September 23, 2010

The Roots of D'Souza's Ransom

From my VDARE.com column on Dinesh D'Souza's infinitely denounced upcoming book:
The Roots of Obama’s Rage is a silly title for a book about a man whose emotional tonality ranges from gracious condescension to wounded amour propre. More accurate, yet equally alliterative, would have been The Roots of Obama’s Resentment.
D’Souza churns out books frequently. (This is his 12th). And in his haste, he’s developed a bit of a reputation for sometimes …  neglecting to give full credit to his inspirations.

D’Souza’s most substantial book, 1995’s The End of Racism, owes much to Jared Taylor’s groundbreaking 1992 book Paved with Good Intentions—as Peter Brimelow politely pointed out in National Review (He Flinched, November  27, 1995).

But D’Souza was not merely unforthcoming about how intellectually indebted he was to Taylor—he even smeared Taylor in The End of Racism as a bad guy, the kind of dangerous white extremist from whom D’Souza’s moderate realism would protect everyone. (Just so his readers would know how to think about Taylor, D’Souza helpfully described him as "gaunt," even though Taylor may well be the most conventionally handsome of all American public intellectuals.)

In his latest book, D’Souza hasn’t actually attacked his most important sources. He’s just avoided mentioning them. 

Most notably, the central piece of evidence in The Roots of Obama’s Rage for D’Souza’s theory about Obama Sr.’s influence is the elder Obama's 1965 article, Problems Facing Our Socialism. This essay criticized the influential Sessional Paper No. 10 by Tom Mboya, a Kenayn labor leader who was financed by the anticommunist AFL-CIO (which, in turn, was financed by the CIA). Mboya had called for capitalism (under regulation) and colorblind treatment of white and Indian-owned businesses in Kenya.

D’Souza writes in Forbes:
“Obama Sr. was an economist, and in 1965 he published an important article in the East Africa Journal called ‘Problems Facing Our Socialism.’ … Remarkably, President Obama, who knows his father's history very well, has never mentioned his father's article. Even more remarkably, there has been virtually no reporting on a document that seems directly relevant to what the junior Obama is doing in the White House.”

This important historical document from 1965 wasn’t online until April 2008, when libertarian blogger Greg Ransom obtained a copy of Obama Sr.’s article from the dusty stacks of the UCLA library. Ransom’s April 7, 2008 blog post for the Ludwig von Mises Institute introducing his discovery, Obama Hid His Father’s Socialism from Readers, reads like a first draft for D’Souza book pitch:
"There’s a big mystery at the heart of Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father:  A Story of Race and Inheritance. What was Barack Obama doing seeking out Marxist professors in college? Why did Obama choose a Communist Party USA member as his socio-political counselor in high school? Why was he spending his time studying neocolonialism and the writings of Frantz Fanon, the pro-violence author of ‘the Communist Manifesto of neocolonialism,’ in college? Why did he take time out from his studies at Columbia to attend socialist conferences at Cooper Union?"

Ransom noted:
"… one thing is not left a mystery, the fact that Barack Obama organized his life on the ideals given to him by his Kenyan father. Obama tells us, ‘All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I ... tried to take as my own.’ (p. 220) And what was that image? It was ‘the father of my dreams, the man in my mother’s stories, full of high-blown ideals.’ (p. 278) …

“So we know that his father’s ideals were a driving force in his life, but the one thing that Obama does not give us are the contents of those ideals."

But as far as I can tell from searching on Amazon’s online copy of The Roots of Obama’s Rage, the name “Ransom” doesn’t appear in D’Souza’s book.

It’s perfectly fine for D’Souza to profit off Ransom’s enterprise. But it would have been only polite to mention him.

Read the whole thing there and comment upon it below.

29 comments:

Truth said...

Steve, why do you assume that D'Souza ripped off your book, or is even aware of it. After all, with all possible respect, it was self-published.

And Obama hate from the right-wing is not exactly exotic.

Greg Ransom said...

Let me emphasize that I identify Obama as a leftist will all sorts of streams within it -- including 1950s Eleanor Roosevelt white bread fairies on a cloud thinking. I've written stuff on his grandmother's/mothers left wing Unitarian church and his family resentment of corrupt and "unearned" oil wealth going back to Kansas.

