Some months ago I expressed my skepticism about Dinesh D’Souza’s thesis that the best way to understand Barack Obama involves seeing him as trying to fulfill his father’s anti-colonialist vision.
I argued that mainstream American liberalism, especially its hothouse academic forms, were more than sufficient to explain Obama’s statements and policies.
But that was based on a Forbes magazine article, which served as a precis for a book that was soon published, The Roots of Obama’s Rage. Now, with the relative leisure of the holiday season, I’ve finally had time to read the book.
Has D’Souza’s full argument convinced me? No. In fact, after reading the book I’ve became more convinced than ever that my original take on Obama is correct. Not only do we not need to go to Kenya to find the sources of his worldview (the Ivy League will do just fine), but in fact the very realistic and at times cold-blooded sentiments of post-colonial Africans who wrested their futures out of the hands of their European masters cuts against the magical thinking the characterizes the sort of liberalism that the Obama White House represents.
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