Lou Dobbs Doesn’t Know Godless Americans Exist October 30, 2008

Lou Dobbs Doesn’t Know Godless Americans Exist

By Guest Contributor
October 30, 2008

CNN’s Lou Dobbs can’t believe what’s going on with the Kay Hagan/Elizabeth Dole story.

It’s not that Dole is trying to smear her opponent by labeling her as a “Godless American.”

Dobbs is just shocked that there are such people who could be “Godless Americans”:

In case you missed it, Dobbs says the following in the video:

… There is actually something called “Godless”? And Kay Hagan is associated with it [according to Dole’s campaign]…?

…

… I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “Godless Americans.”

Apparently, us “things” don’t exist.

In case you’d like to inform Lou Dobbs of your existence, you can contact him here.

(Thanks to Amy for the link!)

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  • Kate

    I made my existence known – thanks for the link.

    I’m tired of being 1) ignored and 2) bad-mouthed when I am noticed. UGH.

  • J Myers

    First!

  • J Myers

    Oh… damn, you Kate.

  • benjdm

    What the? Didn’t Lou Dobbs interview Christopher Hitchens semi-recently?

    Yes, he did. I can’t re-watch the video right now but I’m pretty sure both his American citizenship and his atheism came up.

  • Kate

    Hahaha sorry – I was a bit overeager. 😉 Next time!

  • Josh

    I think Lou Dobbs might be shortening “Godless Americans” by just saying “Godless.” I had never heard of the group either until this ad was aired. He goes on to say he did “know there was such a thing as “Godless Americans.”

    Just my take.

  • Epistaxis

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone wearing an old-man sweater between a jacket and a tie.

  • Josh

    Correcting my earlier post.

    He goes on to say he didn’t “know there was such a thing as Godless Americans.”

  • Ally

    Wow, idiot. I gave him a little piece of my mind….

    Hey Lou, How much do you get paid to be an ignorant, pompous ass? “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “Godless Americans.” Obviously you have never heard the words ‘Atheist’ or ‘secular’. There is a growing force in this country of true patriots that are those “godless Americans” you refer to. These people can be picked out by some distinguishing characteristics: They are intelligent. You can find many hiding out in the scientific communities, but even your neighbor could be one. Watch out! 🙂 Also, they enjoy unbiased facts, and I do mean FACTS. You know, those tried and true pieces of information that are tested and proven over and over. They do not like the opinions of ignorant pompous asses. They have reviewed the scientific evidence concerning the origins of life and concluded that it is highly probable, if not completely true, that god does not exist. They are not scared or depressed knowing this. They understand the misguided fools that have not yet reached that conclusion, and do not hate these people for their ignorance, but rather pity them. Because of this fact, they understand that the constitution was truly written with the purpose of keeping this country secular. Not just the perverted secular nation it is today, with its debates on stone tablets in school yards, but a true secular America, where religious organizations are not given tax free status or government funding; where a candidates worth is not based on their religious beliefs at all; where children can grow up and learn the values of the scientific method, without having fairy tales about human footprints in dinosaur bones presented as another theory as well. These patriotic atheists (no that is not an oxymoron, moron) resemble our forefathers more than the ignorant pompous asses on TV and capitol hill, who are running our country. I do not pray, but I would hope, that more and more, these patriotic atheists get up, stand up, and speak out, so that we might save this county, and turn it into the great nation it could be and has been. Sincerely, “godless American”

  • Loren Petrich

    However, Lou Dobbs might have been thinking that there must be some organization called “Godless Americans”. Meaning that he had misunderstood something somewhere along the line.

  • justin jm

    The commentary in the video was absolutely ridiculous. Almost completely bereft of substance. Are people afraid to say that being godless isn’t bad?

    I’m reminded why I don’t watch CNN.

  • Here’s mine. Short and sweet.

    “I’m just speaking up as a “Godless American.” I am both a proud American and a proud atheist. We are a very large minority in the US. According to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, Americans who identify as atheists and agnostics outnumber Jews, Muslims, Buddists (also “Godless Americans,” as they worship no deity), and Hindus combined. I’m very surprised to hear you say you didn’t know that we exist.”

    Jeni:D

  • J Myers

    Hahaha sorry – I was a bit overeager.

    No worries–I wasn’t actually trying to notch one of those irksome “first!” posts; I was playing off your post (ignore, badmouth)… funny, no?

    I think Lou Dobbs might be shortening “Godless Americans” by just saying “Godless”… He goes on to say he did “know there was such a thing as “Godless Americans.”

    I agree, but he also says at 1:37 “And I was just making fun of the idea of this godlessness. I have to say, it is crazy…”

    Although, I can’t tell if Dobbs is disparaging the concept of godlessness itself, or the fact that Hagan is being associated with it despite abundant evidence to the contrary… I actually suspect the latter; I’m not sure that this clip is quite as objectionable as it first appears.

  • noodleguy

    As much as I dislike Lou Dobbs I’m 90% sure everyone is misinterpreting this. I think he’s talking about that fact that there is a PAC called ‘Godless Americans’ out there that shocked him, and that he found it even more shocking that Kay Hagan, a strong Christian, was being associated with them. He just shortens the name of the PAC to its first part (which is commonly done), thus the references to just ‘Godless’

    he also says at 1:37 “And I was just making fun of the idea of this godlessness. I have to say, it is crazy…”

    True, but I’m pretty sure that he just thought it was ridiculous that Dole was even trying to call Hagan “godless” because she clearly is not. I dunno, maybe he IS saying that the idea of godlessness is ‘ridiculous’ in which case I would be shocked. Then again, Lou Dobbs is not the most intelligent commentator out there…

    I do think the commentary was just terrible though. And I’m still offended that people find association with “Godless Americans” to be such slander, as all commentators in the video did. They seemed to think that it was worse than Obama being called a socialist.

