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9/11 was my fault.  And yours, according to the Right's very own logic-disabled Navin R. Johnson, Dinesh D'Souza.  Yes, his book, The Enemy at Home, is finally upon us. Last night, Atrios, who was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy, highlighted the blurb on the book's back cover:

The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11.

You read that right.  Nineteen Al-Qaeda terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania because we libertines who shove sexual equality, art, literature, and progressive thought down everyone's throats really pissed them off with our atheistic, cappuccino-foaming, stem cell-chugging, chandelier-swinging behavior.  Disregard the fact that Osama bin Laden's raison d'etre has been to eradicate the U.S. presence in the Middle East and to impose his vision of an Islamic society throughout the region. Never mind that, Oslo Accords aside, the West has been completely unable (or unwilling) to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian crisis.  Pay no attention to the fact that Dinesh D'Souza would like to remake American society in his own version of wingnut puritanical Utopia circa the fictional 1950's, where women were seen and not heard, couples slept in separate beds, and anti-Communism was all the rage. 9/11 was Hollywood's fault.

Back in October 2006, James Wolcott discovered a copy of the book's galley in his mail (does that qualify as a terrorist act?) and gave us all a glimpse into the fevered mind of D'Souza:

"In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11."

Then the qualifiers begin multiplying. The term 'cultural left' doesn't refer to the Democratic Party, nor to all liberals. (Peter Beinart presumably gets a pass.) Nor is he saying that cultural lefties actually brought the towers down. He isn't so rash as to suggest Molly Ivins piloted one of the planes, parachuting to safety before impact. So what is he saying?

"I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector [profiteers are always patriots, of course], and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world."

To echo Wolcott's sentiments, it's hard to figure out where to start with this petrified turd of a concept.  "Stupid" just isn't eloquent enough. "Retarded" is an offense to those who suffer mental disabilities.  How about "fallacious"?  How about "wishful thinking?" How about "again with the whiny assed titty baby victimization"?  How about "projecting like a fucking movie googleplex"?

Wolcott:

"I realize that this is a strong charge," D'Souza writes, "one that no one has made before."

The reason it hasn't been made before is that it's a sleazy, shameless, ignorant, ahistorical, tendentious, meretricious lie, one that was waiting for the right brazen liar to come along to promote it, and here he is, and his name is Dinesh D'Souza, who's fatuous and fuddy-duddyish enough to think that it's Britney Spears, the rap lyrics of 2 Live Crew, and the buggering photographs of the late Robert Mapplethorpe that have Islam in a tiz.

D'Souza's reasoning is as sound as the lead character's in "The Jerk".  A sniper takes pot shots at gas station employee Navin R. Johnson, but ends up hitting a display of cans of engine oil instead.  Johnson's conclusion?  "He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!"

Wolcott provides D'Souza's tautological bullshit: 

The call-to-arms conclusion of D'Souza's book:

"There is no way to restore the culture without winning the war on terror. Conversely, the only way to win the war on terror is to win the culture war. Thus we arrive at a sobering truth. In order to crush the Islamic radicals abroad, we must defeat the enemy at home."

Look, just because you want it to be otherwise doesn't make it so, Dinesh.  So here's my suggestion for you. Clamber over the ramparts of your ivory tower-think tank and take a wander through the shopping malls and closets of the America you believe are longing to break free from the nefarious clutches of the "Cultural Left". Take a peek at who really is downloading the pictures of Britney Spears' exposed nethers. Head east to Washington, D.C. and check out the leather bars, if you dare, and confront your  co-workers and elected officials who, by day, decry the destruction of traditional marriage, the radical villainies of homosexuality and the evils of free speech just the way you do. Ask your wife Dixie if she enjoys being able to vote (I know your ex-girlfriend, Ann Coulter, enjoys voting in places where she's not even registered).

I think you might be quite surprised to learn that the oppressed people you're allegedly championing secretly enjoy the excesses of American life brought to you by the Philistines of America, Inc.  And I think you do, too, Dinesh.

And absolutely none of this had anything to do with 9/11.

P.S. By the way, dude, I hear there's a great future in weight guessing. You might want to give it some thought.

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