CNN's Lou Dobbs has come under fire for recent comments he made suggesting President Obama might be undocumented, and that, as a result, Obama's presidency and his actions as president could be deemed "illegal."
It seems Dobbs has no intention of backing down in the face of accusations that he is helping to keep alive the conspiracy theories promoted by the Obama 'birthers.' On his radio show today, Dobbs claimed the left and "ethnocentric issue groups" are trying to silence him and adamantly reiterated that Obama should produce his birth certificate:
The left is trying to silence their opponents and their competitors in the public marketplace of ideas... One issue in which the ethnocentric issue groups have been trying to silence me is on the issue of illegal immigration. Many of those, if you will, have migrated to me here recently because I, even though I said I believe the President is a citizen of the United States, I don't understand why he shouldn't produce a birth certificate. My God, you're talking about the third rail of American journalism, baby! That's it. I'm not going to back off.
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Dobbs also took a shot at MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, slamming her for "lying" about him and "not being intellectually honest" regarding his Obama birth certificate statements. He also referred to her as the "tea-bagging queen":
And tea-bagging queen Rachel Maddow over at MSNBC, she wanted another shot so apparently she twisted, she tried to twist my words. She ignored my statements on the issue. In other words, she was not being intellectually honest. Imagine that. [...] She lied. I never said I'm a 'birther.' I'm not. I don't know how many times I've said, 'Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States. Why not release your birth certificate?' What is the big deal with saying that?
Dobbs took time out on the air to thank Fox News' Bill O'Reilly for defending his free-speech rights although O'Reilly dismissed the "bogus" birther movement, reports the LA Times' Show Tracker blog:
"He and I disagree on that, but I appreciate Bill O'Reilly being a stand-up guy," Dobbs said.
TPM has a good round-up detailing how some of Obama's detractors have adopted an increasingly racially-charged tone in their critiques.
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