It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying….For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. And here is where our anticolonial understanding of Obama really takes off, because it provides a vital key to explaining not only his major policy actions but also the little details that no other theory can adequately account for.
Gingrich says that D’Souza has made a “stunning insight” into Obama’s behavior — the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”
“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”
Please account for D’Souza’s beliefs by appeal to his origins in Mumbai. Contenders: many Indians consider bathing in the sewage-filled Ganges to be purifying, and only after realizing this can you see why D’Souza tries to make the national conversation better by taking huge dumps in it; only a man raised on ghee could provide such concentrated, rarified idiocy.
God help you when Ramesh Ponnuru is the sensible one in the room.
16 comments
September 13, 2010 at 8:10 pm
zunguzungu
That column made my head explode, which was actually fine, since I’m not even outraged. Hard to be outraged when your head has exploded.
September 13, 2010 at 8:27 pm
JP Stormcrow
Making lichen look thoughtful:
September 13, 2010 at 8:32 pm
TF Smith
Where have you gone, Dwight Eisenhower?
A party turns its lonely eyes to you…
The GOP has gone collectively insane.
I blmae Reagan and umpteen years of politics as an ad campaign…
September 13, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Vance Maverick
See the Economist (via Balloon Juice).
September 13, 2010 at 9:24 pm
NM
Wow. Great link, Vance.
September 13, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Vance Maverick
Your query came up right after Anne’s excerpt in my feed — I can do no more than pass it along (sparing a thought for the bizarreness that is D’Souza).
September 14, 2010 at 5:26 am
zunguzungu
And, of course, Tim Burke
September 14, 2010 at 6:57 am
Ben Alpers
The appeal of these D’Souza and Gingrich screeds–like that of Glenn Beck–seems to be built on telling a certain audience that a variety of things that they had never much thought about before (e.g. anti-colonialism; liberation theology; Thomas Jefferson’s way of dating documents; etc.) happens to 100% confirm things that this audience already believed. It’s a very interesting form of pseudo-education, which in addition to spreading half- and non-truths about many things also seems to indicate that learning, while potentially empowering one with the supposed Truth, is hardly necessary since what you felt in your gut was right all along.
September 14, 2010 at 7:54 am
GordonM
I think the logic goes like this:
Before the (glorious) Revolution, the US was known as “the Colonies”. So, as an “anticolonial”, Obama is actually affiliated with the opposition to the Founding Fathers, which explains why he wants to trash the Constitution and install Sharia law. The Kenyan part nicely explains the relentless drive towards reparations.
But I’m afraid it falls short as fully explicative, since it doesn’t account for the Fairness Doctrine.
September 14, 2010 at 9:52 am
politicalfootball
Ben A., I thought this one from Sarah Palin was a particularly nice illustration of your point.
I’m happy to report that in Googling around on this, all of the top choices were mockery of Palin, rather than Palin’s own words.
September 14, 2010 at 9:55 am
JP Stormcrow
I thought this one from Sarah Palin was a particularly nice illustration of your point.
Hmmm, yes it is.
September 14, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Prof B
Of course, by symmetry, this would mean that Gingrich is pro-colonial.
Which, when you get right down to it, is really, really delicious.
September 14, 2010 at 1:49 pm
rea
In the marching band of right wing punditry, Dinesh is D’Souzaphone
September 14, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Michael H Schneider
I don’t pay a lot of attention to this stuff, but didn’t we just lose a war in which we invaded a country expressly intending to use the natural resources of the invaded country to pay for the invasion?
Of course, if the liberals and their lackeys in the press hadn’t stabbed us in the back we’d have won, and we’d be getting rich from our colonies’ natural resources. So I blame Obama and anti-colonialism for our economic mess.
Disclosure: my partner was born and raised in Nairobi. She’s a *serious* anticolonialist.
September 16, 2010 at 1:15 pm
SeaSmith
Apparently, Mr. Gingrich is quite the authority on colonialism. I was previously unaware that his dissertation was on the benefits of paternal colonialism in the Belgian Congo.
If you ever needed an “accurate, predictive model for [Newt’s] behavior…”
September 18, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Herbert Browne
It doesn’t ..”seem incredible..” only inedible. ^..^