I've also argued what the key event in Obama's life was his failed basketball career / NBA fantasy, which Obama felt the need to blame not on himself but on the "white" game and racism of his coach (which all witnesses deny ever seeing).

So I've offered no simple-minded "he's a socialist, he's a Marxist" story -- in part because there a million different strains of socialists and a million different varieties of Marxism, driven by all sort of different resentments and aims, and all sorts of interpretive add-ons, as you suggest in your piece.

Greg Ransom said...

I've had a professor steal my ideas without attribution.

So having an idiot like D’Souza steal them is nothing.

Geoff Matthews said...

Very well written, and valid critiques. Thanks for writing this.

DYork said...

The Roots of Obama’s Rage is a silly title for a book about a man whose emotional tonality ranges from gracious condescension to wounded amour propre. More accurate, yet equally alliterative, would have been The Roots of Obama’s Resentment.

Didn't D'Souza get the title from Bernard Lewis' The Roots of Muslim Rage? Wink, wink.

fasdasdfasf said...

Yes, Obama is racial, but 'race-man' isn't accurate enough. He's neither 'post-racial'--beyond race--nor 'racial'(in the old Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton mode.) I would argue he's neo-racial. Instead of relying on the old RACE model that grew out of the civil rights era, he's fashioning a new one. It might even be called 'interracist' but neither the left nor the right wants to use that term. Left figures it will freak out too many whites--especially males--with imagery of black guys taking white girls. 'Interracial' has too many sexual connotations. But through inter- or neo-racism, Obama is forging a new kind of politics.

Mayor Nagin said NO is a chocolate city and then he said he meant milk chocolate, i.e. both white and black. But when one looks at a milk chocolate bar, is it considered more milk or chocolate? More the latter of course. And this is the kind of interracialism that Obama is for, sexually, culturally, and politically. There are various kinds of interracialism in the US--white/Asian, white/Hispanics, and white/black--but only the white/black kind attracts great attention--both fasciantion and revulsion. And it is the one that is most radical. With whites and hispanics, the male-female ratio is almost 50-50. With white and Asians, it's mostly white males and asian females. So, neither kind upsets the racial dynamic all that much. But white and black sexual mating is almost entirely black male and white female. That a minority race has this kind of sexual advantage over the ruling or dominant race has great cultural significance--going back to Jack Johnson. Obama is for interracism but where whiteness serves and is subsumed to dominant blackness. He's not a black nationalist of the old mode but a black interracist where blacks politically and culturally dominate America. To the extent that politics is a kind of showbiz, and showbiz depends on sexuality and charisma, blacks have an advantage since they've become the triple kings of sports, pop music, and movies(and porn). Indeed, Obama really won by sex appeal and charisma.

Obama is politically more black than white, but he is essentially a mulatto supremacist. Though he will never admit it, he feels superior to both whites and blacks. Along with the likes of Valerie Jarrett and Eric Holder--and Henry Gates, Cornel West, Michael Dyson, Patricia Williams, etc--, he feels his superiority stems from having both the best of blackness and best of whiteness. He has white intellect and rationalism AND black charisma and magnetism. But it's not a case of 50-50 but of whiteness serving blackness. Whitness, like is his mother, is the female principle in this, while blackness is the masculine or dominant principle. Within Obama's heart, white reason serves black soul. Michael Dyson feels much the same way.
In Obama's universe, white/yellow/brown ants will do most of the economic heavylifting and work but exciting stuff like sports/music will be dominated by blacks and politics shall be dominated by the mulatto elite with both reason and charisma.

Though most black men desire white women, there has been a sense in the black community that too much mixing will dilute blackness. Obama feels otherwise. He feels that even a person who's slightly black will be part of blackness. This is due to one-drop rule, the moral and social advantages of being a minority(affirmative action), but also due to superior coolness of blacks in the cultural imagination. Blacks lack certain genes that whites have, and interracism will not be an equal mixing of races but of blacks taking useful genes from whites to boost black power even more.

dsasdfadfasf said...

