By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Fox News’ decision to cancel Lou Dobbs’ evening gab show didn’t raise much of a stink in our house.

We don’t watch him. I haven’t watched or listened to Dobbs since he turned sinister with his Barack Obama birther conspiracy nonsense and then became a Donald Trump suck-up while working for Rupert Murdoch’s unfair and unbalanced news organization.

But … Fox’s decision to yank Dobbs off the air might signal a dramatic new turn in the ongoing struggle to present truth and avoid lies.

Dobbs has been hit with a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit over his repeating lies about so-called “rigged” voting machines.

As the New York Times reported: Smartmatic, a voter technology firm swept up in conspiracies spread by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, filed its defamation suit against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire on Thursday, citing Mr. Dobbs and two other Fox anchors, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, for harming its business and reputation.

Lawsuits Take the Lead in Fight Against Disinformation (msn.com)

I am not yet sure what this means for Pirro and Bartiromo, and whether they will follow Dobbs out the back door of Fox News.

What this portends apparently is a realization from the network that truth must remain the first and last line of defense in any kind of lawsuit challenging media credibility.

Perhaps the biggest surprise might be that it took this long for someone to say “enough, already!” to the lies that keep drawing breath because of phony commentators such as Lou Dobbs, who fomented the lies about vote fraud, just as he kept yammering about former President Obama’s place of birth and his constitutional eligibility to seek and hold the office of president.

At a certain level, Lou Dobbs symbolizes the degradation of honest journalism. I used to watch him when he reported on business news while working for CNN. Then he switched networks, which by itself is fine.

Then he flew head-first off the rails, into the ditch and became a leading spokesman for the Liar in Chief during his tenure as president.

I cannot predict how this lawsuit will end up. I’ll just suggest that I foresee some kind of major settlement in the making. Smartmatic stands to make a bundle of cash.

And it should.