Dobble Head

Gobs of Dobbs from R&R's Talk Radio Seminar. The setting: Renaissance Hotel DC ballroom. Ted Baxter's body language double Dobbs slithers his way up to the stage after his suck-up intro by ex-Fox News Tee Vee talking head John "The Big Story" Gibson now languishing in Dante's radio inferno as of last week. Me (insincerely): "It really sucks about your TV show." Gibson (deflated like a day-old helium balloon): "It [Fox radio Siberia] really is a terrific thing... In TV I just read the TelePrompTer"... Me: "Like an automobile assembly line." Gibson (demurring): "I don't want to say anything. I might still end up on TV." Or words to that effect.

Back to Lou. He takes two calculated steps up the stairs. Turns around. Walks in front of the stage microphone in hand reveling in his introduction as a "super talent." "Can I do this?" croons Lou. "I feel like a college professor." [behind the podium]

"Thank you Fox News!" Yeah, he never thought he'd be saying that. Laughs and claps all around. "Delightful fella" that Roger Ailes. "Didn't hear that much from CNN," Lou snipes.

Lou pitches his radio show where for three hours "it is safe to be a Republican, Democrat, and independent populist."

We hear the Dobbsian ego eruption over his books and NYT best sellers. He babbles on about the "body politic." [His] "Respect for politicians." [Him] Something about "Lou Dobbs groupies" or was that me fantasizing?

"This country can be GREAT!" Lou roars like Tony the Tiger to a sparse crowd of about 100. Why is it big news that Dobbs admonishes broadcasters to rail against the resurrection of the hated Fairness Doctrine and not to blithely assume the NAB's going to make it go away? When E.F. Dobbs speaks, people listen?

LOUDOBBS predicts his own political future pandering only to his bloated ego: "in mid-to-late June an independent candidate emerges." Before winding up the pitch, the thinning gray with an unnaturally tight face told me he's the "candidate of last resort."

Rating: O diamonds.