Dinesh D'Souza is a fucking idiot

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I refuse to quote such a vile right-wing blowhard here. Suffice it to say that in an op-ed in the L.A. Times he blames 9/11 on...

Can you guess? Come on, it's easy. What's the usual target of vile right-wing blowhards?

That's right.

The left. Or liberals. I'm not quite sure. I suppose anyone to the left of, say, Pinochet is a liberal. Or a leftist. He seems to use the terms interchangeably, so typically ignorant is his, uh, argument. In this case, the "left" means Carter and Clinton. And his, uh, argument consists of accusing Carter of paving the way for theocratic Iran and Clinton of not doing anything to get bin Laden. So somehow Iran was behind 9/11. I'm not sure how. I suppose he lumps all Muslims together just as he lumps all liberals and leftists together. And somehow Clinton's alleged weakness emboldened bin Laden. As if killing off bin Laden would have kept al Qaeda or other jihadists from attacking the U.S.

D'Souza doesn't seem to understand any of this. His purpose is solely to attack liberals and leftists and everyone else to the left of Pinochet. And his ignorance is revealed most clearly early on, in the second paragraph. He doesn't understand why Muslims -- or at least the more radical elements among them -- would find U.S. involvement in the Middle East, well, disturbing. The U.S. can do no wrong and has done no wrong, the implication seems to be, except where Carter and Clinton and all those like them are and were concerned. This sort of partisan reductionism is common among vile right-wing blowhards, of course -- consider Coulter, Malkin, Hannity, O'Reilly, and their ilk -- but the right often succumbs to it more generally. And it is ubiquitous here. D'Souza ignores Islam and the divisions within it, the history of the Middle East and U.S. involvement there, and the complex social, political, economic, religious, and psychological factors that brought al Qaeda and jihadism more generally into being. And he ignores them because they do not suit his partisan purpose, his ideological agenda. And perhaps because he doesn't -- and can't possibly -- understand them.

Such ignorance comes as no surprise -- this is D'Souza, after all -- but the breadth of his ignorance is breathtaking nonetheless. It takes uncommon ability so pack to much ignorance into a single op-ed.

There aren't many who have that ability quite like Dinesh D'Souza.