Some whites supported Obama because he seemed like a nice guy unlike those crazy black guys. But he is ultimately more dangerous to the white community.
After all, a black rapist may be dangerous but he can be seen for what he is; just shut the door and keep a gun nearby to defend your daughter. Obama is more like a black seducer, who may charm you, and enter your house... to take your daughter. He married a black woman for whatever reason--I'll bet against his truest desire--, but he's really a neo-racist/interracist.

Anonymous said...

“It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. … My father’s voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people’s struggle. Wake up, black man!”

==================================

I don't what the controversy of that quote would be'st.

Obama is definitely a Black man. Does that necessarily entail that he hates White men? No.

You, Mr Sailer are certainly am awareness that you are a White man. Does that mean you can't be fair and impartial? And a good patriot? For all people of all kinds in the USA?? No.

Anonymous said...

To me, your greatest flaw and the biggest assault to your credibility is your insistence that Barack Obama, who I see as a conventional liberal (not my kind of man) is somehow of a different stripe than other liberals who are White.

Obama thinks the way White liberals do.

YOu keep insistening otherwise!!! it's not true!! we have no indication.

The little xcerpts from his Dreams book are not indictment!!

dfadfsdfadf said...

Though there is something of his father in Obama, there is a huge difference between the two. Obama Sr., though an awful man, was a rather honest and forthright, at least when it came to his beliefs. He hid nothing. Like Jeremiah Wright, he said whatever and whereever. He wore his rage and politics on his sleeve.
For this reason, Obama owes less to his father's rage than to Saul Alinsky's cunning. Obama Sr was for hot revolution. In the era of the cool medium, Alinsky was for cool revolution. Obama is cool jazz than bebop or funk. He doesn't just come at you--like so many black politicians--but slips underneath you.

Alinsky was Jewish, and Jews have been masters at trick politics. As Leon Wieseltier recently wrote, Jews are for using American military muscle against Muslims in the Middle East but using Muslims against white America in the US. Like Romans manipulated different Germanic tribes to fight one another, like Chinese followed the policy of 'make barbarian fight barbarian', and like American settlers made Indian tribes fight Indian tribes, Jews have been masters at divide-and-rule. Obama is both tool and a student of this Jewish.

Divide-and-rule has been especially appealing and necessary to Jews since they rarely had the numerical power to dominate others. Rather, the power of non-Jewish forces had to be neutralized by making them fight one another--or hold one another in suspicion. This is why Jews felt safest in the Austro-Hungarian empire where they dutifully served the imperial government(and feared the rise of nationalism among various groups) and why Jews are promoting multi-culti in the West.
To the extent that Jews still see the white majority as their greatest rival and potential threat, it is in their interest to undermine white pride, power, confidence, unity. Obama has been this tool. He's supposed to woo white women from white men--just like Will Smith. He's supposed to turn young whites into seeing a black man as the quintessential American leader. But Obama is also supposed to serve to calm and cool down the black community which is pretty anti-Jewish.

Obama isn't purely a construct but Jews did fashion and create him from bits and pieces of Kennedy-ism, Malcolm-ism, Oprah-ism, King-ism, Smith-ism, Shaft-ims, Webster-ism. But if Bush Jr. and Quayle--all the evidence one needs to see why the WASP elite went to pot--actually were flattered and duped by their neocon Jewish handlers, Obama is sharp enough to understand the game played by his liberal zionist handlers. He knows he's being used by Jews, and he knows he's using the Jews.

So, to understand Obama--who NEVER WOULD HAVE GOTTEN WHERE HE GOT WITHOUT JEWISH MONEY, MEDIA, AND POWER--, it's more important to ask the ROOTS OF JEWISH ANGST, POWER-LUST, RAGE, RADICALISM, AND BAD FAITH. But of course, National Review, like most of MSM, is chickenshit when it comes to such issues.
Indeed, most conservatives are bitching and whining that Obama is a secret Muslim!! ROTFL.

dfadfasf said...

No politician got so far as a result of how people saw him than by what he really is.
All polticians use smoke & mirrors and serve as a screen onto which we project our hopes and fantasies, but Obama really took the cake with this.
In a way, Obama is a phantasm created by the collective American psyche--or more accurately one created by a divided psyche that sought unity through some kind of magical messianic figure.

