"Today's global market means that you pay less for almost everything you buy. This has cost some American jobs, and we have to work harder at creating new and better ones. "

A Blithering Idiot!

Lou Dobbs is the anchor and managing editor of Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN's hour-long weeknight "news" program. Dobbs is also an editorial columnist.

Dobbs may grab the attention of viewers with his rants about business and economics, but some of his news colleagues are less than impressed. He has been described as a "blithering idiot" by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Friedman was quoted in The New Yorker saying "And then you have a blithering idiot like Lou Dobbs, in my view, who's using the platform of CNN in a news frame. This is not news."

Dobbs was born in Texas, and his father was the co-owner of a propane business and a bookkeeper. After the propane business failed, the family moved to Rupert, Idaho. Dobbs attended Minico High School in Rupert and served as president of the high school student body in 1963. He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1967 with a degree in economics. He married Kathleen A. Dobbs in 1969 and they have two children: William Chance and Jason S. Dobbs.

In the early 1970's, Dobbs worked at KBLU-AM in Yuma, Arizona as a police and fire reporter. He then became a television anchor and reporter in Phoenix and in Seattle at KING-TV.

Dobbs began working at CNN when it was launched in 1980, serving as chief economics correspondent and host of Moneyline. Dobbs founded CNNfn (financial news) and anchored Business Unusual.

In May 1999, after clashing with Rich Kaplan, the president of CNN who Dobbs felt was a partisan who favored President Bill Clinton, Dobbs left CNN to start Space.com, an online business providing astrological news. The business did not prosper, and Dobbs returned to CNN in 2001 at the urging of Ted Turner. Along with his CNN work, Dobbs hosts syndicated radio show The Lou Dobbs Financial Report, and is a regular columnist for Money Magazine, U.S News & World Report and the New York Daily News.

Dobbs expresses strong political views on CNN news programs, most of which are populist and jingoistic. Some of his feature issues include "Exporting America" and "Broken Borders." He leans toward protectionism and is wary of outsourcing and offshoring, particularly with China. He is a self-described "lifelong Republican" who has become disenchanted by the Bush administration. During the 2006 debates over the Federal Marriage Amendment, Dobbs asserted that traditional marriage was threatened more by Bush administration economic policy than by gay marriage.