When it comes to terrorism it looks like certain pundits argued against root causes before they argued for them. James Wolcott takes it away:
[Y]esterday I received the galley of Dinesh D’Souza’s new book from Doubleday, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, to be published in January 2007.[…] The theme of the book is quite simple, and vile.
“In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11.”
Then the qualifiers begin multiplying. The term ‘cultural left’ doesn’t refer to the Democratic Party, nor to all liberals. (Peter Beinart presumably gets a pass.) Nor is he saying that cultural lefties actually brought the towers down. He isn’t so rash as to suggest Molly Ivins piloted one of the planes, parachuting to safety before impact. So what is he saying?
“I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector [profiteers are always patriots, of course], and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.”
[…] Muslims are angry, D’Souza concedes, but they are mostly angry because their anger has been fueled and fanned by the cultural left.
“Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.”
I like that “Thus,” as if he’s actually proven something.
“I realize that this is a strong charge,” D’Souza writes, “one that no one has made before.”
We have danced this idiotic dance several times already. Ramesh Ponnuru published a stinking culture grenade called Party of Death and then played a game of footsie with critics about whether he specifically meant to impugn the Democratic party. A typical example from Ponnuru’s appearance on the Colbert Report:
Ponnuru: […] I need to explain that not all Democrats are part of the Party of Death, and some Republicans are part of the Party of Death. I’m using that phrase really to refer to all the forces in our politics and culture —
Colbert: Does it say some Republicans on this? No, it doesn’t: it just says “The Democrats, the Media, the Courts” — just probably ran out of ink at some point.
Ponnuru: There’s a lot about the Democrats, a lot about the media, and a lot about the courts in the book.
The rules of this game are pretty simple. The knuckle-chewing targets of Ponnuru’s diatribe will see the book, read ‘Democrats=death” and, one hopes, never vote Dem again. This is a fairly mundane if hilariously stupid effort to poison the well by making folks see the opposing party not just as wrong on some issues but viscerally, fundamentally unacceptable. Evil even. See, who loves death? Evil people. And Democrats. Recent elections show that this stuff works like a charm.
Ponnuru’s problem is that his simplistic “argument” doesn’t hold up to ten seconds of honest scrutiny. So to preserve his credibility Ponnuru plays an elaborate game of denying that he means to say what he is obviously trying to say. From the dust jacket of his book:
Is the Democratic Party the “Party of Death”?
If you look at their agenda they are.
Pretty bald as lying goes. Good for Ponnuru that the womblike environs of a wingnut welfare outfit like NRO rank credibility on the list of important skills right around fire juggling and needlework.
Look for D’Souza to play the same silly game, and then Jonah Goldberg soon after with his book about how liberals are worse than Hitler. Followers will hear that Democrats are horrible evil awful people who want to eat your baby while the authors nakedly lie to the rest of us about what they “really” mean to say.
Another day in the rightwing noise machine.
ThymeZone
D’Souza is not worthy of comment.
I did like his marches, though.
Steve
D’Souza’s book is a million times worse than anything Ponnuru wrote. I’d personally like to lock the guy in a room with all the “9/11 was an inside job” crazies and let them tear each other to pieces.
If you argue that “bin Laden thinks the cultural Left is decadent” and simultaneously argue that “the cultural Left actually IS decadent,” what it adds up to is a claim that bin Laden is justified in what he does. That’s sick.
ThymeZone
I swear on everything that is the morass of Pajamas Media and its frequent crashes and timestamp errors and antispam filter failures, I have no idea why that double posted.
Pb
At least President George W. Bush is taking a strong stand to prevent and deter future terrorism here. He has correctly realized that “the terrorists hate us for our freedoms”, and has therefore enacted strong measures to ensure that in the future, the terrorists will no longer have that reason to hate us.
searp
Some more basic questions: why do people who say this get published? Why do they get an audience? What happened to some sort of decency? I cannot help but think that this would have ended up in a John Birch publication 40 years ago, not in a major book release followed by tons of TV time.
What the hell is going on?
