There are conservatives, and then there are conservatives. I used to think that the worst of the worst was Ann Coulter, a very sick woman whose crazed ravings speak for themselves. But leap-frogging ahead of Coulter is rightwing "scholar" Dinesh D'Souza, who is publishing a book that blames the "cultural left" for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This guy appeared on the Colbert Report yesterday and the host played with him like the kitty plays with a mouse, getting D'Souza to suggest that FDR was indirectly responsible for 9/11. According to ThinkProgress:

Last night on The Colbert Report, D’Souza repeated the right-wing attack that President Bill Clinton “did absolutely nothing” to fight global terrorists. Stephen Colbert jokingly asked, “Doesn’t some of it lie at FDR’s doorstep? Doesn’t things like Social Security and Medicare and LBJ’s Great Society, doesn’t some of that send the wrong message to our enemies?”

D’Souza answered, “Indirectly, yes,” explaining that “FDR gave away Eastern Europe through Yalta, and then the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Muslims had to fight back and that’s where bin Laden got his start.”

D'Sousa explains his thesis on his website:

In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country (such people as Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, George Soros, Michael Moore, Bill Moyers, and Noam Chomsky) is responsible for causing 9/11. The term “cultural left” does not refer to the Democratic Party. Nor does it refer to all liberals. It refers to the left wing of the Democratic Party—admittedly the most energetic group among Democrats, and the main source of the party’s ideas. The cultural left also includes a few Republicans, notably those who adopt a left-wing stance on foreign policy and social issues. Moreover, the cultural left includes organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Watch, and moveon.org.

In faulting the cultural left, I am not making the absurd accusation that this group blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I am saying that 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. The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral rage—some of it based on legitimate concerns, some of it based on wrongful prejudice—but all of it fueled and encouraged by the cultural left. Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.

Folks, this is real sick. Most Americans have not even heard of Noam Chomsky or George Soros, but they somehow wound up on D'Sousa's shitlist. Does anyone really think the ACLU and Human Rights Watch got bin Ladin so wound up that he ordered 9/11?

D'Souza adds:

the cultural left has fostered a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies, especially those in the Islamic world, that are being overwhelmed with this culture. In addition, the left is waging an aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family and to promote secular values in non-Western cultures. This campaign has provoked a violent reaction from Muslims who believe that their most cherished beliefs and institutions are under assault. Further, the cultural left has routinely affirmed the most vicious prejudices about American foreign policy held by radical factions in the Muslim world, and then it has emboldened those factions to attack the United States with the firm conviction that “America deserves it” and that they can do so with relative impunity. Absent these conditions, Osama Bin Laden would never have contemplated the 9/11 attacks, nor would the United States today be the target of Islamic radicals throughout the world.

Conservatives regard D'Souza as an intellectual. To my knowledge, the new right has no serious intellectuals, at least no one whose books provide any real guidance into the state of the world and how we got here. There is no intellectual foundation for modern conservativism that I can discern, other than raw power and horrendous outburts by blowhards like Dinesh D'Souza, Rush Limbaugh and the others. This book will almost certainly become a best-seller. The question is, who's buying this shit?