Birtherism With A Monocle

Dinesh D'Souza takes his "Obama is a Kenyan Anti-Colonialist" dog whistle garbage all the way to the Washington Post opinion pages, where he displays his unique misunderstanding of the fact surrounding President Obama and his father.

But who was Barack Obama Sr., and what did he want? Do the views of the senior Obama help clarify what the junior Obama is doing in the Oval Office? Let's begin with President Obama, who routinely castigates investment banks and large corporations, accusing them of greed and exploitation. Obama's policies have established the heavy hand of government control over Wall Street and the health-care, auto and energy industries.

President Obama also regularly flays the rich, whom he accuses of not paying their "fair share." This seems odd, given that the top 10 percent of earners pay about 70 percent of all income taxes. Yet the president would like this group to pay more.

Some have described the president as being a conventional liberal or even a socialist. But liberals and socialists are typically focused on poverty and social equality; Obama rarely addresses these issues, and when he does so, it is without passion. Pretty much the only time Obama raises his voice is when he is expressing antagonism toward the big, bad corporations and toward those earning more than $250,000 a year. I believe the most compelling explanation of Obama's actions is that he is, just like his father, an anti-colonialist.

Anti-colonialism is the idea that the rich countries got rich by looting the poor countries, and that within the rich countries, plutocratic and corporate elites continue to exploit ordinary citizens.

I know about anti-colonialism because I grew up in India in the decades after that country gained its independence from Britain. And Barack Obama Sr. became an anti-colonialist as a consequence of growing up in Kenya during that country's struggle for independence from European rule. Obama Sr. also became an economist and embraced a form of socialism that fit in well with his anti-colonialism. All of this is relevant and helpful in understanding his son's policies. 

Never mind the fact that Obama's father left him leaving him to be raised by his mother and her family, making me wonder just exactly how much influence his father's economic positions from 1965 had on Obama the younger.

Never mind that the banks and corporations that Obama unfairly "castigates" in D'Souza's view cost this country and its taxpayers trillions of dollars in bailouts and are on the edge of collapse again while they are literally stealing houses from Americans.  Why would any thinking American, D'Souza argues, believe that American corporations are greedy exploiters of the populace?

Never mind we're still fighting two wars where we, as a rich, powerful country, are doing everything we can to exploit the poorer and weaker Iraq and Afghanistan in order to secure their oil and minerals.  Ask the families of the Iraqis and Afghans we have killed how they feel about American "colonialism" and how we've exploited them, or the millions of Americans who want to stop the war for humanitarian, moral, social, economic, and yes, even religious and spiritual reasons.

But no, the only possible explanation is that Obama is anti-colonialist, anti-American, and not even an American, influenced by his Kenyan roots...and where have we heard that argument before?

This argument is constructed to do one thing:  to sell the notion of President Obama as The Other to the Washington Post crowd, scaring the crap out of the Beltway elite.  It's Birtherism with a monocle, and D'Souza should be ashamed of himself if he was capable of it.

The real transgressor here is of course the Washington Post itself.  This crap wasn't true when it was excreted last month at Newt Gingrich's outfit at Human Events, and it's not any better congealed into book format either.

Why the WaPo feels it needs to sell Regnery books I couldn't tell you, save that our "liberal media" certainly doesn't seem that liberal to me.