    Oh yeah that bugged me too. Obama has not only been called two names. He gets everything from Muslim to Jew to Socialist to Nazi thrown at him. Its ridiculous to think otherwise. Although I think maybe Dobbs was just talking about names McCain had called him, in which case yeah, socialist and communist.

    That’s why on Colbert last night Colbert said “Little did everyone know that Steven Colbert is actually a time-traveling Nazi Muslim!”

    Lou Dobbs is such a joke…well, populists in general are annoying but he takes the fricking cake.

  • Ned

    Dobbs interviewed Hitchens a while back and was very friendly to him. Lou was referring to the fact that he didn’t know that there was a group called “Godless Americans” not that there are Americans who are godless. Did you r-tards watch the same video that I did? Lou was obviously being snarky towards Dole.

  • J Myers

    noodleguy, did you not bother to read the rest of my post, or did you think it was so insightful that you just wanted to restate it?

    I’m 90% sure everyone everyone is misinterpreting this

    Ahem.

  • noodleguy

    I can’t tell if Dobbs is disparaging the concept of godlessness itself, or the fact that Hagan is being associated with it despite abundant evidence to the contrary…

    You weren’t being very specific or anything, actually if anything you presented it almost as a question. So, alright, I partially built off of what you said, but it isn’t a restating if my post was much longer than yours. And I did say NINETY percent were misinterpreting it, not all 🙂 So sheesh.

    Ned has a somewhat, ahem, blunt way of putting it but he’s right.

  • Yeah, what needs to be pointed out is the reason someone would create a group called ‘Godless Americans’ — namely, to take back a word that shouldn’t be an insult. That, I think, is what Lou Dobbs doesn’t get.

  • Richard Wade

    Senator Dole’s latest smear ad was just a WTF moment for Dobbs. That’s all it was.

    He was clearly focused on the now bizarre level of sleaze that Dole typifies in the Republican Party. He wasn’t saying anything disparaging about any Americans who happen to be godless. He just never heard of Godless Americans PAC, and neither had I until Hemant’s first post about Dole’s smear campaign.

    I hope that those here who made their existence known to Mr. Dobbs were more civil and well considered than the childish rant that Ally wrote. If you think that someone needs to be correctly informed about atheists and atheism, don’t start out with “Hi, I”m an atheist and you’re a pompous ass.”

    I think that half of our bad reputation comes from theist bigots and half comes from atheists who act like adolescent punks.

  • I can’t watch the video here at work, so my response to him was perhaps friendlier than some:

    Hey there Lou Dobbs! I just wanted to throw in my two cents here to let you know that yes, there is such a thing as “Godless Americans” and that there are a great deal of us. We’re just regular folks with regular jobs and usually you don’t know about our non-religion because it doesn’t generally come up, much like we don’t start conversations about not collecting stamps.
    When the subject does come up, many of us won’t say anything about our lack of belief because of the way we are perceived by the general population (for an example, see the Elizabeth Dole campaign).
    Anyway, have a good day!

  • Paul

    Don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this, but maybe he’s implying that since this is one nation under GOD, that we aren’t real Americans. Bush Sr. feels this way I know (he said it publicly once).

  • J Myers

    noodleguy, keep reading, you’re almost there… just 5 more words… 🙂

    And I did say NINETY percent were misinterpreting it, not all

    No, you didn’t. You said “I’m 90% sure everyone* everyone is misinterpreting this”, in which it is perfectly clear that the 90% relates to you degree of certainty in the error of all other commenters’ supposedly singular conclusion, and not at all to the proportion of commenters that you perceived as reaching this conclusion.

    I agree with Ned’s, Richard’s, and your conclusion, but I would not go so far as to call this conclusion obvious (and, as you used a 90% certainty figure, it would seem we also agree here). Dobbs’s imprecise language, his insincere manner, his statement that Hagan wouldn’t win if she were godless (acknowledging, at a minimum, that the perception of godlessness is an unfavorable thing, whether or not it should be), and his dismissive idiocy regarding the treatment of Obama in the course of this campaign make his true intentions anything but readily discernible (though perhaps they are more easily inferred by those who have seen more of him than I have).

    * Sorry about the double “everyone” where I quoted you in my post above; not sure how I managed that.

  • Richard Wade

    Paul, you wondered:

    Don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this, but maybe he’s implying that since this is one nation under GOD, that we aren’t real Americans. Bush Sr. feels this way I know (he said it publicly once).

    I’ve watched Lou Dobbs for many years. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I admire and appreciate his trenchant criticisms of the ineptitude of the Bush Administration. Generally he champions the middle class and despises exclusionary notions of “real” Americans versus something less than real Americans. I have never heard anything from him that suggests that he would agree with Bush Senior’s asinine remark or attitude. Dobbs just likes to be astonished. He does it a lot. In this video he’s only astonished at Dole’s vileness. (As am I) The rest is just confusion. No need to read things into it.

  • I think Dobbs did not mean that he doesn’t know atheist Americans exist but was only referring to the “Godless Americans PAC” http://godlessamericans.org/ which is the group mentioned in the ad that started the whole controversy. Watch this video by the NRSC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5AsdYWtKLY

  • I believe that Lou Dobbs’ intended message was that he was unaware of the PAC’s existence, not the existence of atheists. Let’s not blindly attack him and stoop to Elizabeth Dole’s level…