Lou Dobbs, mi casa es su casa

Night after night, millions of people tune into CNN to watch this supposed warrior for the Middle Class. They rushed out to buy his book. They send him fawning emails thanking him for his "sky is falling" warnings about the little brown horde. I wouldn't call him shrill, but he does scrape the bottom often during his broadcasts. One of his favorite tactics (though not his alone, virtually every network "news" program does likewise) is whenever undocumented workers are mentioned (you know, illegals) they immediately cut away to a shot of 4 or 5 guys climbing through a hole in a fence, on their way to (in random order) rape your daughters, kill your parents in a drunken car crash, infest your neighborhood with all manner of third world maladies, or, if you are lucky, just take your job. He justifies his xenophobic rhetoric by hiding behind "National Security, and his heartfelt desire to protect the middle class worker." I'm not going to bore both of my readers by rehashing that right now, except to say, ok, let's for one minute agree that we should seal the border tight, until we have dealt with the 14-20 million undocumented people already here. Bear in mind, that is a HUGE concession, but I'll make it, for the time being. This is where he loses me completely, and according to this article, and this article, and this article, this is where the GOP completely lost the opportunity to keep the roughly 42% of Hispanic voters that voted for George W. Bush. And what an opportunity it was. Had they undertaken the task with some guidance from, I don't know, actual Hispanics?, and with a measure of compassion, they could have solidified the perception that they are the Party of National Security, and kept at least a portion of incoming immigrants locked into some form of indentured servitude, and retained a large bloc of Hispanic voters. What did they do instead? They let foaming at the mouth on-air "personalities" like Dobbs frame the debate. And boy did they. In their self-righteous slathering about rule of law, they rejected any solution short of wholesale deportation, and cried Amnesty! Amnesty! all the way to and through the mid-term elections. The result? An ass-kicking 69 percent, wait, let me repeat that, because it's a litte like holding a caramel on your tongue for a minute...69 percent of Hispanics voted for DEMOCRATS. By the way, Lou, those are your numbers, I took them right off my TV screen. Now, of those voting, (which, by the way, the number of Latino voters in this midterm set a record) 69 percent said the main issue for them was immigration, compared to 29 percent of non-latino voters. I'm going to borrow my daughters favorite retort here, "well, DUH." Having lived through this before, (California has had a number of would- be politicians attempt to build a career on the backs of Latinos) I saw this coming, in my sleep. Oh sure, for awhile, the cute slogans work, but, eventually, the American public snaps to the fact that no viable solutions are being offered, only hateful propaganda. In addition, many of them know Latino people, and embrace some of the culture. Some, God forbid, actually learn to speak a little Spanish so they might interact with them. I shed no tears for the Republican Party, they brought this on themselves. Again.

Lou, if you are truly a guardian of the Middle Class, do an expose' on credit card and banking practices, for starters. If you truly believe that the American worker can outperform all others (as I do) then work to level the playing field, so that they have no exploitable pool of workers with whom they must compete. Get on board with a minimum wage increase, and while you're at it, show some love for the Unions. We are a forgiving people, amigo, and will gladly open our homes to you, and show you just how much we bring to the American way of life.