We hear a lot of discussion about whether the rise of blogs, which lower the barriers to public comment and tend to rely on recycled reporting, lower the overall quality of public discourse by overwhelming fact with opinion. Notwithstanding the fact that I'm writing this on a blog, I have my own misgivings on the subject.

But take a step back and thank the heavens for the New York Times, which puts this worry in perspective. Television, surely the medium with the highest barriers to entry, turns out to be no paragon of journalistic virtue -- particularly where Lou Dobbs is concerned. Whether he's talking about illegal immigrants infecting Americans with their leprosy or just stealing our jobs, today's story Dobbs is worth a read. In brief:

The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths. He is the heir to the nativist tradition that has long used fiction and conspiracy theories as a weapon against the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews and, now, the Mexicans.