Posted on 01/28/2007 1:11:04 PM PST by blitzgig
As a conservative author, I'm used to a little controversy. Even so, the reaction to my new book, "The Enemy at Home," has felt, well, a little hysterical.
"Ratfink writes new book," James Wolcott, cultural critic for Vanity Fair, declares in his blog. He goes on to call my book a "sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie."
In the pages of Esquire, Mark Warren charges that I "hate America" and have "taken to heart" Osama bin Laden's view of the United States. (Warren also challenged me to a fight and threatened to put me in the hospital.) In his New York Times review of my book last week, Alan Wolfe calls my work "a national disgrace . . . either self-delusional or dishonest." I am "a childish thinker" with "no sense of shame," he argues. "D'Souza writes like a lover spurned; despite all his efforts to reach out to Bin Laden, the man insists on joining forces with the Satanists."
-snip-
Why the onslaught? Just this: In my book, published this month, I argue that the American left bears a measure of responsibility for the volcano of anger from the Muslim world that produced the 9/11 attacks. President Jimmy Carter's withdrawal of support for the shah of Iran, for example, helped Ayatollah Khomeini's regime come to power in Iran, thus giving radical Islamists control of a major state; and President Bill Clinton's failure to respond to Islamic attacks confirmed bin Laden's perceptions of U.S. weakness and emboldened him to strike on 9/11. I also argue that the policies that U.S. "progressives" promote around the world -- including abortion rights, contraception for teenagers and gay rights -- are viewed as an assault on traditional values by many cultures, and have contributed to the blowback of Islamic rage.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Eagles up!
Alan Wolfe calls my work "a national disgrace . . . either self-delusional or dishonest." I am "a childish thinker" with "no sense of shame," he argues. "D'Souza writes like a lover spurned; despite all his efforts to reach out to Bin Laden, the man insists on joining forces with the Satanists."
lol
Personally I would like to see them open a new compound in Gitmo and incarcerate all the liberals in Congress in it. Round them up in the middle of the night and before sun comes up they are in a cage where they can no longer undermine the National Security. You could call it DC South Annex.
Personally I would like to see them open a new compound in Gitmo and incarcerate all the liberals in Congress in it. Round them up in the middle of the night ...
In Depth ProgramIn Depth: Dinesh D'Souza
A Weekly Look at Selected Book TV Programs
On Sunday, February 4 at 12:00 pm and Monday, February 5 at 12:00 am and Saturday, February 10 at 9:00 am
Description: Dinesh D'Souza joins Book TV for a live In Depth interview on Sunday, February 4. Mr. D'Souza's new book is "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11. " He is the author of six previous books: "Letters to a Young Conservative," "What's So Great About America," "The Virtue of Prosperity," "Ronald Reagan," "The End of Racism," and "Illiberal Education." Dinesh D'Souza is the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was previously the John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. From 1987 to 1988 he was a senior policy analyst at the Reagan White House. From 1985 to 1987 he was managing editor of Policy Review. Call Mr. D'Souza with your questions during the program or e-mail your question to booktv@c-span.org.
Through the liberal lens, up is down, wrong is right, and ignorance is wisdom. So condemnation from that quarter is high praise.
Excellent article by D'Souza.
What's the deal with these lefties wanting to fight? And why do they always pick on some wimpy 98-lb weakling like D'Souza or Rich Lowrey? Pat Buchanan always wants to duke it out with somebody, let them talk sh*t to him.
"And why do they always pick on some wimpy 98-lb weakling like D'Souza or Rich Lowrey?"
In any fight, physical OR mental, between D'Souza or Lowry and some leftie, I would bet on D'Souza and Lowry every time.
I won't argue that the left is expert in exporting offal, but the truth is that we could all become neo-Puritans tomorrow and they'd still want to kill us. Because, ultimately, the problem isn't who we are, but who they are.
spineless cowards, they will get what they deserve.
