Odd and Ends

by digby

Ugh, what a day. No blogging for my poor neglected Hullabaloo until tomorrow, but I have a wee contribution to firedoglake’s otherwise great series on the bigotsphere, if you care to check it out.

And here’s a truly fabulous review of Crashing the Gate with an overview of the blogopshere in the New York Review of Books. People are gettin’ it.

For those of you who missed Jack Cafferty’s bid to beat Lou Dobbs for “the angriest middle aged white male on the planet” award today here’s the transcript:

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Wolf. Once again, the streets of our country were taken over today by people who don’t belong here.

In the wake of Congress failing to pass immigration legislation last week, America’s cities once again were clogged with protesters today. Taxpayers who have surrendered highways, parks, sidewalks and a lot of television news time on all these cable news networks to mobs of illegal aliens are not happy about it.

With every concession by the Bush administration, and the ever- growing demands of Mexican president Vicente Fox, America’s illegal aliens are becoming ever bolder. March through our streets and demand your rights. Excuse me? You have no rights here, and that includes the right to tie up our towns and cities and block our streets. At some point this could all turn very violent as Americans become fed up with the failure of their government to address the most pressing domestic issue of our time.

Here’s the question: What effect will the immigration protests have?

E-mail your thoughts to caffertyfile@CNN.com or go to CNN.com/caffertyfile — Wolf.

BLITZER: A lot of these demonstrators, you know, Jack, are legal. And many of them are citizens of the United States. They’re not all illegal immigrants, the people protesting.

CAFFERTY: How do you know?

BLITZER: Because I as out on the streets. I saw.

CAFFERTY: Well, where’s the immigration service? Why don’t they pull the buses up and start asking these people to show their green cards? And the ones that don’t have them, put them on the buses and send them home.

BLITZER: There’s a — well, that’s an expensive proposition, as you know — 12 million — 12 million of them.

CAFFERTY: As opposed to the cost we’re enduring by having 12 million of these people running around the country.

BLITZER: Jack, much more coming up. We have a debate. Lou Dobbs is standing by as well.

Isn’t that awesome? Assuming the “taxpayers” don’t rise up to defend their streets against you, all you protestors who aren’t carrying green cards would get a ride “home” — kind of the way they deported anyone who “looked” Mexican during “Operation Wetback,” one of the earlier incarnations of anti-Latino immigration fever that erupts with depressing and predictable regularity in this country. Over and over again we bounce between tolerance and intolerance of the migration pattern that’s been here forever.

I have a sneaking little suspicion that CNN is finding this nativist ranting by both Lou and Jack on Dubai and immigration an appealing way out of the partisan cage. It’s a ratings grabber if not good journalism.

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