But Obama himself is rather unimpressive--despite his smooth voice and cool style. He looked good because he was made to look good by the media. If the media had given him the Carter or McCain treatment, he would looked far worse. He could have been made out to be a liar, fox, gangster, a cheat, a phony, and etc.
While it's true that many Americans were looking for a transcendental figure, Obama's role as that figure was essentially a media hype and creation. Look, if some fat dopey black woman in Chicago could be made into MOTHER EARTH GODDESS FOR ALL RACES AND WOMEN, media can do pretty much anything.

Obama is intellectually, morally, and politically a lightweight. A cheap showman. I saw right through him from day one at the Dem convention--carefully tailored, rehearsed, calculated, and obfuscated. It was not even a good magic trick as it goes, but even second rate magic will work wonders IF people are willing to be duped out of moral, political, or sexual desperation. To a sex-starved guy, even an ugly person can look sexy. To an alcoholic, even cheap wine could be sweet as honey.

So, someone should write a book on THE ROOTS OF OUR DUMBASS FOOLISHNESS.

adfadfadfasf said...

It's interesting that the person who did most for Obama was his white grandma but she hardly got any praise in his book while his father was the spiritual hero of sorts. It's what one might call the Shane syndrome. The kid in the story loves Shane more than his father though the latter is the honest hardworking farmer who puts food on the table. Alas, Shane is dashing and cool, the stuff of romantic fixation.

When Obama grew up, though his grandma provided him with the goodies, the cool heroes of his imagination were leftist rebels and radicals and thirdworld-ites--and they've become the heroes of all our educated class since the PC 80s when boomers took over colleges. It seems most college kids today admire Che more than any gringo white male. Indeed, just about all the white heroes of American history have been made into 'racists', villains, murderers, etc. I was reading Peantus cartoons from the 50s, and we see Charlie Brown with a Davy Crockett hat. And Buchanan grew up watching John Wayne westerns. But there is almost no movies about white male heroes of the 19th century and 20th century. Liberal Hollywood don't wanna highlight them, and even conservatives don't wanna bring them up out of fear of being accused of admiring 'racists'. Recently, American highschool students said their main historical figures were Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks.

Anyway, there is a twist in the neo-Shane syndrome regarding black coolness. In SHANE, Shane the dashing hero understands the problem and tells Bob(Joey in the movie) to go back and be a good son and love his own father. Shane understands that the kid's father is the real kind of man who sticks by his family and does the hard work while he himself is ultimately a hired killer who must fade away for the West to be civilized.

But according to the prevailing progressive ideology, blacks now hold both the position of the cool Shane and the honest father. Like cool Shane, blacks are tough in sports and badass in music. And like the kid's father, they are portrayed as eternally honest laborers and slaves who built America with blood-and-sweat without getting due credit.
Blacks own BOTH badass coolness and humble dignity(or nobility).

So, to Barack, his father has mythic aura as both hard struggler and cool radical. To be sure, his father was a drunkard and lout, but I'll bet Barack rationalizes his father's failures like Jeremiah Wright's rage--as unhinged destructive urge planted in the black soul by white oppression and humiliation.

Just like gypsy crime is supposedly the product of European prejudice and Omar Thorton's murder spree was reaction against 'racism', Obama Sr's lunacy must have been the product of white evil too.

K(yle) said...

"I don't what the controversy of that quote would be'st.

Obama is definitely a Black man. Does that necessarily entail that he hates White men? No.

You, Mr Sailer are certainly am awareness that you are a White man. Does that mean you can't be fair and impartial? And a good patriot? For all people of all kinds in the USA?? No."

The quote is explicitly racial. White people are aware of the color of their skin, but that doesn't imply that they have a 'White Identity' that informs their worldview to any great degree; especially not consciously.

Can you honestly imagine a white politician writing a book saying how he was seeking the advancement of the White Race? Being able to apprehend what features you have in the mirror isn't the same thing as making your phenotype your philosophy and seeking in yourself the attributes of others on the basis that they happen to look like you do. Especially considering one of the names on Obama's list was an open racist and explicit Black Nationalist.

Greg Ransom said...

Re Obama's failed NBA dream.

