> That being said – and making the inaccurate assumption that Democracy Now’s audience consists of anything other
than the already converted – I don’t believe Amy Goodman or (to a lesser
degree) Juan Gonzalez did a terribly
effective job of taking the hot air out of this windbag in ways that
were politically useful.
>
This interview with Dobbs roused me from sleep. I usually sleep through Democracy Now if I even have the local station on at all. I listen to DN so infrequently that I didn't know that Goodman was having health problems or that their website got a new design. I had lost interest in DN last year over my unhappiness with their scarce coverage of protest movements in the U.S.
I think that Goodman and Gonzales "won" the exchange with Dobbs. Dobbs came across totally as a self-important, arrogant, disingenuous windbag. I can't think of a guest on any recent interview of TV or radio who went as ballistic as Dobbs over some minor criticism. Dobbs came across as a fearful, domineering prick who couldn't handle criticism when he wasn't in control of the show. He talked over both Amy and Juan and even insulted them regularly.
Match to Goodman and Gonzalez.
You shouldn't underestimate how many "nonconverted" Demcoracy Now reaches. The show is on dozens of radio stations and lots of people, maybe not millions, listen to the show.
> Yes, Dobbs’ manner was obnoxious, but he more or less did a decent job of portraying Goodman as playing a
disingenuous game of “gotcha” – i.e. trying to nail him on a few rather
marginal factual inaccuracies.
Gonzalez was somewhat more constructive in conveying the sense that what
matters is not this or that of
Dobbs’ empirical errors or unsavory affiliations with racist
reactionaries, but rather the age-old nativist
repertoire that he draws on, the one which demagogically blames US middle class misfortunes on dark aliens.
But his efforts were only partially successful… and in front of a true
believer audience would be easily
dismissed as the special pleadings of the multiculturally correct.
Gonzalez tried to take it to the next
level by depicting Dobbs as someone who cries crocodile tears for the
US’ “forgotten majority” and diverts
their anger away from US transnationals to brown border-crossers, but
did not really come through.
>
Goodman is out of her element when she engages in confrontational interviews. I love her work, but I've always thought that her interview style was rather robotic. She doesn't have the personal style to engage in shouting matches with guests. Gonzalez isn't up to it either.
If they are going to adopt the Chomsky approach when interviewing such a belligerent guest, they should do more research. Perhaps they should have come up with a strategy to ambush him with an array of his quotes and facts about the people he features on his show. They did try this to some extent.
In any case, Dobbs came across as a disrespectful, arrogant prick.
Alfred Landman wrote:
> Yes, so much (little) for the art of left debaters. Amy G & Co went about "debunking" that CNN-big-brush and his master&full tapestry like a painting-by-numbers undertaking. I was watching it, and I knew, again, as if I needed a re-shot, why the right is running the show. Like a preaching fool Amy kept saying to Dobbs: But you admit now that this was WRONG. You do, don't you!
>
Goodman and the Democracy Now crew obviously subscribe to the standard paradigm held by the American Left that our media should focus on factual information and stay away from the flame war style that dominates mainstream media. It's good that DN and other alternative media focus on factual reporting, but if war is politics by other means, then we need to have people who are capable of intelligently screaming and shouting at the opposition. Or making fun of them through ridicule, mockery and so on.
Chuck