Dobbs gave up on $9M to Pursue Birther Nonsense.

The New York Post are reporting that Lou Dobbs was warned in July of this year to drop birther stories about the president, and that Dobbs became incensed by this.

"It seems this story is dead because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef," read Klein's memo to employees of "Lou Dobbs Tonight."

Klein's move incensed Dobbs, who wasn't shy about telling off his boss.

"They have been talking pretty regularly since then," a source said. "And it's been pretty bad."

What does it say about Dobbs that he continued with this nonsense despite the fact that his employers were ordering him to back off?

I am all for journalistic licence, and for people to resist the attempts of those higher up to silence them when they are in pursuit of the truth, but Dobbs was doing this in an attempt to prove that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

In doing so he put himself in bed with Orly Taitz and some of the most irrational people on the political map.

At that point his job was always in jeopardy, and yet Dobbs persisted. Indeed, it is looking as if Dobbs jumped from CNN before he was pushed.

Last month, Dobbs' William Morris agent, CNN sources said, bluntly told Klein: "You're unhappy, he's unhappy. Let him go."

Dobbs told Klein in recent weeks he wanted to go "the opinion route," laying the final groundwork for his departure.

CNN had been unlikely to renew Dobbs' contract in 2011 anyway, sources said.

CNN is pushing hard to position itself as a middle-of-the-road news source, between left-leaning MSNBC and conservative Fox News Channel.

"Lou was polluting the CNN brand," said a TV insider.

I presume that Dobbs persisted with the birther stories - despite the warnings from above - because he has genuinely convinced himself that there must be something to these stories.

That makes him an utter idiot. A total whackjob. I could understand him pushing this nonsense if he felt that it helped his ratings by feeding the tinfoil hat wearers, but if he genuinely believed in this nonsense then he's sadder than I realised.

The departure came at significant personal cost to Dobbs, who still had 1½ years left in his back-loaded, five-year, $35 million contract. Dobbs' final year would have brought him $9 million.

So, he was willing to sacrifice $9 million rather than drop this nonsense about Obama and Kenya.

And there's worse news still for Dobbs:

A Fox News Channel spokeswoman insisted her network wasn't interested in hiring the veteran.

I thought he would have found an open door over at Fox News, so that genuinely surprised me. It appears that Dobbs is too whacky even for the channel that hires Glenn Beck. How far out there do you have to be for that to happen?

Far out enough to believe that Obama was born in Kenya and willing to give up $9 million a year in order to pursue that theory I suppose.

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Tags: Lou Dobbs, CNN, birthers, Fox News