Lou Dobbs resigned from CNN on Wednesday night, and rumor has it that the immigration-obsessed nightly news anchor will be following the Glenn Beck plan: if your shtick appeals to the fringe, why not head for a network with no qualms about stoking some far right-wing rage and cashing in on it? Don't be surprised if we soon see Dobbs broadcasting live from the border with a flag in one hand and a rifle in the other.
On Thursday, Newsweek's longtime senior editor Jerry Adler published a poem in honor of the occasion entitled "Goodbye, Mr. Dobbs."
So wily Lou has picked the locks
That kept him in his padded box
And tiptoed off, in just his socks.
Or should we say, weighed anchor?
So now we wonder where he docks
To whom he'll lead his rabid flocks:
The Pop that loves his famous Vox
And adores his rancor.
A network just for frat-boy jocks?
Where aliens are put in stocks
And viewers pelt them with big rocks
Before each half-time show?
Could it be UPN, or Cox?
They'd have to open up Fort Knox
We know Lou's crazy, like a Fox.
I'd really love to know.
As far as light verse goes, the poem is quite good--if only for the image of the stately anchor tiptoeing off "in just his socks." The form is suitable and the rhythm is on point. And it's no mistake that "Fox" is capitalized in the penultimate line. Adler is hinting at Dobbs' likely future employer--which would make Lou the second Fox News anchor to be effectively skewered in verse.
The hyperbolic portrait of a "frat-boy" network that Adler conjures up in the third stanza drew the ire of Scott Whitlock at the right-wing watchdog site News Busters. Whitlock fired back by dredging up an old Adler quote on the murdering Menendez brothers (remember them?) and asking the rather bizarre question "So, Adler is tougher on Dobbs than he is on two murderers?" Ok then. It's safe to say that we can count on Mr. Whitlock to follow Dobbs to wherever he drops that expensive anchor of his.
In the meantime, Adler's poem is crying out for more verses. Feel free to add yours in the comments.