Obama dreamed of playing ball like a West Arican / part British American in the NBA and ABA (esp. Dr. J).

But arguable Obama failed not because of racism but because of race -- as an East African / part British American Obama arguable suffered from East African Man's disease -- he didn' t have the athletic gifts of the great West African / British NBA and ABA stars.

Anyone who knows anything about modern human genetics knows about the large and distinctive genetic diversity of the African continent.

The race and inheritance that Obama didn't have arguable set up the central event of his life -- his failure of his dream to succeed in basketball.

Jared Taylor said...

Many thanks to Steve Sailer for his kind reference to me, and to his suggestion that Dinesh D’Souza owed me an intellectual debt for his book, The End of Racism. Things were actually worse than Mr. Sailer—who nearly always knows everything—seems to realize.

When Mr. D’Souza wrote his book he realized he was likely to be treated by the press as a moral inferior for even the slightest deviations from the standard silliness about race. How could he deflect liberal wrath? The traditional strategy of the spineless right is to point the finger at people further to the right and say, “No, no, I’m not a bigot; those are the real bigots. I’m merely a bold thinker.” This is exactly what Mr. D’Souza did, and his main target was the magazine I edit, American Renaissance.

The tenth chapter of Mr. D’Souza’s book is called “Bigotry in Black and White,” and the first five pages are an account of the 1994 American Renaissance conference, which Mr. D’Souza attended. Fortunately, a copy of the galleys of The End of Racism fell into my hands before the book was distributed. I was amazed to find grievous distortions of speeches delivered at the conference—all of which were recorded—as well as deliberate misquotations from American Renaissance. Every distortion was an attempt to make the conference speakers appear as vile and “racist” as possible—and to make Mr. D’Souza seem the voice of sweet reason by comparison.

I wrote to Mr. D’Souza’s editor at the Free Press, Adam Bellow, threatening legal action if these falsifications were not corrected. Lawrence Auster and Samuel Francis, who also spoke at the conference, sent stiff letters as well, and Mr. Bellow referred the matter to the Free Press’s lawyers. As it happens, by that time, the first run of bound books was already being delivered to stores, but Mr. D’Souza’s dishonesty was more than the Free Press could bear. Mr. D’Souza hurriedly made changes while, as far as I can gather, the entire first print run was destroyed.

The tenth chapter that survived is still a contemptible caricature of American Renaissance and of the conference, but it no longer contains much that can be held up as transparent fabrication. Although I assume the cost of the destroyed print run came out of Mr. D’Souza’s royalties, it appears that the experience did not make him a more honorable man.

Jared Taylor

Anonymous said...

Many thanks to Steve Sailer for his kind reference to me, and to his suggestion that Dinesh D’Souza owed me an intellectual debt for his book, The End of Racism. Things were actually worse than Mr. Sailer—who nearly always knows everything—seems to realize.

When Mr. D’Souza wrote his book he realized he was likely to be treated by the press as a moral inferior for even the slightest deviations from the standard silliness about race. How could he deflect liberal wrath? The traditional strategy of the spineless right is to point the finger at people further to the right and say, “No, no, I’m not a bigot; those are the real bigots. I’m merely a bold thinker.” This is exactly what Mr. D’Souza did, and his main target was the magazine I edit, American Renaissance.

The tenth chapter of Mr. D’Souza’s book is called “Bigotry in Black and White,” and the first five pages are an account of the 1994 American Renaissance conference, which Mr. D’Souza attended. Fortunately, a copy of the galleys of The End of Racism fell into my hands before the book was distributed. I was amazed to find grievous distortions of speeches delivered at the conference—all of which were recorded—as well as deliberate misquotations from American Renaissance. Every distortion was an attempt to make the conference speakers appear as vile and “racist” as possible—and to make Mr. D’Souza seem the voice of sweet reason by comparison.

I wrote to Mr. D’Souza’s editor at the Free Press, Adam Bellow, threatening legal action if these falsifications were not corrected. Lawrence Auster and Samuel Francis, who also spoke at the conference, sent stiff letters as well, and Mr. Bellow referred the matter to the Free Press’s lawyers. As it happens, by that time, the first run of bound books was already being delivered to stores, but Mr. D’Souza’s dishonesty was more than the Free Press could bear. Mr. D’Souza hurriedly made changes while, as far as I can gather, the entire first print run was destroyed.