Pb
searp,
Are those practical questions, or social ones? We can probably trace back the funding and backing on this, at least.
ThymeZone
There’s a market for it.
Millions are spent on Rapture books. Nothing could possibly be crazier than that shit.
If someone will buy the crap, someone else will sell it to them.
Tim F.
Actually I wonder how many of those books, after the bulk buys and massive ad blitzes and cetera, actually make money. I bet that overall the message is about as profitable as the National Review. Which is to say, not.
The people behind stuff like this, Scaife for example, don’t need the money. They have plenty of that. The point here is the agenda.
Pb
Or, for that matter, The Washington Times. But yeah, what Tim said. And in the larger sense, their agenda has made them money, collectively.
Mike
This should really make the Republemmings proud.
matt
I’m not sure this is an argument conservatives want to be playing with, simply because if the culture left is al qaeda’s real enemy, what does that make the cultural right?
I don’t think they thought this one through.
Punchy
Echoing Tim’s comment–how many of these knuckle-dragging, barely-enough-money-to-buy-cigs redneck racists actually buy these and/or can read?
It’s hard to reach the base with these books when many of your most ardent supporters live in double-wides, have a 4th grade reading level, and whose idea of “reading a book” is following a reciepe for meth.
Tsulagi
The Dobson/retardocon base needs this kind of shit to shore itself up not just for the midterms, but for the long slog in the next presidential election cycle.
The base has been starting to see ripples in the Matrix. Glitches abound. Need to give them some nourishing pablum of fear and hate to keep the pods delusional.
matt
This might actually the be the most (unintentionally) honest argument these folks have made.
matt
Tim, John, why wasn’t my comment allowed? Not trying to be a pain, just curious.
btw, my last comment doesn’t make a lot of sense without the context of my earlier comment.
Andrew
Fuck it. I’m voting for Hillary. I don’t like her at all but I think she’s the one who would just blackbag these fuckers, take them to Gitmo and saw their nuts off.
Andrew
I watched Left Behind III on Friday. I haven’t seen the first two, but I can make a pretty good guess at what happens during the Rapture scene. It’s pretty cool because God gives President Louis Gossett Jr. to turn invisible. I’m serious.
And yes, I lost a bet.
ThymeZone
Mainstream publishers, such as Random House, the publisher of this book, publish books for one and only one reason: To make a profit.
Punchy
Because Mr. Cole insists on being sponsored by Bra and Panties Publishing, which has a track record similar to that of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska…
Davebo
So a guy who got his pilots license 7 months ago is allowed to fly his private aircraft over Manhattan.
Do ya feel safer now?
t. jasper parnell
As usual the King of the March has his facts wrong. The origin of radical Islams hatred of American decadence is
In particular, if I recall correctly, all the Frat and Sorority mixers.
SeesThroughIt
I’ve got $50 on renting the room and purchasing any necessary plane tickets.
On the subject of rapture films, I highly recommend Megiddo: the Omega Code 2. It stars Basil Exposition as Satan’s on-Earth operative, R. Lee Ermey (who is absolutely awesome in every way, and I refuse to hear arguments to the contrary) as the president, some foreign leaders straight out of Crappy Central Casting, and the best special effects $46.71 can buy. Fantastic entertainment.
matt
Oops, my comment is showing up, my bad!
The Other Steve
ROTFL!!!!! BWAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAA!!!!!
So Jerry Falwell and whoever the hell this other guy is, thinks that the way to fight terrorism is to capitulate to them!
We must immediately reverse the Bill of Rights.
Women should only wear burkas when outside, and then only to go to the store because the idea of women working is repulsive.
Gays back in the closet.
Rock n’ Roll off the airwaves!
Immediately repeal the Twenty First amendment.
What else? State control of movies and television.
The Cultural Revolution is here! Chairman Mao would be so proud!
Sstarr
So muslims are exposed to Women’s Studies programs, NPR Pledge drives and reruns of “Dallas” and then explode in rage? Sounds reasonable to me. Truly we won’t win in the war on terror until we have closed the universities, shut down the girl scouts and banned film and television.