Bin Laden was fairly specific about what motivated him in his 1996 fatwa. Some of it was moonshine - the presence of American troops in Muslim "sacred land" was, as D'Souza points out, not the case under any normal interpretation of the phrase. Some of it was not - Western culture is, in fact, making inroads in the Islamic world. The question then becomes what parts of this culture are truly threatening and what parts are not?
It isn't quite as easy a matter as one might think. Planned Parenthood clinics, for example - certainly these might be considered offensive not only to Muslims but to Catholics and Orthodox Jews as well. But so is the broader issue of the emancipation of women. For a Western cultural conservative the latter is defensible and the former is not. That distinction makes no sense at all from the Muslim perspective and it shouldn't be a surprise that their own cultural conservatives reject it.
Parenthetically, I hold, along with Bernard Lewis, that no Islamic society will ever be able to take its rightful place in the modern world until the issue of emancipation of women is resolved. It's throwing away 50% of their resources.
And so the clash of cultures. The real difficulty is that the Left has, in its own collective mind, claimed such issues as the emancipation of women as its own, part of an overall "progressive" program that cherry-picks the attractive and blames the unpleasant on its political opponents. Liberty, for another example, is, in the mind of the Left, its own bellwether issue unless it should actually come to fighting for it, in which case a preference for peace, another issue it has arrogated to itself, comes to the fore. The fighting is blamed on the opponents of the Left and the resulting liberty claimed as the Left's own once the shooting has stopped, with the inevitable counter-claim that were its own policies followed there would have been liberty without fighting.
This is a child's ethos but it is the prevailing sentiment within the Democratic party at the moment. What D'Souza has done is to refuse the Left the convenient out that its precepts may be divorced from the overall package that a Muslim interprets as Western culture. One can see why they're angry; it forces a self-examination that its adherents fear. D'Souza is, from the right, demanding the same thing that Christopher Hitchens is from the left - an honest appraisal of which side fits the Left's ostensible ideals and a demand that they behave accordingly. That is not a welcome message.
"...the blowback of Islamic rage."
Assigning the underlying motivation to attack and terrorize the West and the USA in particular to "Islamic rage" is beyond a simplification and demonstrates an extremely weak understanding of the Koranic underpinnings of Islam and the true nature of this anti-modern Muslim beast. The Koran teaches hatred of that is not Islam. We fan the flames just by existing. While I agree with D'Souza on his assessment of Carter and Clinton, he needs to become more versed in the basics of Islam and its complete abnegation of all other cultures, religions and people. The oft times depraved culture represented in the mainstream media is not the catalyst that sent airplanes into the WTC or bombers into a Russian elementary school. It was simply men following the teachings of Mohammed literally and coldly.
Noise like that is why Colt made men equal. What's with this leftist fetish with fist fights thing? ANY fight is a gun fight. If you choose not to bring one, that's your lookout.
D'Souza is always a treat. He does take an excellent run at why Moslems hate the US. Now if he writes a credible book on why Democrats and other liberals hate the US he may be on to something.
Right on the money!
If the disingenuous dolts object to that and say that they "love" America why did they NOT utter a single syllable of shock when the ilk of the Sacramento Bee's brightest Bee brains also blamed us for the attacks -- we don't try to understand the rest of world, you see. It was a message they wrote in an editorial just hours after the attack.
Contrary to the common liberal view, I don't believe that the 9/11 attacks were payback for U.S. foreign policy.
That's why disingenuous liberal dolts instinctively react with contumely in it's tackiest form, schoolyard name calling.
The very man whom the author's critics would bestow Constitutional rights upon, and upon his terrorists, agrees with the author, "bin Laden believes that the United States represents the pagan depravity that Muslims have a duty to resist."
That's why the liberal critics of the author are disingenuous dolts.
Pointing this [the truth] out is what makes me dangerous.
Exactly.. and it's the reason liberals react with demands for an end to people's choice to hear truth alone, to wit, their demand for a "Fairness Doctrine."
D'Souza picked out all the criticisms that came from the left, but Ive read just as many from the right. His 'blame America' idea, and that we should just ally with the Islam isnt playing well with either wing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.