The buzz is growing for Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie, 2016: Obama’s America. Read more about the movie here. Go see it at one of these theaters here. The distribution is exploding week by week. Joleen and I are normally Friday night date people, and we more often than not just do dinner, but this week I went out on a limb and not only moved date night to Saturday, but added a political movie to the date night agenda — a bold move on my part (ask me some time about when I took her to see The Stoning of Soraya for a date night).
Both of us not only thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but I am wondering if my wife might now be as concerned about an Obama re-election as I am. In fact, nearly any rational person who sees the movie will have to admit there are grave problems facing this country if Barack Obama is re-elected.
I will start the review with a caveat: I do not know if Barack Obama is a raging self-conscious ant-colonialist or not. Dinesh D’Souza authored the best-selling book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, nearly two years ago. I read it cover to cover. I have discussed the book with Dinesh many times. I had him speak at a couple Lincoln Club lunches. He also spoke at a dinner event I did with the Acton Institute. The book did one thing I liked a lot: It gave a counter-narrative to the idea that Obama was a Muslim, or born outside of America, or even a closet European socialist (as Victor Davis Hansen has pointed out many times, Obama is very hostile towards the pre-1970 Europe — not fond of it).
And in fairness to Dinesh, while the book may have been praised by some people whose opinion I don’t much care for, and criticized by some people who believed the book lacked enough evidence, I do not believe the critics of the book ever fully interacted with this basic fact: The vast, vast majority of the book and its various evidences were taken directly from the words of Barack Obama himself.
It is odd to say, “How dare you claim Obama is living on the dreams of his father,” when this guy wrote a book called Dreams From My Father. Not just odd — dishonest. But here’s the thing: I do believe an equally valid narrative exists (perhaps one that coincides with Dinesh’s anti-colonial theory) about what makes Obama tick: He is a generic Ivy League radical. How’s that?
And by the way, who’s to say what’s worse? For me, Ivy League radicalism and Kenyan anti-Americanism are barely distinguishable from one another (apart from the salaries of the people advocating them).
Dinesh — through the book and now the movie — has done readers and viewers a tremendous service in this: He has not speculated on some cock-eyed crazy Obama-as-Muslim-from-another-country nonsense; he is a respected scholar and articulate thought leader who has essentially used a basic timeline of facts, juxtaposed with OBAMA’S OWN DIARY, to propose an explanation for what is driving Obama ideologically.
See below for Page 2
|
Share the Love
|
Get Free Updates
|
||||
|