It’s Alive! Is Lou Dobbs Back?

You may have noticed a rather odd fixation in our culture lately, and it’s anybody’s guess as to what it means: zombies and vampires are all over the recent TV and film offerings, and a cottage industry has grown out of the teen-vampire genre. Even comprehensive immigration reform seems increasingly stuck in this liminal state, recently so fashionable – it’s not quite dead! – and, perhaps, neither is Lou Dobbs’s career. When we last left Lou Dobbs,  (See MurthyBlog, A Change of Heart for Lou Dobbs?, Dec, 16, 2009), he was spending more time with his family after parting ways with his paymasters at CNN.

All this time off has given Mr. Dobbs a chance to rethink his position on immigration reform. As we noted recently, Dobbs has had some favorable remarks about the desirability of providing a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States.

Now comes January, 2010, and The Hill – a newspaper for Capitol Hill insiders – reports that Lou Dobbs may play a role in building bipartisan support for a comprehensive immigration reform bill. (See: Dems Reach Out to Lou Dobbs to Build Backing for Immigration Reform, by Alexander Bolton, The Hill, Jan 28, 2010.) According to The Hill, Senator Charles Schumer, a leading player in the Senate’s immigration reform efforts, met last week with Lou Dobbs to seek support for comprehensive immigration reform. The Hill reported that “[w]inning the support of Dobbs, who became a prominent critic of illegal immigration and proposals to grant amnesty to illegal workers, could provide a significant boost to reform efforts.” Senator Schumer was quick to point out that Mr. Dobbs’s thinking on immigration reform has been evolving, according to The Hill‘s account. If Mr. Dobbs can now support CIR in some form – despite his reputation as a sworn enemy of anything that smacks of “amnesty” – perhaps this will give some Republican senators the political cover they need to support a bipartisan reform effort. Perhaps if the moon is full…