Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

A norm that restrains only one side really isn’t a norm – it’s a trap.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

This blog will pay for itself.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: On Beyond Shameless

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    As Ezra Klein said, Newt Gingrich is a stupid person’s idea of a smart person, and D’Souza is Newt Gingrich’s idea of an intellectual.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    I am impressed by how much pity Dinesh d’Souza is capable of lavishing on Dinesh d’Souza.

  4. 4.

    piratedan

    ty Mr. D’Sousa for demonstrating that there are whole new frontiers still to be explored in conservative narcissism. Good to know that violating federal campaign laws are the same moral equivalent as championing civil rights for all.

  5. 5.

    BGinCHI

    Dinesh D’Souza:

    “AN INTERESTING PARALLEL: Slag is the worthless by-product of an industrial process, and so am I”

    /I predict a twitter outpouring of this kind of thing.

  6. 6.

    Pogonip

    Didn’t this topic already come up? It looks familiar.

    Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with puppies, either.

  7. 7.

    PGE

    What’s funny is that, even if you grant him his hilarious premise that Obama is unsavory, it’s still only remotely parallel, not even remotely interesting. To anyone but Dinesh d’Souza, of course.

  8. 8.

    Quaker in a Basement

    INTERESTING PARALLEL: I stepped in something foul smelling. Dinesh D’Souza is equally foul smelling.

  13. 13.

    Howard Beale IV

    D’Souza: (n) a metric used to determine how narcissism is measured, by noting that Mr; D’Souza admitted on Federal charges of being guilty of committing straw voting. It also came to light during sentencing that Mr. D’Souza engaged in spousal abuse. Why any sane person should give him any pedestal to speak should make the grantee be questioned.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    Further evidence that d’Souza has abandoned all pretense of being a “conservative intellectual” and now aspires to generate income / outrage as a wingnut troll. It’s a well-trodden path.

  17. 17.

    Violet

    If you didn’t know who any of those people were it would be obvious that Dinesh D’Souza is a wingnut. The victim complex is the tell.

    If there’s no such thing as bad publicity this must be working well for D’Souza. It’s getting him lots of attention.

  18. 18.

    KG

    you know, sometimes, just sometimes, I really wish things were how the conspiracy nutters think. The idea that POTUS would take the time/energy/effort to personally see that D’Souza was convicted (ON TRUMPED UP CHARGES! no less) is just so special.

  19. 19.

    NobodySpecial

    AN INTERESTING PARALLEL: Timothy McVeigh is a convicted felon, and so is Dinesh D’Souza.

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    @debbie: Wikipedia sayeth:

    In an October 16, 2012 article in World Magazine, author Warren Cole Smith reported on D’Souza’s activities after a September 28 talk that year in Spartanburg, South Carolina.[95] Smith said that D’Souza, who was married at the time, checked into a hotel with another woman, and left with her the following day. In his rebuttal, D’Souza said that he and his wife had separated. He confirmed that he had been engaged to Denise Odie Joseph, noted in the article. After an investigation by officials at King’s College, he suspended the engagement to Joseph.[4] It was later revealed that Joseph was also married at the time of the Spartanburg visit.[97] D’Souza officially filed for divorce from Dixie on October 4, 2012.[98][99]

    After D’Souza’s engagement became public, the trustees of The King’s College announced after meeting on October 17, 2012, that D’Souza had resigned his position as president of the university in order “to attend to his personal and family needs”.[100] The scandal resonated at the college because “The King’s College is not a typical institution of higher learning. It is a tiny Christian college based in a downtown Manhattan office building, whose mission statement articulates a ‘commitment to the truths of Christianity and a biblical worldview'”.[4]

    I’m sure that was Obama’s fault as well.

  23. 23.

    Judge Crater

    You forgot the tag douche bag. Actually, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, he’s a dirt ball wrapped in a used condom inside a colostomy bag.

    Pitiful….