The tenth chapter that survived is still a contemptible caricature of American Renaissance and of the conference, but it no longer contains much that can be held up as transparent fabrication. Although I assume the cost of the destroyed print run came out of Mr. D’Souza’s royalties, it appears that the experience did not make him a more honorable man.

Jared Taylor

catperson said...

Look, if some fat dopey black woman in Chicago could be made into MOTHER EARTH GODDESS FOR ALL RACES AND WOMEN,

That fat dopey black woman single handedly put Obama in the white house:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/so-much-for-one-person-one-vote/

She may be dopey on the outside, for public consumption, but she's deliberate, calculating, and off the charts brilliant behind the scenes.

Anonymous said...

Strange that Obama has sucha high opinion of his father. The man abandoned him.

Whiskey said...

That Obama's father abandoned him and his grandmother raised him, explains just WHY Obama has nothing but contempt for older White women and adoration for his father. It certainly could not have been himself, or his father to blame! Must have been ... his White grandmother.

Oprah is perhaps the second biggest con in the world. According the National Enquirer, she's been lesbian for years, with partner Gail King, and "Steadman" is merely a beard. Yet Middle Class and Working Class White women love Oprah. Made her fabulously wealthy. And these are the women who fell, hard and strong, for Obama's image.

What there is to Obama, is Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, his Father, that's it. That's all there is. Well, perhaps one other thing.

It strikes me as VERY VERY VERY ODD, that there have been no women coming forward to claim say, $5 million for "I Was Obama's College/HS girlfriend!" And get money, fame, attention, and all that. Heck Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin are proof positive to he degrees by which people will chase a camera down and tackle it.

Yet we've seen no women come forward prior to Michelle Obama. I would say, because there were none. It is the simplest explanation.

catperson said...

Oprah is perhaps the second biggest con in the world. According the National Enquirer, she's been lesbian for years, with partner Gail King, and "Steadman" is merely a beard.

Actually the Enquirer does not say this. They have teasing headlines implying she's a lesbian to sell copies, but when you read the actual stories, it's much more nuanced. Yes Oprah and Gayle have a deep intimate 35 year bond, but there's no evidence either woman is gay. Oprah was actually a promiscuous teen who had a baby at 15 and had passionate love affairs with several well known men in Nashville and Baltimore and even once tried to kill herself over a married man.


Yet Middle Class and Working Class White women love Oprah. Made her fabulously wealthy. And these are the women who fell, hard and strong, for Obama's image.

Actually it was highly educated liberal men who fell hard and strong for Obama's image. The Oprah watching working class white women were the most resistant to Obama's image, and wanted Hillary or Palin instead. That's why Oprah's endorsement for Obama was so valuable; it allowed him to cut into a demographic he was not able to reach on his own. Oprah was the first to see how inspirational it would be to have a dignified articulate black familiy in the white house and brilliantly understood how decisive her endorsement could be in a race between a white women (Hillary/Palin) and a black man (Obama). Indeed prior to Oprah campaigning in South Carolina in Dec 2007, even black women did not support Obama. Oprah's a marketing genius who can sell anything (books, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, even Obama) and she really changed the course of history. There's a hysterical mad TV spoof about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wSelz4Nh4g

Greg Ransom said...

If we had newsmen with a nose for news stories that sell copy, everyone would know about the most fascinating episode in Obama's life -- about Obama quitting drugs and alcohol, and taking up the weird Dick Gregory "kick the wagon" diet, which included fasting on Sundays.

But the age of newsmen is past.

What we have are party papers pushing an ideology and a political team -- every paper a "New Masses" or 18th century partisan rag.

Anonymous said...

D'Souza showed up, seemingly unanticipated, on the second day of the inaugural 1994 American Renaissance Conference in Atlanta.
For those of us, if at a distance, who observed his "me too" demeanor and convivial interactions in group situations with major event personages, including Mr. Taylor, the subsequent denunciation of Taylor by D'Souza appeared to be a contrived, predetermined "finding" fed shamelessly by D'Souza's hypocritical feigned tolerance and feigned understanding.

