Dinesh D'Souza in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Accuses President of Loving Terrorists

If you thought that new ownership might mean that Brian Tierney was no longer able to hand out op-ed contracts to right-wing cronies, well, don't celebrate yet. Today's Inky editorial page features Dinesh D'Souza -- the guy behind the "Obama is a Kenyan anti-colonialist" idea that Newt Gingrich spouts. D'Souza is pretty well discredited even on the right; no reason for the Inky not to publish him!

And hey, why not speculate that the president of the United States is happy to see terrorists at work!

If Obama shares his father's anticolonial ideology, this would explain a lot about his eagerness to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. It would also explain his sympathies for the Lockerbie bomber, not because Obama favors the killing of Americans, but because he views Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi as a resister in a noble cause. Since America is the rogue elephant with a mammoth nuclear arsenal, we can understand why Obama seems more eager to reduce America's nuclear stockpile than to prevent Iran from obtaining its first nuclear bomb.

This is just so much crap. Lots of people got mad last week when the Washington Post published a Dinesh D'Souza op-ed, but even the Post didn't let D'Souza expound on Obama's supposed (and entirely made-up) sympathies with anti-American terrorists. (He merely hinted that the president was a communist in that piece.) Do the Inquirer op-ed pages have any standards at all for what they'll publish? This isn't an auspicious start for the new regime.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why John Brascia is the secret hero of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."

Image
Just finished the annual family viewing of "White Christmas." So good. And the movie's secret weapon? John Brascia. Who's that? This guy dancing with Vera-Ellen: Here's my theory: John Brascia's role in this movie makes no sense at all. Danny Kaye is Vera-Ellen's love interest in the movie. He should be, by the usual logic of Hollywood storytelling, her duet partner in all her big dances. Indeed, Kaye and Vera-Ellen have a lovely dance early in the movie: After that, though, it's Brascia — who utters no lines in the movie  (see the comments below) — who is the main dance partner. It's aided by the show-within-a-show conceit of the movie: They're practicing for an upcoming musical, you see. But again, this doesn't make a whole lotta sense... ...unless you consider this possibility: Brascia, and not Kaye, was the only dancer on set who could keep up with Vera-Ellen. Yes, Kaye was enormously gifted as a dancer. But he was alrea...
Read more

Tim Alberta's 'The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.'

Image
A funny thing happened while reading Tim Alberta's new book. I thought about becoming a Christian again. That's maybe not the reaction you would expect to have to "The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory," a deeply reported look at how (mostly white) evangelical Christians have deeply compromised their supposed values to embrace the corrupt and vulgar Donald Trump — not just lending him their votes transactionally, but enthusiastically embracing his slash-and-burn style of authoritarian politics. The corruption, grifting and thirst for power on display is all pretty well-documented by now, but it's still galling (again) to read it all in one place. Is *this* what Jesus would do? Alberta doesn't think so.  Jesus "talked mostly about helping the poor, humbling oneself, and having no earthly ambition but to gain eternal life," Alberta writes. "Suffice it to say, the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount ("Blessed are the meek ... Blessed are...
Read more

John Yoo and the Tea Party

John Yoo believes that during wartime there's virtually no limit -- legal, constitutional, treaty or otherwise -- on a president's power. He can suspend the First Amendment . He can order the testicles of a small child crushed . It was his legal advice that helped pave the way for the American torture regime . So, of course: John Yoo is a featured speaker at Tea Party events. Now: There are undoubtedly many fine and sincere Tea Party participants who legitimately want to see government restrained and fitted for a Constitutional straightjacket. That's fine. But even now, it's easy for me to believe that there's also a sizable chunk of people who didn't mind expanding deficits and tyrannical government overreach as long as a Republican is president. Tea Partiers who turn out for a John Yoo speech? Almost certainly in the latter group.
Read more