I reckessly waded out of my cozy sandbox here to reply to someone. I may as well put it here, so I have a record of it.
D'Souza has been almost universally condemned by conservatives.
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Is that so? I think that "condemned" is too strong a characterization. If I read Stanley Kurtz correctly, "D'Souza's argument is thoughtful, provocative ... and seriously misconceived." Is that tantamount to "condemnation"? He goes on, "I'll continue to use [D'Souza's] The Enemy at Home as a foil. With all of its flaws ... D'Souza's book at least has the virtue of forcing us to think afresh ..." That's an intellectual mulligan? That looks more like a serious *willingness* to reconstruct D'Souza.
If Kurtz wants to think afresh, he'd do just was well to walk away from D'Souza, but the obvious explanation for his choice is that he doesn't want to do just that. He'd like to keep D'Souza's provocations at the forefront, which brings us right back to Wolfe's critique, with a bit more evidence that the new Right, the infectious spawn of the Reagan era, aren't interested in political dialogue with political opponents, just upsmanship-moralizing among themselves or giving tacit or timid acceptance to self-proclaimed "Culture" Warriors who may well support end-in-itself political tactics as part of a broader political conception.
It's amazing the extent to which the rear-guard is willing to let people just say the most outrageous things. D'Souza is a nice guy? Is this supposed to test the collective liberal gullibility, to ply their well honed sense of tolerance and even ... permissiveness? Do we all benefit if we paste over D'Souza's holiday, or just some? What next? Is his publisher going to tell us that a dog ate their homework?
Frankly, the self *admitted* sensationalism of Coulter, and now D'Souza (who I believe has admitted in interviews to being deliberately "provocative" as part of the expository strategy for his ideas), has done little for the Right in its self-declared "culture" war, in my estimation; but it may have inspired and twisted a generation of young liberals sadly to adopt their tactics, which I might sum up as, "If Dinesh hates America so much, why doesn't he just leave?".
There is some truth to the fact that Mr. D'Souza is stirring up and hardening the very "culture" war that he putatively laments.
AS on Kurtz: "A fascinating, nuanced, and largely persuasive critique." grrrr...
