Dinesh D’Souza is at it again. This time he’s taken his the-president-is-evil book-touting act on the road—to San Francisco, of all places.
It’s beyond me why the San Francisco Chronicle would print such garbage, especially in the wake of his Forbes failure. (h/t to Tom Hilton on Twitter)
D’Souza’s whole column is about how Obama is a liar because a childhood anecdote in Dreams From My Father may not be completely accurate. And it lets him wildly stretch to speculate that Obama may have gotten it from a, you guessed it, African anticolonialist. This time, it’s not his father, it’s Frantz Fanon of Algeria.
Naturally, the anecdote D’Souza zeroes in on is Obama’s horror at reading a story in Life magazine about black people who had lightened their skin chemically. Life says it never printed it.
Aha, says D’Souza! (emphasis mine):
Here, I believe, is where Obama got his skin treatment anecdote. He found it in Fanon and altered the setting and the facts to invent a personal experience instructive about American racism. Barack Obama, meet Tawana Brawley. Obama’s bogus racial incident is reminiscent of the Brawley case, in which Brawley fabricated a story about being a victim of racist assault. But in a way Obama’s lie is worse. Brawley’s fabrications were the product of a troubled 15-year-old, while Obama’s were delivered as an adult in a book that, in some respects, served as his presidential campaign manifesto. Because this is not a trivial deception, we cannot let it pass: It is time for Obama to come clean.
Did he say Tawana Brawley? Yes, he did.
I can totally see the analogy to Brawley (oh, and we might as well say it: Al Sharpton’s) fake-rape allegations in 1987, dude. I’m wondering why D’Souza didn’t use a more recent analogy. Say, Bethany Storro. Hmmm.
Again, D’Souza has never heard of Occam’s Razor. Actually, I’m sure he has, he just hopes you haven’t so you’ll buy his insane books. Seems to me, the likelier explanation for Obama’s error is that he was trying to remember something from when he was nine years old—some thirty years later.
Gee, I read Barry Switzer say “sumbitch” in the Tulsa World back in 1986 and it gave me a new cuss word to say in the fourth grade.
But don’t hold me to it. It could have been the Tulsa Tribune. Or… was it Bootlegger’s Boy???
It’s not like it isn’t well documented that people have long tried to lighten their skin to fit in better. Have a look at this modern-day Chicago Tribune investigation about the lengths they’ll go to do it.
Again, we’ve seen clearly what D’Souza is up to with “otherizing” Obama. The press shouldn’t give him the platform to do it.
— Further Reading:
Forbes’ Shameful Piece on Obama as the “Other”: The worst kind of smear journalism by Dinesh D’Souza
Dinesh D’Souza Digs Himself in Deeper: Some more criticism of Forbes’s disastrous Obama cover story
Audit Notes: Forbes Compares Obama to Lenin, Racist BS, Some Sanity
Audit Notes: D’Souza and Forbes Edition
Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and deputy editor of The Audit, CJR’s business section. If you see notable business journalism, give him a heads-up at rc2538@columbia.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanchittum.