Loony loopy Lou

If you're a fan of reasoned, evenhanded debate, you've probably never seen Lou Dobbs' show on CNN.

Actually, I take that back. If you're a fan of reasoned, evenhanded debate, you've probably seen the show, but you actively avoid it.

And if that's true, then you likely missed Lou's latest grandstanding stunt. From the Business & Media Institute:

The “Lou Dobbs Tonight” host placed the blame for the recent salmonella outbreak squarely on President George W. Bush, calling for his impeachment on the June 19 broadcast. Contaminated tomatoes from an unknown source or sources have sickened 383 people since April, according to the Associated Press.

According to the article, in the runup over the last few days to his groundbreaking agreement with U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Dobbs was "visibly angry" and called the FDA leadership "excessively intellectually challenged," "complete moronic, unengaged incompetents" and "arrogant" "idiots." He added that the administration's management of the salmonella outbreak was "insane."

Name calling is easy. Actually solving a problem is significantly harder. It takes a lot of arrogance -- it takes a special type of presumptive arrogance -- to assume that one knows more, sitting on your economics degree on some television set, about the source and cause of the outbreak than the federal agency actively investigating it.

But Lou Dobbs is a special type of guy.

His tagline for his show on CNN end with him asking the rhetorical head-scratcher, "Doesn't anybody deserve a government that works?"

No, Lou. We DESERVE government waste, incompetence, miscarriage of responsibility and fraud. In fact, I look forward to your reports wherein you engage in shameless pile-on for ratings at the expense of productive dialogue that could actually contribute to solving the problems in the government you pillory so pretentiously.

Here's Lou's tomato statement, along with the video of the report that aired on his show. More and better information about the outbreak? It must be because the FDA is deliberately lying about it; it couldn't have anything to do with the ongoing investigation -- right, Lou?

I'm originally from Bradenton, Fla. There are a good number of tomato operations -- fewer than there used to be, for sure, but still a good number. Florida is the largest domestic producer of tomatoes, and the value of its crop is estimated to be around $500 million, according to this report in the Orlando Sentinel. The farms and people of Manatee County are a good part of that production. The fearmongering that Lou Dobbs is engaged in with regard to the salmonella outbreak is hurting people who work in the tomato industry -- not just here, in Manatee County, but elsewhere in Florida and throughout the U.S. It's hurting the middle class for which Lou Dobbs so sanctimoniously claims to speak.

Guess what I found?

June 22, MEXICO CITY --The U.S. has cleared tomatoes in 28 of 31 Mexican states from suspicion in a recent salmonella outbreak, a move that drew praise from Mexican officials Saturday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration now appears to be narrowing its investigation into the outbreak, which has sickened more than 550 people, to some counties in Florida and three Mexican states: Jalisco, Coahuila and Sinaloa.

Hmm. I wonder if Lou will update us about that.

If you haven't yet mortgaged your brain to Lou Dobbs and you're still in the habit of thinking for yourself, here is the FDA's page on the tomato investigation.

Lou Dobbs. He is self-aggrandizing, bombastic, pompous and obstinant (or "tough, relentless, independent," if you prefer his euphemisms).

Come to think of it, is the FDA hiring? I might have a guy for them.