Richard Bottoms
Hi.
Republicans are evil.
That is all.
badtux
Did D’Souza copulate with pigs on his uncle’s pig farm?
Did D’Souza tear newborn infants into pieces with his bare hands then eat the still-twitching body parts with a big grin on his face?
Did D’Souza have sex with his mother after having sex with his father?
Did D’Souza personally kill John F. Kennedy in Dallas?
Hey, just askin’, y’know!
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Rusty Shackleford
How can Democrats logically be referred to as the “Party of Death”? Aren’t Democrats generally regarded as “anti-war”, “anti-gun”, “anti-death penalty”? Does being “pro-choice” trump everything else? Doesn’t support for “stem cell research to find cures for diseases that kill people” count for anything?
These books by D’Souza and Ponnuru are Orwellian. Sean Hannity’s presentation of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi is the FOX News version of “Two Minutes Hate”. We are assaulted with “newspeak” all the time and listening to Bush’s recent series of speeches has led me to conclude that it will only get worse.
Today our President, George W. Bush said this about the Iraqi people, “I am, you know, amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they’re willing to — you know, that there’s a level of violence that they tolerate.
As Hank Hill would say, “Yup.”
ThymeZone
An apparently drunk or demented man stood in front of cameras today and said the following, claiming to be the President of the United States.
If a man stood in the subway station and said this stuff in a loud voice, I assume that he might be carted off as a dangerous vagrant.
Whoever he is, he is clearly crazy and should be in an institution. I defy anyone to explain what he said or what point he thought he was making:
CaseyL
What amazes me more than almost anything else is that there are people in this country who heard that speech and thought they were hearing pearls of statemanlike wisdom from the Greatest President in US History.
And, no, they’re not all in assisted living facilities.
Steve
I just don’t know, George. I just don’t know. But you sound a lot like this guy.
Good stuff, good stuff.
r€nato
thanks for bringing up Ramesh Ponnuru in your Dinesh D’Souza example; Ponnuru also appeared on The Daily Show (a month or two prior to his Colbert appearance) and he flat out denied his book was talking about the Democratic Party.
You absolutely nailed these two on their game; kudos.
r€nato
I’d also like to add that D’Souza’s thesis implies that if we appease the terrorists by not indulging in our freedoms, they won’t attack us.
Perhaps D’Souza’s next book could be about establishing a federal Department For Promotion Of Virtue And Prevention Of Vice.
Krista
Holy crap! Badtux! Where on earth did you disappear to? (And please don’t say “The South Pole”…)
SeesThroughIt
Yes, but no Democrats attempted to give Terri Schiavo a bottle of water and a sandwich. So, you know…Party of Death.
HyperIon
isn’t it great when a poster re-appears after a long absence?
(i’m mean most of the time..those recent Darrell free days were so nice.)
did you see that Santa Claus (or his ghost at least) returned a couple of days ago?
the Easter Bunny should be showing up soon.
Krista
That does seem to be what he’s saying. So, the only way to stop the terrorists from attacking us is to be EXACTLY like them, with the sole exception of the deity to whom we pray.
Zifnab
Ramesh wasn’t against the Democratic Party. I’m sure he was a very big Zell Miller/Joe Lieberman/Bill Nelson fan. And he’d probably have some very harsh words for Lincoln Chafee.
But that’s the classic hard-right strategy. Talk out of both sides of your mouth. Say all the most short-sighted, mean-spirited, deranged things you can think of to your base. Democrats are all Nazis, the New York Times wants another 9/11, Gays in the Military are undermining the War in Iraq, Mark Foley was seduced by the leftist page program’s planted agents, … Then they turn around whenever they need to appear before a wide television audiance and start talking surprisingly sanely. Democrats aren’t all Nazis, but they do call Republicans Nazis. The New York Times doesn’t actively desire to see another terror attack, but they don’t seem interested in preventing one. Gays aren’t the only reason Iraq isn’t going well. And have we mentioned all the Dems who’ve molested children in the past 200 years?
