Lou Dobbs bemoans the lack of a dialogue about race in this country

Given how vague he was, I'm not sure what exactly he means. He's just saying that we're ethnically very diverse, therefore we need to talk about race? But what about it? And who is "this idiot" who says "there ought to be these responses when you talk about race or ethnicity"? For that matter, what are "these responses"? You could study his words and come away with two completely different views of what he meant. For instance, he said:

What we have is a problem of talking about race without fearing recrimination and distortion and someone using whatever comments are made for their own purposes -- usually political purposes.

One could assume that he meant that we need to discuss the latent racism in America, but any time we do people are going to accuse those of us who recognize its existence and want to fix it of being racist ourselves, or of hating America, or of being anti-white, or of being anti-black, or of anything under the sun. And all of this simply distracts from a pressing issue.

But given that this came from Lou "illegal immigrants cause leprosy" Dobbs, I could more easily believe that he meant "We need to recognize the horrible threat that Latinos pose and stop people from calling me out on my racist vitriol for 'political purposes'."