  25. 25.

    sharl

    @BGinCHI: Yep, after seeing some mockery by fellow tweeters, The Rude Pundit suggested an appropriate hashtag. Thus was born #AnInterestingParallel, and it’s getting at least moderate response. Sampling:

    AN INTERESTING PARALLEL. MLK went to jail for unjust reasons. @DineshDSouza sells fake Christmas trees https://t.co/CrLjwBezJY (YouTube link)

    MLK was often beaten in the heart of Dixie. Dinesh D’Souza’s ex-wife’s name is Dixie. #aninterestingparallel

    MLK was arrested 30 times. Daniel Carcillo has now been suspended 9 times. #aninterestingparallel

    MLK was a man of peace who was the target of hate and @DineshDSouza is a man of hate who has probably gone to Target #aninterestingparallel

    Martin Luther King was a great man with human flaws. Dinesh D’Souza is a collection of flaws wearing a Man Suit.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @KG: he idea that POTUS would take the time/energy/effort to personally see that D’Souza was convicted (ON TRUMPED UP CHARGES! no less) is just so special.

    furthermore to that, the fiendish Kenyan used an Imperator hex to trick D’Souza in to pleading guilty to those trumped up charges, also, too, literally.

  28. 28.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    and, just for fun, a Florida state senator, also a Florida Man, has drafted a bill to make D’Souza’s anti-Obama documentary required viewing for high school students

  30. 30.

    scav

    @sharl: well, if

    MLK was often beaten in the heart of Dixie. Dinesh D’Souza’s ex-wife’s name is Dixie. #aninterestingparallel

    it does rather follow that he’s no longer Number One in the heart of his Ex and has thus been beaten in the heart of Dixie. Clever that one.

  31. 31.

    Tommy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: And keep in mind, before he got convicted for breaking campaign finance laws, and even afterwards, it seemed he could be seen on CNN like every 20 minutes. He was their “go to guy” to talk about all things Obama. Again, think and/or ponder that. Is there is wonder our national is FUBAR, this asshat is considered not only by somebody like Newt and his ilk as an “intelecual” but also one of our major media outlets. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around it all.

  33. 33.

    Tom Levenson

    D’Souza’s on a roll. (Would that it were a bulkie….) I stumbled on another one of his tweets, and as Ann Laurie had already got here with this one, put it up at my little home blog.

  34. 34.

    BGinCHI

    @sharl:

    Martin Luther King was a great man with human flaws. Dinesh D’Souza is a collection of flaws wearing a Man Suit.

    WIN.

  39. 39.

    Violet

    Let us not forget his claim of ignorance of Christian ethics and morals when caught engaged while still married:

    D’Souza, a former CT [“CT” is “Christianity Today”] columnist, said he did not know that Christians generally do not approve of engagements prior to divorces being finalized.

    “I asked a lawyer whether there was anything wrong in being engaged while separated but prior to being divorced,” he said. “I was told there’s no problem with that and actually that happens all the time. I proposed to Denise and we became engaged.”

    “I believe I have good biblical grounds for divorce and was going through the legitimate process,” said D’Souza. “The thing I will admit: I did not have any idea that it is seen as wrong in Christian circles to be engaged prior to being divorced even though separated. … That was a true error of judgment, but it was truly a case where I didn’t know better.”

    It turned out his supposed fiancee was married to someone else at the time of her “engagement” to D’Souza.

    Thank goodness such moral paragons exist.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    check out this before the Kingn estate has University take it down.

    It is amazing to me — and as an Atlantan, this is constant “local” news — the way the King Estate and the King Center and the three surviving King children are forever taking each other to court. It seems they swing back and forth from one side to the other, depending upon who is suing whom. It is both sad and risible. I can’t think that this is what MLK Jr. or Coretta would have wanted as their legacy.

  45. 45.

    PurpleGirl

    @Poopyman: Right, because there aren’t as many chances for grifting as a Roman Catholic. d’Souza’s family has a long history of being Roman Catholics in Goa, India.

  47. 47.

    Tommy

    @Chris: How about it. What asshat on MLK Day thinks, “hey I got a bright idea. I’ll use Twitter to troll liberals and compare myself to MLK. Yeah that’s the ticket, what a great idea!”

    Well I guess I have my answer to that question don’t I …..

