In recent weeks, right-wing author Dinesh D'Souza has published op-eds in four major newspapers and appeared in interviews with all three major cable news channels to discuss his latest book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 (Doubleday, 2007). Yet in several of these media appearances, D'Souza has misrepresented some of the book's primary conclusions, understating and whitewashing his attacks on "the left." This pattern was most pronounced in his January 28 Post op-ed, in which he argued that much of the literary "reaction" to his book has been "a little hysterical":
D'Souza wrote in his Washington Post op-ed that he has faced an "onslaught" of criticism because his book "argues that the American left bears a measure of responsibility for the volcano of anger from the Muslim world that produced the 9/11 attacks." In his January 25 op-ed in The Christian Science Monitor, D'Souza asserted that Muslim distaste for the "popular culture" of "blue" America "can blossom into the kind of anti-American pathology that partly fueled the 9/11 attacks." Yet in the book itself, D'Souza does not argue that the cultural left "bears a measure of responsibility" for provoking the anger of the 9-11 hijackers or that it "partly fueled" 9-11. Rather, he asserts that the "cultural left" is the "primary cause" of the "visceral rage" that produced the terrorists who attacked America, and that "without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened"
In the Post op-ed, D'Souza also downplayed his endorsement of terrorist critiques of American culture, including in the purported "onslaught" of criticism he has received that "insistent" Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert "asked again and again" whether D'Souza "agrees with the Islamic radicals." What D'Souza neglected to mention, however, was his response to Colbert's question. Asked by Colbert on the January 16 edition of The Colbert Report whether he "agrees with some of the things these radical extremists are against in America," D'Souza replied: "I agree with it."
Indeed, D'Souza repeatedly refers to elements of the radical Muslim critique of American culture as "valid" and "legitimate" throughout The Enemy at Home. On Page 2, he writes: "The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral rage -- some of it based on legitimate concerns, some of it based on wrongful prejudice, but all of it fueled and encouraged by the cultural left." Asserting on Page 21 that 9-11 was "a message" from Osama bin Laden and other "Islamic radicals" that the United States is a "repulsive sewer" and an "immoral, perverted society," D'Souza concludes: "Thus we have the first way in which the cultural left is responsible for 9/11. The left has produced a moral shift in American society that has resulted in a deluge of gross depravity and immorality." D'Souza asserts on Pages 122-123 that the "radical Muslim critique" of America largely relates to the belief that there is "no moral standard" condemning licentious behavior, concluding on Page 130, "It seems that there are none, just as the Muslims allege." On Page 131, D'Souza adds that the "Muslim case against American popular culture" is actually "understated" if one does not also take into account that America's "cultural depravity" is "actively championed by leading voices on the cultural left." He states on Page 119 that "the accusation of decadence against the West is obviously valid in one sense: Western societies (including America) are not reproducing themselves."
http://mediamatters.org/items/200702050002
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