Lunacy Gone Mainstream: Cons Giddy Over "2016: Obama's America"

Remember during the GOP primaries when Newt Gingrich said this?

"What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."

At the time, it seemed that Gingrich was simply doing what he does so well, which is to spout utter nonsense with the gravity of a college professor speaking basic truths.  In this particular case, though, Gingrich was quoting Dinesh D'Souza, an odd product of years of right wing grooming, who had made that statement in a Forbes article, "How Obama Thinks", where he stitched together cherry picked parts of the President's background into a weird combination of birtherism, racism, half-truths, and outright lies, to posit that Obama's dead father, who he only met a few times when he was young, has somehow permeated Obama's world view, which D'Souza oddly dubs as "anti-colonialism".  At the time the article came out, and when Gingrich babbled the same theory, I just dismissed it as more fringe drivel, often repeated by the extreme right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  I was wrong.  This theory is embraced by a shocking number of otherwise logical people.

D'Souza (born in India) often questions Barack Obama's (born in the USA)  Americanism.  He made his bones in the Reagan White House, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.  While at Dartmouth, he wrote for the American Prospect.  He has made a career of writing widely debunked books and articles primarily aimed at Obama, his most recent being The Roots of Obama's Rage, which is so incoherent and poorly reasoned that Media Matters was able to take it apart at a casual walk.

That widely discredited book has now been made into a "documentary" called 2016: Obama's America which simply recycles the same nonsense that D'Souza has been peddling for years.  The effect on Conservatives, though, has been remarkable.  Conservatives I know have become absolutely giddy over the movie, convinced it reveals some kind of secret truth that will prove to be the undoing of President Obama.  What's really amazing is that it doesn't matter that the basic premise of the movie, and the book it is based on, is not rooted in any kind of truth.  Conservatives are clinging to this collection of tripe-on-film as the event of the year.  This is the thing that will finally get the object of their hate, Barack Obama.  Right wing blogs are frenetically flogging the movie as the greatest thing since Patton.

I discovered this weird giddiness last night, when I got into one of those regrettable Facebook arguments with several of my conservative "friends".  After I posted several articles that debunked both the book and the movie, the argument, as often does, got personal.  While my "friends" were unable to refute any of my criticisms of D'Souza, the attacks on me got ugly, which ended the debate (and the relationships).  Unfortunately, in this climate, political debates often end in this manner.  It seems now that anger seethes in conservatives, often right below the surface.  When whipped up by inflammatory theories like D'Souza peddles, it erupts into a conflagration that costs relationships, such as ours yesterday.  No minds are changed, and pharmaceutical companies that sell blood pressure medicine make more money.

I know nothing else to do in the face of this onslaught but to keep speaking what I see as the truth, and not allowing that truth to be overrun by intellectual laziness.  That being said, I'll sure be glad when November 7 comes.