Don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this, but maybe he’s implying that since this is one nation under GOD, that we aren’t real Americans. Bush Sr. feels this way I know (he said it publicly once).

I’ve watched Lou Dobbs for many years. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I admire and appreciate his trenchant criticisms of the ineptitude of the Bush Administration. Generally he champions the middle class and despises exclusionary notions of “real” Americans versus something less than real Americans. I have never heard anything from him that suggests that he would agree with Bush Senior’s asinine remark or attitude. Dobbs just likes to be astonished. He does it a lot. In this video he’s only astonished at Dole’s vileness. (As am I) The rest is just confusion. No need to read things into it.

And I did say NINETY percent were misinterpreting it, not all

No, you didn’t. You said “I’m 90% sure everyone* everyone is misinterpreting this”, in which it is perfectly clear that the 90% relates to you degree of certainty in the error of all other commenters’ supposedly singular conclusion, and not at all to the proportion of commenters that you perceived as reaching this conclusion.

I agree with Ned’s, Richard’s, and your conclusion, but I would not go so far as to call this conclusion obvious (and, as you used a 90% certainty figure, it would seem we also agree here). Dobbs’s imprecise language, his insincere manner, his statement that Hagan wouldn’t win if she were godless (acknowledging, at a minimum, that the perception of godlessness is an unfavorable thing, whether or not it should be), and his dismissive idiocy regarding the treatment of Obama in the course of this campaign make his true intentions anything but readily discernible (though perhaps they are more easily inferred by those who have seen more of him than I have).

* Sorry about the double “everyone” where I quoted you in my post above; not sure how I managed that.

Hey there Lou Dobbs! I just wanted to throw in my two cents here to let you know that yes, there is such a thing as “Godless Americans” and that there are a great deal of us. We’re just regular folks with regular jobs and usually you don’t know about our non-religion because it doesn’t generally come up, much like we don’t start conversations about not collecting stamps.
When the subject does come up, many of us won’t say anything about our lack of belief because of the way we are perceived by the general population (for an example, see the Elizabeth Dole campaign).
Anyway, have a good day!

He was clearly focused on the now bizarre level of sleaze that Dole typifies in the Republican Party. He wasn’t saying anything disparaging about any Americans who happen to be godless. He just never heard of Godless Americans PAC, and neither had I until Hemant’s first post about Dole’s smear campaign.

I hope that those here who made their existence known to Mr. Dobbs were more civil and well considered than the childish rant that Ally wrote. If you think that someone needs to be correctly informed about atheists and atheism, don’t start out with “Hi, I”m an atheist and you’re a pompous ass.”

I think that half of our bad reputation comes from theist bigots and half comes from atheists who act like adolescent punks.

I can’t tell if Dobbs is disparaging the concept of godlessness itself, or the fact that Hagan is being associated with it despite abundant evidence to the contrary…

You weren’t being very specific or anything, actually if anything you presented it almost as a question. So, alright, I partially built off of what you said, but it isn’t a restating if my post was much longer than yours. And I did say NINETY percent were misinterpreting it, not all So sheesh.

Ned has a somewhat, ahem, blunt way of putting it but he’s right.

I’m 90% sure everyone everyone is misinterpreting this

Ahem.