Pb
Say it ain’t so.
Yeah, I’m rooting for the Democrats too.
You’re resigning?
Dinesh D'Souza's Mom
Yes, No (he wore mittens), Not recently (but Tequila kills your memory), and No (it was the Cubans, but not Mark).
Richard Bottoms
Did I mention the Republicans are evil?
Mike P.
“Followers will hear that Democrats are horrible evil awful people who want to eat your baby while the authors nakedly lie to the rest of us about what they “really” mean to say.”
Funny, that’s the same thing I heard from folks in E. Tennessee in the early 60s about Catholics. Funny, because my family were the only Catholics I knew, and though my mother was known to serve escargot, we never had baby that I remember.
Oddly enough, I guess “liberals” have taken over as the new Catholics (or any other boogeyman you could name from American history) to the rubes. Or have they just been added to the ever growing list?
Zifnab
Oh, I wouldn’t say anyone’s taking over. Go down to your local right-wing evangelical crazy-thon and I’m sure you’ll find some to tell you about how the Pope really the anti-Christ and Catholics are all going to hell for various forms of sacriledge. Makes you long for the unexpected days of the Spanish Inquisition.
Steve
Gerry Studds had sex with that page in 1973… and now Chappaquiddick. These guys are really, really, really flailing.
The Easter Bunny
Look, I’m busy spreading freedom and democracy one bullet at a time, bitches. I don’t have time to hang out on blogs and bitch all day like you goddamn hippies. Blasting Canuckistanis into a fine mist of maple-scented goo is hard work.
But don’t fret, moonbats. When we reflect on this period of history in the years to come, the War on Holiday Icons will look like a comma. A red, smeared comma, such as might be left by a lifeless, bloody hand thumping onto the virgin snows of Greater Canuckistan.
I gotta go. Things to do, moose-worshippers to exterminate. You understand. Plus, if I’m on the Internet for too long, the Ghost of Santa starts bugging me to download some of that sicko elf porn he’s so fond of. The fat bastard can’t do it himself anymore due to the whole noncorporeal thing. So if any of you pencil-necked computer nerds know how to rig up a wireless network that can interface with the afterlife, let me know.
Peeps, bitches!
Pb
How do you even respond to crap like that, or is there a fucking point to it at all? In other news, Dan Crane had sex with a page, and Strom Thurmond had a black baby etc., etc.
Bob In Pacifica
Well, Falwell’s come a long way since he argued against integration and miscegenation.
Zifnab
With all these startling revelations, one questions how the Democratic Party will fair in ’94. I hear the Republicans may be sitting on a real bombshell – and this is just a rumor, mind you – that former President Clinton may have been having an illicit affair with an working intern during his two terms in office. If that turns out to be true, and it’s leaked to the press… well… that could be the death blow to an approval rating already scraping the low 60s (bottom of the barrel, I know).
Jess
So, D’Souza has joined the “blame America first” crowd…interesting.
badtux
Oh, the usual. Changed jobs, wrote my first novel, that sort of thing. I just had to get away from the insanity for a while. Lost my snark for a while there. Which is bad news for a snarky penguin.
Say, is it true that Republicans eat babies and love to laugh at pictures of starving children in Somalia while self-gratifying themselves? Hey, it’s just a question, no harm in asking questions, right? I mean, it’s not as if asking a question means I’m actually SAYING that Republicans eat babies and do hand-jobs to pictures of starving Somali children. I’m just askin’ a question! Like, is your mother a whore? See, just a question!
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
r€nato
HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP)—Republican Rep. Christopher Shays defended the House speaker’s handling of a congressional page scandal, saying no one died like during the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.
shit that’s nothing. Grover Cleveland had an illegitimate child! Thomas Jefferson kept a slave as his mistress! And don’t get me going about Andrew Jackson…
Pb
Republican Rep. Christopher Shays defended the House speaker’s handling of a congressional page scandal, saying no one died like _________
like in Iraq?
Paddy O'Shea
Breaking…Foley Didn’t resign because of the scandal!
