In a piece entitled “Who’s Afraid of Benazir Bhutto?” (thanks to James), which seems to be about whether the jihadists or Musharraf killed Bhutto, my old debating partner Dinesh D’Souza revisits the disastrous thesis of his last book: that America’s immoral society has created the global jihad, as a reaction by beleaguered proponents of traditional morality against the depravity and debauchery swamping the earth courtesy American pop culture.
What does this have to do with who killed Benazir Bhutto? Absolutely nothing, but it enables D’Souza to give the impression that Bhutto and Bernard Lewis would line up in agreement with the idea that everything would be just fine between the West and the Islamic world if we just went back to the days of Ozzie and Harriett and Doris Day.
Meanwhile, although it has been many months since he released his book, D’Souza has still not managed to come up with a second name of a “traditional Muslim” with whom he thinks American conservatives should ally. The first he mentioned was Egyptian Mufti Ali Gomaa, whom the New York Times identified as a supporter of the jihad terror group Hizballah. Whoops. Maybe the second attempt will be more successful, but I know he has another book out since then, and maybe he just hasn’t had time to get to it. Since he has revisited his older book today, however, maybe he will take a moment to answer a few of the questions I asked in my review of his book here — notably, if the jihad is a reaction to American pop culture, are Buddhist schoolteachers who are being murdered in Thailand exponents of American pop culture? Are Christian schoolgirls beheaded in Indonesia on their way to school the vanguard of an invasion by Eve Ensler? Are churches torched in Nigeria because they are showing blue movies during off hours?
But I don’t expect any answer, of course. D’Souza, after all, has never bothered to retract or correct his ridiculous claim that I want Muslim countries to replace the Qur’an with the Torah. Some people will say anything, I guess. And others, more fool they, will believe them.