  49. 49.

    RSA

    D’Souza is a small thinker:

    AN EQUALLY INTERESTING PARALLEL: Jesus Christ was crucified while Pontius Pilate looked on; Dinesh D’Souza did community service for his crimes while Barack Obama looked on.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Violet:

    It is sad. And it is just incomprehensible. You’ll hear about a lawsuit which has MLK III and Dexter King pitted against (surviving) sister Bernice King for ownership of the Nobel Peace Prize and MLK Jr’s Bible, and another in which the Estate (MLK III, Dexter and Bernice) is suing the MLK Center Foundation (MLK III, Dexter and Bernice). It’s crazy.

    I spent the worst couple of years of my life in an estrangement with my siblings after my dad died, and our issues were simple. II know these three kids love each other, and it must just chew them up inside to be at legal odds with each other. It makes me crazy to think about it. Tragic.

  52. 52.

    lamh36

    @SiubhanDuinne: it really is sad.

    I may have said this before but I read a quote from Harry Belafonte said one regret he had was that there wasn’t a bigger effort to support the. King children after Dr King’s death.

  54. 54.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: Belafonte was actually used by the King children over some documents given to him by Coretta. the children sued him for these docs…

    they really do sue a lot of people and it’s pretty sad

  55. 55.

    Chickamin Slam

    Dinesh D’Souza should be serving 7 years in the slammer. Instead he gets a slap on the wrist and goes back to his job, such that it is. But he’s the one that’s a target for assassination though.

  59. 59.

    Howard Beale IV

    I just dumped on Dinesh’s Twitter feed:

    Obama wasn’t convicted of a felony and didn’t beat his wife. Obama has his problems, but you are right up up there, dude

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @RSA:

    Dinesh D’Souza did community service for his crimes

    Did he? I think he was ordered to do community service, but is there any evidence that he’s done so?

  62. 62.

    sharl

    @lamh36: I’m glad I listened to that recording of MLK’s April 1965 talk at UCLA, long though it is (~55 minutes); thanks for the link!

    It was definitely a speech crafted for a university audience, with a more intellectual tone than the more spiritually oriented speeches which I think are better known. Discussion of eros-vs-agape types of love – he of course had a point in bringing that up – brought back an alcohol-hazed memory of a bar room discussion from my grad school days way back in ancient times. Glad to hear it reiterated – and made relevant to the civil rights movement – while actually sober.

    And his tongue-in-cheek recommendation for creation of an International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment – to counter the dulling effects of being contented/well-adjusted, and hence uninterested in poverty and injustices beyond one’s own life – was a pleasant surprise; not that I’m an expert in MLK’s speeches (far from it), but I don’t recall having heard that particular kind of humor in his works (as I say though, there is much I’m not familiar with).

    My only criticism is that, during a portion of the speech decrying militarism, he said ‘nucular’. Yeah, kind of winced at that a bit.

  64. 64.

    danielx

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Ann Coulter once dated him.

    And I’m out of brain bleach. Thanks loads, now I’m going to be afraid to go to sleep tonight for fear of dreams including those kinds of images.

  65. 65.

    danielx

    Note: if Obama was all that unsavory, ol’ Dinesh would be a guest of the Bureau of Prisons.

  68. 68.

    Tommy

    @lamh36: I didn’t know that. Very cool read. Makes me love the man even more. When I was a young adult I only knew Stevie for his pop and top 40 stuff in the 80s. Duos with Michael Jackson. Didn’t think much of him.

    A much older friend heard me mention this once and sat me down and put on this (an LP on vinyl I might add):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDZFf0pm0SE

    When I heard Superstition I was blown away. Then things like Higher Ground. The dude had it going on. My friend noted there was once a time, but he went on to say in his mind even today, Stevie is about the coolest and most hip dude around.

    Later I would read about his political activism. I bet most people don’t know both in his music and his daily life he was pretty darn political active.

    It is strange how many of the popular acts of the 60s and 70s were so political, yet today it seems most of the “popular” musicians, who do in fact have a place of influence and easy access to the media, do everything in their power to seem apolitical. I guess to ensure they don’t piss off any group of people, like the Dixie Chicks did, so they can sell for shit!

