In the course of addressing several ideas promoted by Ron Paul's official campaign website, I recently posted links to several articles which undermined the standard "NAFTA Superhighway" conspiracy theory, which Dr. Paul had been promoting.

Apparently, one of the big reasons people believe the most extreme parts of that theory, despite the apparent complete lack of supporting evidence, is that Lou Dobbs reported it on CNN. And, as we all know, if something appears on CNN, there's no possible way it could be wrong.

So imagine my complete lack of amazement when it turns out that Lou Dobbs is apparently an irresponsible nut-job, and even the New York Times has noticed.

“The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans,” Mr. Dobbs said on his April 14, 2005, program. From there, he introduced his original report that mentioned leprosy, the flesh-destroying disease — technically known as Hansen’s disease — that has inspired fear for centuries.

According to a woman CNN identified as a medical lawyer named Dr. Madeleine Cosman, leprosy was on the march. As Ms. Romans, the CNN correspondent, relayed: “There were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.”

“Incredible,” Mr. Dobbs replied.

Mr. Dobbs and Ms. Romans engaged in a nearly identical conversation a few weeks ago, when he was defending himself the night after the “60 Minutes” segment. “Suddenly, in the past three years, America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy,” she said, again attributing the number to Ms. Cosman.

To make a long story short, that "three years" turns out to be thirty years, and and his respected "medical lawyer" was neither, but was, in fact, a dead white supremacist who accused Mexicans of being child molestors.

(One wonders how Lou came in contact with her writings.)

[Dobbs] has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice. Instead, he lambasted the officials from the [Southern Poverty Law Center] for saying he had. Even yesterday, he spent much of our conversation emphasizing that there really were 7,000 cases in the leprosy registry, the government’s 30-year database. Mr. Dobbs is trying to have it both ways.

He knows what he said originally, he knows "three years" was the wrong part, not the number 7,000, -- yet he refused to admit error or correct himself on air, insisting (deceptively) the number 7,000 was indeed correct.

I ask you, gentle reader, to consider what kind of regard for truth Lou Dobbs has. Whatever he was originally, this is not a man who is now honestly mistaken or misguided: Lou Dobbs is what we must be forced to call -- a term I try to use extremely rarely -- a liar.

Dobbs has also been pushing the same North American Union conspiracy theory that Ron Paul promotes. (They sound so similar, I wonder if one influenced the other.) And more recently, Lou has even suggested the current immigration bill is a first step towards creating the dreaded "NAU".

Now, I'm completely against the current immigration bill, but what Dobbs is saying isn't backed up by the evidence. The immigration bill is bad for quite a number of reasons, but that's simply not one of them. (And why criticise it for imaginary problems when it has so many real ones?)

These are strange, strange times, friends.