colbert, o’reilly and d’souza, oh my!

I liked the gimmick, but I was relatively unimpressed by either O’Reilly on Colbert or Colbert on O’Reilly. O’Reilly got in a good shot with the comment about Colbert having changed the pronunciation of his name, and Colbert drew blood when he made the “sexual predator” remark, but neither of them really made the most of the opportunity like John Stewart did that time on Crossfire. I was impressed, however, by Colbert’s exchange a few days ago with conservative Stanford professor Dinesh D’Souza, who was there promoting his new book, “The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.” I thought it was one of Colbert’s best performances since last year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. He even got D’Souza to say that, yes, FDR was “indirectly responsible” for 9/11, if you can believe it… And, here, while I’m at it, is a quote from D’Souza: “the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.” (What, no mention of American troops on Muslim land? As that’s what bin Laden keeps saying is responsible for 9/11, I’m surprised it doesn’t at least make the list along with Hollywood.)

Here’s a brilliant clip from the review of D’Souza’s book that ran in “The Washington Post”:

…(I)t’s as if he read “Mein Kampf” and concluded that its author’s main concern was not Aryan supremacy or genocidal anti-Semitism but distaste for Weimar theater…