FRC Action Summit: Lou Dobbs

CNN anchor Lou Dobbs spoke today to the Value Voter Summit, after an introduction by FRC chief Tony Perkins, opening by telling the story of how he first told Perkins he had no business in public policy.  Dobbs and Perkins engaged in a long dialogue on values and policy, and now admits that Perkins had it right all along.  Values matter in determining public policy, which Dobbs understands.

Interestingly, Dobbs talked about the resistance in the “liberal media” — his words — to the idea of allowing people to discuss and debate values.  He warned the summit audience that he had no intention of “leading a Hallelujah chorus”, but encouraged people to stand up for their right to engage in the political arena.  He cast the media’s attitude as a form of bigotry against believers.

Dobbs challenged the audience to add a few values to their agenda.  He made a pitch for more populist economic policy, saying that families get buffeted by financial issues as much as moral issues.  He also wants the VVS to consider the decline of the rule of the majority, thanks to the lobbying industry and the isolation of Congress from their constituents behind a wall of money.  Dobbs called Washington a town dominated by corporate interests and lobbying interests, and called for a push to re-establish accountability to the citizens of the nation.

He attacked the media as biased, in both the way it reports the news as well as the choices of stories they choose to publish.  Dobbs says that the Sarah Palin nomination demonstrated this beyond any doubt.  She was “savaged” by the media, including “intelligentsia” like Matt Damon and Whoopi Goldberg.  Keith Olbermann is hanging by a “seriously medicated thread,” and told the audience that after Olbermann went after Dobbs’ children, he’d like to get him in a room alone for a … frank exchange of ideas.

Dobbs finished by asking the audience to give life to morality and to reach beyond the ideologues to think independently and avoid orthodoxies.  Above all, engage.

Addendum: Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs followed Dobbs with a lively speech about football, God, and life.