  69. 69.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    I wonder if his sentencing judge has had any second thoughts about not sentencing him to actual prison time. (I know his lack of any real repentance was one aggravating factor called out by the prosecutor.)

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    I’ve seen that quote (maybe through you). I don’t know a lot about their circumstances after April 4, 1968. As a somewhat oblivious White person, I confess it really never occurred to me to wonder about how the King children were doing. I’m not sure what the signals would have been to alert people to their looming adversarial relationship, nor what outsiders (Black or White) could have done about it. But totally apart from the disposition of the NPP or Bible, it breaks my heart that these kids are aligned against each other.

  72. 72.

    Roger Moore

    @danielx:

    Note: if Obama was all that unsavory, ol’ Dinesh would be a guest of the Bureau of Prisons.

    Or as dead as MLK. It’s good to remember just what the enemies of everything MLK stood for were willing to do to support their cause.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)

    @sharl:

    IIRC, “nukular” is a Southern pronounciation, which is why W used it — Lookit me, I’m a good ol’ boy from Texas, not a rich guy from Connecticut! So it makes sense that Dr. King, who was born and raised in the South, would pronounce it that way. It’s not his fault that ignorant a-holes do the same thing. :-)

  75. 75.

    cckids

    @Violet:

    The victim complex is the tell.

    Thought of D’Souza / ALL WINGNUTS today with a Emerson quote that hit my FB page:

    “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”

    Vulgar Mistake is a great name for the upcoming Republican 2016 tour.

  77. 77.

    RSA

    @Roger Moore:

    I think he was ordered to do community service, but is there any evidence that he’s done so?

    Oh, good point. I have no idea. It wouldn’t surprise me…

  81. 81.

    lamh36

    @sharl: something I learned from last night’s Selma50 special. on Oprahs OWN tv channel was that Julian Bonds was actually a student in Dr Kings one and only class he taught at Morehouse. IDK why, but that really struck me?

  82. 82.

    Cervantes

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    A good line.

    Ezra applied it to Dick Armey. It was Krugman who applied it to Gingrich. Someone else applied it to Stephen Fry, as I half-recall. And it was Elizabeth Bowen who originated it in the ’30s, writing about Aldous Huxley.

  83. 83.

    mdblanche

    @LongHairedWeirdo: But do you know who else was railroaded on bogus charges for trying to take his country back and then given a very lenient sentence despite his lack of any real repentance? It’s a interesting parallel.

  84. 84.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    My, my. How does he manage to send out all those tweets while up on that cross?

  88. 88.

    raven

    @Baud: It’s pretty good, the last 2 paragraphs are worth looking at

    And now that I’m no longer young, and he’s dead, I’ll do my best to follow the path Foghat blazed into my life’s last half. This is sound medical advice, as neuroscientist Head says: “Everything you do for a dog to help them age well, you should do with them.”

    So eat the best food you can afford. Go for a walk, even if it’s raining. Take a lot of naps. Keep your teeth clean and your breath fresh, so that the people you lick will not flinch. And when someone you love walks in through the door, even if it happens five times a day, go totally insane with joy.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Cervantes: There were part of a group of bright young rightwing things from Dartmouth, weren’t they? Back when Laura Ingram and her zany fashion sense were going to reinvent conservatism and save us all from political correctness?

  90. 90.

    Mike in NC

    Weaselface D’Souza is like Republican Congressmen who bitch and moan about Obama, and then when he shows up to deliver the State of the Union address, they knock each other down trying to shake his hand and request an autograph.

  91. 91.

    Violet

    @Baud:

    Yeah, we could really use a puppy thread right now.

    We sure could. And we were promised more pet pics and there are none. POUT.

  99. 99.

    gogol's wife

    @raven:

    Like Baud, I couldn’t read that article, but I did read those last two paragraphs and couldn’t stop crying for a while. Really well written.

  102. 102.

    sharl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, I think a bunch of those folks are Dartmouth alumni.

