Lou Dobbs Citing Extremists, Again
Lou Dobbs, the CNN host who has been frequently for turning his program, 鈥淟ou Dobbs Tonight,鈥� into a forum for anti-immigrant extremists, is at it again. In the past few months, Dobbs has aired six different reports featuring anti-immigrant activist Rick Oltman of (CAPS). The reports, all narrated by CNN correspondent Casey Wian, primarily discussed California鈥檚 budget woes, with Oltman blaming them on undocumented workers.
If Wian had conducted a simple Web search for Oltman, he would have dug up a laundry list of Oltman鈥檚 extremist activities. For example, Wian would have quickly found out that in 1998, Oltman, who was then the western regional representative for the (FAIR), to Cullman, Ala., for a protest against a swelling local population of Mexican workers. The event was put on by the white supremacist (CCC), which 鈥渙ppose[s] all efforts to mix the races of mankind,鈥� and featured an unrobed Klansman burning a Mexican flag. In the CCC鈥檚 ad for the event, Oltman was described as a member of that group. There also is a that has been available on the Web since last year of Oltman participating in a 1997 CCC conference panel entitled, 鈥淚mmigration: Are We Being Overrun?,鈥� which ran in the group鈥檚 in-house publication, Citizens Informer.
Wian can鈥檛 claim ignorance of the CCC. In 2006, during a that Wian was narrating on 鈥淟ou Dobbs Tonight鈥� about a state visit by Mexico鈥檚 then-president Vicente Fox, a graphic appeared of 鈥淎ztlan,鈥� the southwestern portion of the current United States that conspiracy theorists claim Mexico is secretly plotting to 鈥渞econquer鈥� with the aid of 鈥渋nvading鈥� Mexican immigrants. Wian joked as the image was aired: 鈥淵ou could call this the Vicente Fox Aztlan tour, since the three states he鈥檒l visit 鈥� Utah, Washington, and California 鈥� are all part of some radical group鈥檚 vision of the mythical indigenous homeland.鈥� CNN鈥檚 accompanying full-screen map depicting 鈥淎ztlan鈥� was prominently sourced to the CCC, causing widespread criticism of Dobbs for relying on hate group material. A spokesman for Dobbs went on the record shortly afterward saying that the producer who had found and used the hate group map was 鈥渄isciplined鈥� as a result.
If Wian had searched further into CAPS and Oltman, he would also have found that the group Oltman now works for, CAPS, funding in 2002 from the race science outfit the Pioneer Fund. Set up in 1937 to 鈥渋mprove the character of the American people鈥� by promoting the study of eugenics and the procreation of descendants of the original white colonial stock, Pioneer has funded many of the leading Anglo-American race scientists of the last several decades. Pioneer also has funded a few other anti-immigration groups besides CAPS, furnishing FAIR more than $1.2 million between 1985 and 1994, and giving ProjectUSA, a group known for putting up anti-immigrant billboards in New York City and run by Craig Nelsen, $10,000 in 2002.
Wian might even have figured out that CAPS has worked closely with other hate groups. Last October, CAPS and the , listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, co-hosted a press conference at the National Press Club on 鈥淗ow Many Illegal Aliens are in the U.S.?鈥� CAPS President Diana Hull with , who edits the press鈥� journal The Social Contract. Few members of the radical right have a longer hate resume than Lutton, who has been published in the Holocaust-denying Journal of Historical Review, served as an editorial board member for the CCC鈥檚 Citizens Informer, and co-wrote an anti-immigrant screed, The Immigration Invasion, that has been seized as hate material in Canada. Under Lutton鈥檚 purview, The Social Contract has published dozens of white nationalists and put out a special issue that was entitled 鈥淓urophobia: The Hostility Toward European-Descended Americans.鈥� The lead article argued that 鈥渕ulticulturalism鈥� was replacing 鈥渟uccessful Euro-American culture鈥� with 鈥渄ysfunctional Third World cultures.鈥�
Other popular anti-immigration folks featured on Dobbs鈥� show in the last year include Dan Stein and Ira Mehlman of FAIR, which the Southern Poverty Law Center began as a hate group in 2007 and whose founder, , has spoken of a 鈥淟atin onslaught鈥� and questioned the 鈥渆ducability鈥� of Latino immigrants. Dobbs has also featured officials from the , an organization that describes itself as 鈥渁n independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization,鈥� but which is an anti-immigration group originally conceived of by Tanton and founded as part of FAIR. CIS Dobbs its 2004 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration.
