On Fri 9 October 2010, 123hop wrote:
> An article in the Nation? Destroying somebody? Are you kidding?
The Nation Investigative Journalism Institute, whence this derives, is like a whole nother magazine inside the magazine. It's as different in quality from the rest of the Nation as WSJ reporting used to be from their editorial page. And because their reporting is so well sourced and well written, their articles often do have effects. The one on corruption in the trucking business in Afghanistan (a great article) led to Congressional hearings within a week.
The destruction here is simply because they've got him on a taboo the way the National Enquirer had John Edwards. Admittedly, in this age of witches, the bar for disabling embarassment is much higher. But this is exactly Dobbs' core issue, the broom he rode in on: that we should punitively treat the employers of illegals. And the "nanny issue," to which this is related, has been one of the few that really has reliably crushed candidacies for decades now. It's odd that it has so much effect.
Also he's never run before and has famously thin skin (which was already a problem). I think this will daunt him enough not to try.
I guess that's all I meant by "destroy" -- that it will destroy his nascent political career before it starts. For which he quit his perch at CNN.
Michael