media

Now, there's a surprise: Another Lou Dobbs report, another round of Bizarro Universe Journalism!

Dobbs and his regular partner in dubious journalism, Casey Wian, yesterday filed a report on the Dreams Train -- purportedly in the "regular news" portion of Dobbs' daily CNN broadcast, though you'd never be able to tell this "reportage" from the punditry that Dobbs likes to reserve for his second half -- that was, well, simply a train wreck in terms of journalistic fairness, accuracy, or general truthfulness.

[Cross-posted from earlier this week at Orcinus.]

If you want to see how extremist-right talking points work their way into the mainstream of our political discourse and eventually attain "conventional wisdom" status, watch how Lou Dobbs' phony leprosy statistics continue to be repeated and given official media imprimatur.

Last week, on MSNBC's Scarborough Country, host Joe Scarborough had the following exchange with Patrick Buchanan (whose descent into unreprentant extremism has already been remarked):

SCARBOROUGH: Now, Pat, let me stop you right there, and let me ask you this question...