Word broke Tuesday that Jonathan Klein, president of CNN/US, had ordered producers to restrain from booking talk radio hosts as guests on CNN’s programs.

The good news for conservatives embracing a more fair-minded intellectual political dialogue is that Klein’s decision will keep the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, who respond to competing arguments in either predictably doctrinaire or inflammatorily bombastic terms (or both, more often), off CNN. Not that CNN was ever a bastion of resurgent conservatism, but perhaps the absence of Republican shock-jocks will clear space for more civil, open-minded conservative voices — voices like those of David Frum, Reihan Salam, Ross Douthat, David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Megan McArdle, Yuval Levin and others.

The bad news is that Lou Dobbs, who hosts both a radio show and a CNN broadcast, is evidently exempt from Klein’s dictate. If you’ve paid any attention to the reckless, asinine claptrap known as the birther movement, you’ll know Dobbs has emerged as one of its leading provocateurs. With such a dubious credential, Dobbs is hardly the image of reasonable, responsible journalism.

If Klein is serious about furnishing an elevated, informed political analysis by excluding talk radio hosts, Dobbs has to go. “Complex issues require world class reporting” was the rationale Klein offered for his recent decision. He also noted that such hosts were “all too predictable.”

I’m all for “world class reporting.” And while Klein’s at it, more nuanced, pragmatic and thoughtfully conceived analysis wouldn’t hurt, either. But outbursts like this, from Dobbs’ August 6th radio show, will never get the job done:

What do you think you’re doing, Barack Obama? What kind of mindless, churlish, un-American nonsense are you ginning up this time? I’m moving from being an independent, sir, to being absolutely opposed to … any policy you could conceive of.

Five days before Dobbs offered such profound, elegant words of critique, Klein had said that “Dobbs has been doing a relatively straight newscast.” I guess when Dobbs announces on a nationally syndicated radio program that he’s no longer an independent, and, in fact, opposes all policies offered by the Democratic president, Klein’s thesis looks pretty naïve, if not downright counterfactual. As Eric Burns, President of Media Matters noted:

While Lou Dobbs’ role as Mr. Independent may not have been believable to those watching his show, it certainly was embraced by CNN. Now that Dobbs has publicly announced his opposition to the president’s agenda, will Jon Klein still continue to pretend his most opinionated host isn’t carrying water for the right wing?

There’s a time and place for right wing water-carrying. But pitching Lou Dobbs as a network independent when other equally loud-mouthed conservative talk radio hosts are being black-listed from the network betrays the theatrics behind the move. And it only perpetuates the current stereotype of conservatives as recalcitrant talking heads bereft of any serious, reality-based (in Dobbs’ case) political insight.

Christian Hines is an undergraduate at Indiana University.

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