to at least have had serious suspicions." So his real hypocrisy is profiting from his "demagoguery and fantasy" about illegal labor even as he understands how much he "is the direct beneficiary of such labor." The reality is that if you eat out, or have your house worked on, you, too, are a beneficiary.

"The Dobbs story and what it really says..."