Anonymous said...

I find scepticism visited upon President Obama's commentaries about his own life to be enduring.
If you indulge the scepticism, it tends not merely to persist but to grow from what is sensed between the lines and from the many "disconnects" in his official autobiography. I don't find convincing evidence that either his (biological) father or the President's race were in reality of much significance in the President's formative years. There is a quality of pervasive dissembling in his ostensibly autobiographical writings.

as said...

Steve Sailer: Just so his readers would know how to think about Taylor, D’Souza helpfully described him as "gaunt," even though Taylor may well be the most conventionally handsome of all American public intellectuals.

D'Souza is an ugly dork. So it might be jealousy on his part.

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer: Just so his readers would know how to think about Taylor, D’Souza helpfully described him as "gaunt," even though Taylor may well be the most conventionally handsome of all American public intellectuals.

D'Souza is an ugly dork. So it might be jealousy on his part.

-----------------

Anyone notice Taylor sounds like the friend in FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF when he called the school pretending to be Mia Sara's dad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGNQIDD86wY&feature=related

Harry Baldwin said...

adfadfadfasf said...Indeed, just about all the white heroes of American history have been made into 'racists', villains, murderers, etc.

Fascinating comments by adfadfadfasf, and of course while Shane could be a hero in 1953 America, he couldn't now. Picture this: Shane was an unrepentant man of the South, and the bad guy, Jack Wilson, is a Northerner.

Shane: So you're Jack Wilson.

Jack Wilson: What's that mean to you, Shane?

Shane: I've heard about you.

Jack Wilson: What have you heard, Shane?

Shane: I've heard that you're a low-down Yankee liar.

James Kabala said...

Harry Baldwin: Shane's sectional origins are never mentioned. It was another character who was a Southerner (implied to be the only one in the town, good or bad) and who was provoked into a gunfire exchange (in which he was killed) by sectional taunts from Wilson to which he responded in kind. Shane then quoted the dead guy is his own fight with Wilson. Picky, I know.

Steven D. Hahn said...

D'Souza is a sensationalist and intellectually dishonest douchebag. He never would have gotten the hearing he's been accorded from credulous conservatives if he didn't precisely fulfill the role of "our straight-talking brown brother."

Anonymous said...

Well, it's now almost two years later, and - surprise, surprise, surprise - IT WAS ALL YET ANOTHER OBAMA/AYERS FABRICATION!!!


Obama's grandfather tortured by the British? A fantasy (like most of the President’s own memoir)
By Toby Harnden
19 June 2012
dailymail.co.uk

A new biography of Barack Obama has established that his grandfather was not, as is related in the President’s own memoir, detained by the British in Kenya and found that claims that he was tortured were a fabrication...

But Maraniss, who researched Obama’s life in Kenya, Indonesia, Hawaii and the mainland United States, found that there were ‘no remaining records of any detention, imprisonment, or trial of Hussein Onyango Obama’. He interviewed five people who knew Obama’s grandfather, who died in 1979, who ‘doubted the story or were certain it did not happen’...

John Ndalo Aguk, who worked with Onyango before the alleged imprisonment and was in touch with him weekly afterwards said he 'knew nothing' about any detention and would have noticed if he had gone missing for several months.

Zablon Okatch, who worked with Onyango as a servant to American diplomats after the supposed incarceration, said: ‘Hussein was never jailed. I know that for a fact. It would have been difficult for him to get a job with a white family, let alone a diplomat, if he once served in jail.’

Charles Oluoch, whose father was adopted by Onyango, said that ‘he did not have any trouble with the government in any way'.

Dick Opar, a relative by marriage to Onyango and a senior Kenyan police official, gave what Maraniss judged to be the most authoritative word. ‘People make up stories,’ he said. ‘If you get arrested, you say it was the fight for independence, but they are arrested for another thing.

‘I would have known. I would have known. If he was in Kamiti Prison for only a day, even if for a day, I would have known.’

Maraniss also casts a sceptical eye on Obama’s grandmother’s tales of racism in Kansas, doubting whether she was ever chastised for addressing a black janitor as ‘Mister’ or ridiculed for playing with a black girl...