Lou Dobbs has died

[ex-khobar Andy]

I missed this - happened a few days ago and other noise may have drowned it out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/18/busi ... -dead.html

When he was on CNN maybe 20 years ago, he seemed like a reasonably rational person. Not unlike Tucker Carlson in that respect. I'm not saying I liked him or even agreed with him often, but he was probably mainstream Republican.

And then he went, IMHO and pretty suddenly, loopy. Which begs the question: was he always like that but had managed to subsume his real personalty to CNN norms? Or did he just become a conspiracy theorist (Obama birthplace, Democrats sabotaging voting machines, etc) because that was a condition of employment at Fox News and beyond?

[Big RR]

I recall him on early 20/20 episodes and thought he was OK; when he got to CNN I always thought he was a little over the top, but still sane. I think what happened to him was that he saw the only way right wing journalists were paid attention to was when they spouted off the idiocy the loony far right wanted to hear--and he excelled in that (from reports I read, I don't recall watching Fox much, nor seeing him on Fox). People wanted conspiracy theories and he loved spouting them as the whole truth. Was it his real personality or an act? I imagine the latter, but it really doesn't matter--he lost any legitimacy as a journalist.