He resigned because polls showed that he would be
coming in a little behind.
More details as they come.
chopper
cue trombone: (wah waaaaah)
Zifnab
Gerry Studds got re-elected.
This just proves that the Republicans are a morally centered political party, while Democrats are out purely for political gain.
Fruitbat
The joke I’ve been hearing, Paddy, runs like this:
Why don’t Republicans use bookmarks?
They’d rather just bend over a page.
chopper
man, that’s bad. i love it.
jcricket
I heard that John McCain had a jackalope with his Vietnamese captors. That’s why he actually stayed in Camp Ho Chi Minh for 5 years, not because he was a prisoner.
It’s possible that’s also where he caught TEH GAY.
Paddy O'Shea
Gallup: Religious Whites Disproportionately Shift Away From GOP
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=24946
Paddy O'Shea
Does anybody here know exactly how many pages
there are in Mark Foley’s little black book?
Andrew
Or that Democrats are gentle, caring lovers, and that Republicans are bad at sex. Duh.
Punchy
Him and McCain?
chefrad
Look at it this way, now the Republicans have the lead in harboring BOTH kinds of Chickenhawks.
CaseyL
I totally heart The Easter Bunny.
Sam Hutcheson
The Republican Not-Quite-So-Big-Anymore-And-Ever-Shrinkin tent isn’t composed solely of mouth-breathing trailer trash. In fact, most of the types of people you reference there are part of a much larger tent — the I-Dont-Bother-Voting party. Sure, what mouth-breathing trailer trash actually vote tend to vote to stamp out teh gay, so they’re pivotal in Rovian calculations, but if you focus solely on that wing of the nuts you lose track of the more dangerous wing — the suburban megachurch, “Prosperity Gospel” crowd. Those guys are educated, reasonably monied, rabid Boortz/Hannity listeners and the prime reason books like these stay on best seller lists and have their own special table displays in suburban Barnes and Nobles.
s/
The Easter Bunny
Thanks, pal, but no thanks. Not my bag, baby. Move to Massachusetts and call up Mark Foley if you’re into that. Leave us decent God-fearing Americans out of it.
Besides, I’ve got my paws full “consoling” the widow Claus. In fact I consoled her three times last night. That chick is wicked freaky.
Zifnab
Shorter: Psychos with money
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Careful, Rabbit. It’s common knowledge that Mr. Claus got around a lot while he was still among us. Lord only knows what diseases you might be exposing yourself to right now.
If nothing else, think of your own wives, and your 727 children.
JamesJr
Read what Michael Scheurer says about why they hate us. It has little to do with right or left:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/01/int05001.html
“I think the most basic thing for Americans to realize is that this war has nothing to do with who we are or what we believe, and everything to do with what we do in the Islamic world. Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush before Mr. Clinton — they all identified Islamic militancy as being based on the hatred of Western democracy and freedom, and that’s clearly not the case. They surely don’t like our way of life, but very few people are willing to die to keep us from having primary elections or because we have freedom of the press.
“Universally in the Muslim world, at least according to the most recent polling data, American foreign policy in several specific areas is hated by Muslims. Majorities of 85-90 percent are registered as hating or resenting American policies, towards our support for Israel, our ability to keep oil prices low, or low enough to satisfy Western consumers, our support for Arab tyrannies from Morocco to the Indian Ocean, our support for Putin in Chechnya. “
The Easter Bunny
Big deal. We’ve had a raging case of venereal spirochetosis going around our clan since the late 1600s. In fact, we introduced it to the Americas. Personally I blame that little ho Darlene, my 23rd wife.
Trust me, once you’ve had the rabbit clap, human diseases are nothing to be scared of.
searp
I do not believe that D’Souza even believes what he says; it is propaganda designed to demonize people who oppose the Bush evangelical cultists. The motivation must have been venal – a nobody can make a career in punditry simply by saying things that powerful people find useful.
It is immoral and dastardly, but there are plenty of precendents, just not many in this country. I guess we’re breaking new ground in our march towards authoritarianism.