Truth to Power

Remember when speaking truth to power was all the rage. It was something that activists on the Left preened about as they attacked political and corporate structures in America. It was something that mainstream journalists did to challenge the resident political structure in Washington. Today, the Left's perception of speaking truth to power still applies to the 1 percent and corporate America, but speaking truth to the executive branch or the Democrat-controlled senate? Not so much. It's only the GOP-held house that needs to be spoken to.

And journalists? They were silent—the president and his people have gone largely unchallenged for 5.5 years,although their recent deeds are so egregious that even the trained hamsters in the media can't fully ignore them.

Dinesh D'Souza speaks truth to power. A vocal conservative critic of Barack Obama and producer of the surprising hit 2012 documentary film 2016: Obama's America, D'Sousa is an author, a scholar, an immigrant, and a person of color. That might be what makes him a dangerous opponent of this president. And, of course, when you become to dangerous, this administration acts viciously. D'Sousa was indicted by Obama's justice department on a relatively minor campaign finance violation in which $20,000 was donated to a senate candidate who lost. By why be surprised? If the IRS scandal is any indication, opponents to the president are fair game.

D"Sousa will release a new film, America, next month. In a recent, far-ranging interview conducted by Benjamin Weingarten he comments on his situation:

[Weingarten:] Given what’s happened with the indictment, do you have a message to other dissenters in light of the personal trials and tribulations you have gone through for challenging the government? And related to that, is the country not already, to some degree, fundamentally transformed, when you do have the selective application of the law in terms of targeting political opponents?

D’Souza: I think that with Obama, we’re seeing new lows and new aberrations that did not occur before. I mean it’s to me inconceivable that the Bush administration would go after Michael Moore in that way, or even that Clinton would unleash the IRS against his opponents. Carter certainly would never dream of doing such a thing. So, we’ve in a sense turned a corner in American politics, and I’m worried about it because to some degree politics is a game of adversaries, and if they do it to you, I’m sure there are Republicans who are taking note who say “Well, wait till we have a chance to do it to them.” So we don’t want the politics of putting your critics into handcuffs. It’s a very troubling way for a country to operate. In fact, it’s the way third world countries operate, where they use the army or the police to go after their opposition. We have been thankfully spared from that kind of politics here in America. So, I think if people knew that’s what was going on, there would be a revolt about it.

The frightening thing is that we have turned a corner. It's now okay for the president and his spokespeople to lie blatantly when it meets their needs, to spin every failure of leadership, every instance of poor management, and every politically-driven decision as the fault of their opposition, to stonewall when a scandal breaks and then dismiss inquiry as "phony."

Ironically, this most ideological and divisive of all presidential administrations over the past 100 years is the very first to accuse its opposition of "political motivations," as if none of this administration's actions, words, or deeds were the least bit "political."

Dinesh D'Sousa truly understands Barack Obama—his ideology, his motivations, and his actions. That's what makes him dangerous to this president and that's why he's under indictment.