    And I think it was commenter Momsense in a long ago post that noted the conservative media training organization Collegiate Network, where you’ll see a lot of familiar young wingnut names on their Alumni page.

    I don’t know if something similar would happen if young lefties had access to the equivalent of generous Wingnut Welfare – we might just see the kind of internal squabbling mocked in Life of Brian – but it would be nice to at least have the opportunity to give it a try.

  104. 104.

    Gvg

    First heard of D’inish when he made that absurd “accusation” that Obama was anti-colonial as if that was a bad thing for any American. what was amazing was that the conservatives didn’t know they should have laughed him off the stage right then. It just boggles my mind that the self declared patriots don’t know elementary school American history.

  105. 105.

    edub

    And my doctoral dissertation “On Conservative Victimhood” has another source. Getting hard to keep track.

  106. 106.

    burnspbesq

    D’Souza makes me long for the days when cops carried an extra piece in an ankle holster in case they needed to plant one on a suspect to get a charge upgraded. Convicted felon in possession of a firearm? ANOTHER FELONY! Dingdingding!

  108. 108.

    PurpleGirl

    According to Wikipedia, d’Souza filed divorce papers in 2010 but by 2012 they still hadn’t been finalized, so maybe he’s still married to Dixie.

  111. 111.

    Some guy

    AN INTERESTING PARALLEL.

    Martin Luther King sacrificed his own life to stand up against racism, police brutality, income inequality, and the Vietnam War.

    Dinesh D’Souza has never done anything remotely similar to those things.

    However, as a convicted felon and adulterer, it probably makes him feel a lot better by comparing himself to Martin Luther King, even if the comparison is obviously ludicrous.

  112. 112.

    sharl

    @sharl: Oh, forgot one bit in my “review” of MLK’s 1965 speech at UCLA, which was: what was his point in showing up there? He basically comes to that at the end: he’s there to recruit students to participate in his civil rights activism, and I would go further and say he is clearly recruiting white kids in particular. After all, he would not have to go through all that trouble with an AA student body to explain the value of his cause, but privileged white kids might just be responsive to the background information he provided on agape love (a component of empathy) and the importance of not being content with the status quo. It wouldn’t surprise me if he gave some version of that same speech at other (predominantly white) colleges and universities.

  114. 114.

    sm*t cl*de

    AN INTERESTING PARALLEL. The bottom-feeding parchment worm Chaetopterus variopedatus exudes a mucus film to trap food.
    Dinesh D’Souza exudes films of mucus to grift money.

  115. 115.

    brantl

    Mr. D’Douza, you were found to be an election law cheat, were given minimal sentencing, if you were “targeted”, you’re dumb enough that I expect they would have found much more on you. Just be glad you were caught by Democrats, if you’d been caught by Republicans, you’d be in Gitmo.

  118. 118.

    Cervantes

    @sharl:

    It wouldn’t surprise me if he gave some version of that same speech at other (predominantly white) colleges and universities.

    He did.

    He spent quite some time in the Boston area where many such schools exist. In fact he completed his Ph. D. at Boston University (where, alas, he wrote a dissertation while plagiarizing some of his sources).

  119. 119.

    Cervantes

    @Some guy:

    However, as a convicted felon and adulterer, it probably makes [d’Souza] feel a lot better by comparing himself to Martin Luther King, even if the comparison is obviously ludicrous.

    Dr. King was an adulterer as well. He was a great political thinker and a great leader of people, and all who knew him learned from him and miss him still — but no one is perfect.

  120. 120.

    elm

    @Howard Beale IV: Lets not smear perfectly decent trans-folk with comparisons to Ann Coulter. Whether Coulter is trans or not, she identifies as female and her chromosomes and appearance are *not* what’s wrong with her.

  121. 121.

    My Truth Hurts

    Oh did Obama send Dinesh and anonymous letter urging him to kill himself? Because if not I am more than willing to.

  122. 122.

    Rathskeller

    @dmsilev: I’ve always loved that part of the story. I would love to have heard him offer his apologies like George Costanza. “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?”

Comments are closed.