GQ Magazine's editors believe they know why Lou Dobbs left CNN: persecution.

Members of the right-wing media love to tell their audiences about how they've been abused and censored by vicious liberal attackers. Bill O'Reilly insisted that he had been "libeled" and his civil rights "violated" when the L.A. Times and the Denver Post disputed his reports, calling the criticism "far left fascism." Michael Savage complained that he had been repeatedly attacked by the "homosexual, fascist website" Media Matters, the "brownshirts of our time." Glenn Beck bravely vowed that he was not afraid of liberal persecution, "What they have to do is break my legs. What they have to do is silence me. What they have to do is Sarah Palin me."

Often, the accusations include some kind of conspiracy. O'Reilly theorized that Media Matters was a tool of billionaire George Soros. Michael Savage claimed that it belonged to Hillary Clinton. Glenn Beck feared a coterie of secretive "czars" in the Obama administration.

And Lou Dobbs, who gained notoriety by pushing the "birther" theory that Obama was born in Kenya, claimed in a GQ interview that the administration was out to get him too:

They are coordinating with a number of groups, including the Center for American Progress. The usual suspects. To carry out constant and absolutely insidious and sordid attacks on me. And the reason they're doing so, I'm the leading independent voice, and I am critical on their policies and intent, on unconditional amnesty, and leaving the borders and ports unsecure.

Yet he vowed to soldier on...

But I will not be intimidated, and I understand that. Therefore they're trying to intimidate my network and my owners.

Evidently, Dobbs will not be soldiering on with CNN any longer. So ends a long and illustrious career with the network in angry paranoia. See ya later, Lou. Don't let the fascist liberal door hit you on the way out.

For more on Dobbs' battle with the CNN, check out NPR's What's Behind Lou Dobbs' Leaving CNN.

More fascist violations of commentators' civil rights at my Persecution Politics series at dagblog.com.