Author Dinesh D’Souza has made a number of outrageous, irresponsible and easily disproven accusations about President Obama that essentially center around the “Obama views are more African than American” dog whistle, although couched in more digestible terms. Instead of exposing and disposing of this detestable sort of rhetoric, Fox News has deliberately hyped it – under cover of merely presenting it for discussion. Sadly, when given an opportunity to challenge that tactic and framing, two Democrats failed to do so.
The O’Reilly Factor, Fox’s top-rated show, calls itself the “no spin zone.” On Monday night (8/20/12), Laura Ingraham, guest hosting for Bill O’Reilly, interviewed D’Souza as an expert on President Obama’s presidency. Ingraham never noted the following key points that viewers of the “we report, you decide” audience might have wanted to know:
D’Souza has described Obama as, “a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s.” It amounts to what Media Matters’ Oliver Willis aptly calls “highbrow birtherism.”
D’Souza’s previous book about Obama contained a number of inflammatory falsehoods about him, including, as Media Matters reported: an accusation that Obama supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber because he “sometimes ‘supports the release of terrorists who claim to be fighting wars of liberation against American aggression.’ But the Obama administration formally opposed the release in an official letter from the State Department.”
Instead, D’Souza was introduced by Ingraham as “author of the new book, Obama’s America, the unmaking of the American dream.” That, alone, gave credibility to his extremist views.
“Alright, Dinesh, tell me what you think,” Ingraham began, supposedly opening up the discussion to Vice President Biden’s “chains” remarks.
But D’Souza wasted no time getting to the dog whistle. He complained that Biden challenged his (D’Souza’s) claim that Obama “shares his father’s anti-colonial dream” when, “Of course, Obama wrote the book Dreams From My Father.” Of course, that was not the dream Obama was talking about.
Ingraham let that inflammatory comment go by unchallenged in order to attack Biden. “He can’t be helping Obama.” She whined, “If one Republican had said one of the things that Biden has said in the past two weeks, there would be no end to the media caterwauling to get him removed from the ticket.”
Unless, of course, said person made said remarks on Fox News. Tell me if I’m wrong, but last I checked, there has been no caterwauling over D’Souza’s outrageous claims.
In fact, D’Souza amplified on them right then and there.
I think that Obama actually has a very different goal for America than we often think. He wants to redistribute money away from America and toward the rest of the world… He wants America to have a smaller footprint in the world…
To her credit, Ingraham was clearly skeptical. She asked, “So he’s trying to tank the U.S. economy? Is that what you’re saying?”
D’Souza answered, “Well, he’s trying to produce a massive shift of wealth away from the United States and toward the rest of the world.”
That seemed a bit too much for Ingraham who questioned whether Obama was really saying struggling Americans “be damned.” But she never challenged D’Souza’s overall credibility as a serious expert.
So he continued with an even more inflammatory – and unsupported accusation:
I think Obama’s applying a global standard. So let’s remember that even middle class Americans, even poor Americans are rich by world standards and that’s why I think Obama isn’t particularly concerned if money is redistributed away from them and toward people in Rio De Janeiro and Mumbai.
Immediately following that discussion, Ingraham hosted two Democrats. Ingraham opened by giving them a chance to respond to D’Souza. Neither addressed the issue of him being presented as a mainstream guest in the first place.
In fact, Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky expressly validated D’Souza’s views as a mere difference of opinion: “I don’t know where he gets that. But, look, I respect his opinion, I just happen to think it’s dead wrong.”
OK, she works for Fox News so we can (sort of) understand why she wouldn’t call them out on this tactic. But what about the other guest, John Rowley? He got waylaid by Ingraham’s attack on Obama for being too Muslim-friendly in the Middle East. “I think he’s had pretty strong decisive action… and also some caution in places where you need to have caution.” But the elephant in the living room – a national news network allowing a guest to blow dog whistles to its Obama-hating audience – remained undisturbed.
Roginsky did go on to make an excellent point – that Iran is stronger in the region thanks to George W. Bush’s actions in Iraq.
But neither of them specifically challenged D’Souza’s credibility – and as a result his standing as a serious voice was left intact. By the way, can you guess which of the two segments got posted on FoxNews.com? The answer is below. And check out the title Fox gave the "winning" entry.
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Why do republicans think colonialism is good and hating it is bad? Had they lived in the 1770’s, would they have supported the Crown to keep its colonies where the US currently is?
I suspect I know the reason for D’Souza’s invective against President Obama: the President, by virtue of his background, upbringing, and current position in society, is a direct refutation — no, make that OBLITERATION — of D’Souza’s views of Black America, which he laid out in in his 1995 book “The End of Racism: Principles For A Multiracial Society”, a few quotes summarize:
- âThe American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.â
- âIf America as a nation owes blacks as a group reparations for slavery, what do blacks as a group owe America for the abolition of slavery?â
- “Am I calling for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Actually, yes.”
- "…within the United States, black males have (you may be surprised to discover) the highest self-esteem of any group. Yet on academic measures black males score the lowest. The reason is that self-esteem in these cases is generated by factors unrelated to studies, such as the ability to beat up other students or a high estimation of oneâs sexual prowess.â
After making arguments like that, it must really GALL D’Souza to see a black man who once edited the Harvard Law Review sitting in the Oval Office.
As for his call for the repeal of the 1964 CRA, I have to wonder: if such a thing happened, or had it never been passed, why do people like D’Souza {an Indian who didn’t become a US citizen until age 30} and Malkin {an “anchor baby”} always presume they’ll be treated any differently than other minorities?
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