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Authors: Dinesh D'Souza
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the cue from the White House was Maureen Dowd, who wrote a column in the New York Times calling me an “Ann Coulter in pants.” The general theme of Dowd’s article was a communication of Dowd’s own sputtering rage and incredulity. Keith Olbermann on MSNBC promptly declared me the second most dangerous man in America, which I found a bit offensive; I had been working hard to be, in Olbermann’s fevered world, the most dangerous man. I was attacked on Chris Matthews’s show Hardball , and one TV network even trotted out Colin Powell, who had endorsed Obama, to warn that we should focus on Obama’s ideas and not trace them back to his African roots. Powell’s disagreement is less with me than with Obama: between his 2004 Democratic National Convention Speech and his election to the presidency in 2008, Obama was the one who was handing out his autobiography tracing his ideas to his African roots.
My favorite skirmish was on the C-SPAN program After Words , in which I was interviewed for an hour by journalist Jonathan Alter. Alter is a former editor of Newsweek and an incorrigible Obama sycophant. His book The Promise is a kind of hymn to Obama. On the show Alter went into major attack mode, but so eager was he to vindicate his man that he went over the line, contesting every single point, refusing to consider counter-evidence, and ultimately making himself look ridiculous. A sample exchange was when Alter lectured me that in America we don’t judge people by the character of their fathers. Reagan’s father was an alcoholic, Alter said, but we don’t assume that Reagan’s personality or values were shaped by his father. Yes, I responded, but then Reagan didn’t write a book titled Dreams from My Father . Again, I am only following Obama’s lead in making his father the central figure in the formation of his identity and ideals.
Despite Alter’s bluster, he was raising a point that many other critics have raised, namely that Obama hardly knew his father so how could he be so heavily influenced by him? To anyone familiar with Freud or modern psychology, the question seems naïve. Indeed, there is a whole body of psychological literature on the powerful and traumatic impact that absentee fathers have on their sons. More significant, I cannot see how any careful reader of Obama’s book or this book could still be mystified by such a question. Both books provide a clear answer: the larger-than-life image of the absentee father was cultivated in young Obama’s mind by his mother. Repeatedly, unceasingly, she convinced her son that he should develop his values and identity in imitation of the senior Obama. Strangely enough the father’s absence helped this myth to grow in young Obama’s mind; if the real father had been around, his son would have discovered promptly enough that Barack Obama Sr. was a deeply flawed man. In fact, Obama discovered these harsh truths about his father much later, mainly through his sister. The discovery provoked a massive crisis of identity which young Obama resolved only by making a month-long pilgrimage to Africa, culminating in a life-changing visit to his father’s grave.
As with my previous books, I have never objected to genuine and thoughtful concerns and objections, and have always been willing to engage them. My only objection is to uncritical analysis and uninformed attacks. Still, these attacks turned out to be a blessing in this case. The benefit of all the agitation by the Obama Choir was that it activated an equally intense response from the right. Newt Gingrich called The Roots of Obama’s Rage “stunning . . . the most profound insight I have read in six years about Barack Obama.” In other words, Gingrich considered mine the best analysis of Obama since he emerged into the national spotlight with his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Rush Limbaugh also praised the book, calling it “indispensable” and “irrefutable.” Limbaugh
My favorite skirmish was on the C-SPAN program After Words , in which I was interviewed for an hour by journalist Jonathan Alter. Alter is a former editor of Newsweek and an incorrigible Obama sycophant. His book The Promise is a kind of hymn to Obama. On the show Alter went into major attack mode, but so eager was he to vindicate his man that he went over the line, contesting every single point, refusing to consider counter-evidence, and ultimately making himself look ridiculous. A sample exchange was when Alter lectured me that in America we don’t judge people by the character of their fathers. Reagan’s father was an alcoholic, Alter said, but we don’t assume that Reagan’s personality or values were shaped by his father. Yes, I responded, but then Reagan didn’t write a book titled Dreams from My Father . Again, I am only following Obama’s lead in making his father the central figure in the formation of his identity and ideals.
Despite Alter’s bluster, he was raising a point that many other critics have raised, namely that Obama hardly knew his father so how could he be so heavily influenced by him? To anyone familiar with Freud or modern psychology, the question seems naïve. Indeed, there is a whole body of psychological literature on the powerful and traumatic impact that absentee fathers have on their sons. More significant, I cannot see how any careful reader of Obama’s book or this book could still be mystified by such a question. Both books provide a clear answer: the larger-than-life image of the absentee father was cultivated in young Obama’s mind by his mother. Repeatedly, unceasingly, she convinced her son that he should develop his values and identity in imitation of the senior Obama. Strangely enough the father’s absence helped this myth to grow in young Obama’s mind; if the real father had been around, his son would have discovered promptly enough that Barack Obama Sr. was a deeply flawed man. In fact, Obama discovered these harsh truths about his father much later, mainly through his sister. The discovery provoked a massive crisis of identity which young Obama resolved only by making a month-long pilgrimage to Africa, culminating in a life-changing visit to his father’s grave.
As with my previous books, I have never objected to genuine and thoughtful concerns and objections, and have always been willing to engage them. My only objection is to uncritical analysis and uninformed attacks. Still, these attacks turned out to be a blessing in this case. The benefit of all the agitation by the Obama Choir was that it activated an equally intense response from the right. Newt Gingrich called The Roots of Obama’s Rage “stunning . . . the most profound insight I have read in six years about Barack Obama.” In other words, Gingrich considered mine the best analysis of Obama since he emerged into the national spotlight with his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Rush Limbaugh also praised the book, calling it “indispensable” and “irrefutable.” Limbaugh
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