I have to wonder how CNN's Lou Dobbs manages to pull in any kind of ratings these days. It's become such a tired schtick: Dobbs huffs and puffs and shakes his head at some kind of bureaucratic stupidity or liberal craziness or some awful crime committed by illegal immigrants. After awhile it just looks fake, because ya know what? It is fake. Dobbs constantly manufactures fake outrage. That's his schtick.
Now it's "the War on Christmas." Guess Dobbs, along with Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, is content to slither along Bill O'Reilly's slime trail.
And sure enough, near the end of the exchange, Dobbs says:
Dobbs: I've got to say -- it's an outrage, it's an outrage.
... Somebody needs to do something about it, I've gotta tell you.
... People have just got to wake up to what's happening in this country.
I'm sure they don't want to hear this (and would pay no mind if they did), but someone should tell them that nobody cares. Really. OK, there's a platoon of elderly koolaid drinkers who do everything BillO and Dobbs get them outraged about, but they're becoming just like their heroes: Irrelevant.
The only people who might make these rants relevant are the psychologically unstable haters out there in wingnutopia who decide to "do something about it" by acting out violently. Though no doubt, Dobbs will somehow find a way to blame illegal immigrants or liberals for that too.
People care about the economy. They care about getting our soldiers home. They care about fixing all the things right-wing basket cases talked the country into screwing up the past eight years. They could give a rip about meaningless local disputes about holiday displays. Really.
Maybe sooner or later, when the air goes out of those ratings, they'll finally figure that out. But I doubt it.
