Letters to the Editor
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indignation gap
So the gold standard of balance and valid criticism is shrill denunciation, and leftists fail to measure up because they engage in "shrill denunciation at Bush and no shrill denunciations of bin Laden and Saddam."
I think this assertion -- regardless of whether it has any basis in fact or not -- is an excellent measure of D'Souza's own values.
First, it is silent on the content and cause of "denunciation." What matters is word count and volume. If Ted Kennedy had only spent an equal number of equally loud words inveighing against bin Laden, he and his complaints against Bush would apparently win D'Souza's approval, regardless of their factual merits. It is valid to criticize Bush's destruction of habeus corpus only as long as we condemn with equal verve Saddam's destruction of a thousand Kurds. There is no non sequitur in D'Souza's universe.
Second, it is silent on "shrill denunciation's" potential efficacy in opposing what it decries. American citizens who criticize President Bush with energy and persistence may in fact influence the options available to him and the decisions he makes. Meanwhile, adding more words to the nearly infinite supply of rhetoric condemning international criminals and foreign tyrants -- especially those whose depravity is manifest on a grand scale -- do little but provide momentary catharsis, if that.
D'Souza is as intent on sowing distraction and confusion, and as uninterested in fact and efficacy, as the administration he supports is.
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Yes!!!
Y'all are ROCKIN' tonight!
BobbyG
Vegas, Seven Deadly Sins, One Convenient Location.
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Exploiting Muslim Anger
D'Souza is secretly in love and envious of any theocratic and patriarchal state like Iran or Saudi Arabia, hence his predictable appeals to anti-gay sentiment. I think of the howls of outrage whenever a liberal suggests Americans should alter our foreign policy in order to mollify radical Muslims. If I remember correctly they're called Blame America Firsters. When a conservative,however, says we need to become more puritanical to avoid another attack, well, that's just giving us the straight dope.
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And it's not even April Fools Day
Well, it's very interesting. In the aftermath of 9-11, D'Souza thinks that it was entirely appropriate to shoot first and ask questions later, but now that five years have elapsed, he says it is time to ask WHY we were attacked. Without puffing myself up too much, because millions of sane and thoughtful Americans did the same thing, I just want to say that I asked myself that question on the very day of the attack. It seemed like a good idea to try to answer it before sending in the Marines. And it was not too difficult to get the answer, because millions of Arabs and Muslims were celebrating the attack and were eager to tell anyone who would listen why they were dancing in the streets. And strangely, they said nothing about Hollywood or feminism or abortion or gay marriage, but they were very clear about their hatred of our support for the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Later, Osama bin Laden explained that the inspiration for the attack came to him when he saw buildings in Lebanon being destroyed by Israeli fighter planes in 1983 and he thought how perfect the retribution would be if American buildings were similarly destroyed from the air.
These celebrating Muslims were also clear that they found our presence in the Middle East generally malignant. We prop up authoritarian regimes solely to keep the oil flowing, and we are dumber than dirt about the interests--religious, socio-economic, or political--of average, everyday people in the Islamic countries. But still the celebrating Muslims said nothing about "the liberals" or Teddy Kennedy.
In fact, the people in this country who have been opposing our hardheaded and hamhanded policies in the Middle East for the last 40 years are almost all on the political left. The strongest supporters of Israel, of the hated Shah, of our hegemonic right to have the oil flow our way, have been Republicans. But somehow the simple facts that I have just outlined, obvious to almost any objective observer on the day before, the day of, and the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, were not obvious to D'Souza then and they do not seem to have been uncovered by him after five more years plus the extensive research that went into producing his book-length reflection on these events.
The other wonderful aspect of D'Souza's thesis is his blaming the American left for exporting popular culture that offends decent Muslims. What would he be thinking of? Well, maybe movies and television shows that are filled with pornographic violence and nudity. Maybe soft drinks and basketball shoes. I could go on. But can I just point out that these products are sent abroad by gigantic corporations that have never lived so high off the hog than they have under Republican rule? The Republican Party had an iron grip on Congress for twelve years and the Presidency for six. And they did what, exactly, to tell the Disney Corporation, or Fox, or Coca-Cola, or Nike, to show a little sensitivity to Muslim values? Air Jordans are LIBERAL? Phil Knight--who may have some name recognition in the Islamic world as the American capitalist who paid 14-year-old Muslim girls in Indonesia 16 cents an hour to mass-produce Nikes--is a LEFTIST? One of us is confused, Dinesh. I don't think it's me.
It will be interesting to see if D'Souza has finally vaulted over some sort of vileness barrier in blaming Jimmy Carter for 9-11, so that even the rich Republicans he has been sucking up to all his pampered life will get a little queasy in the stomach. Judging by Ann Coulter's continued presence on the national scene, I'm not optimistic. It is too bad the old expression "beneath contempt" has been worn out by overuse. We need some sort of superlative of it.
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terrific letters
I was all psyched to write my own, but the combination here really beat me to the bunch.
I am surprised at how little intellectual heft D'Souza has, one poster compared him to Coulter (and I tend to agree), but I actually think she's smarter.
He cherry-picks evidence (as she does) and is either ignorant or deceptive about America's most basic cultural and economic facts.
The question, should we give him the forum?
In my opinion, unfortunately, the answer is 'yes.' Like Coulter, he's become too mainstream to simply ignore and he must be challenged.
Koppelman did an excellent job giving him enough rope in which to hang himself.