NY Times:

ALBANY, Oct. 16 — The CNN anchor Lou Dobbs calls Gov. Eliot Spitzer “a genius.” But not in a nice way. “I was being about as facetious as one could be,” Mr. Dobbs said in an interview Tuesday as he prepared for his nightly broadcast, “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” For the last nine days, the show has included discussion of Mr. Spitzer’s plan to allow illegal immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. Mr. Dobbs, a pinstriped journalist turned populist crusader against illegal immigration, is not a fan. “It’s an abuse of power!” Mr. Dobbs thundered. “He is being absolutely irresponsible. When the governor of New York embarks on this kind of irresponsibility, it is national news as far as I’m concerned.” And when Mr. Dobbs — whose broadcast is CNN’s second-highest-rated show — speaks, many people listen. His relentless mockery of Mr. Spitzer’s decision has thrust the driver’s license policy onto the national stage, helping fuel an uproar not only among New Yorkers, but among national groups opposed to illegal immigration as well. As it happens, Mr. Dobbs was recovering from a tonsillectomy when Mr. Spitzer announced the policy on Sept. 21. But the anchorman went on the attack almost immediately after going back on the air Oct. 8, saying it was “hard to imagine what this governor is thinking.” It only took him another week to conclude that Mr. Spitzer, in fact, was not thinking at all. “This governor is a genius,” he proclaimed disgustedly on Monday. “An overwhelming majority of New York voters oppose the governor, but he refuses to back down.” With the television set on mute, the scrunch alone of Mr. Dobbs’s brow conveys his belief that Mr. Spitzer’s new policy is, possibly, the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas. “I think he’s definitely had an effect,” said State Senator Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican who was on Mr. Dobbs’s show on Sunday to denounce the plan. “Everybody’s chiming in. I get e-mails from across the country because of Lou Dobbs. I got an e-mail from a soldier in Iraq saying, ‘Go for it, Golden, keep it up.’”