Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Jerry Adler has an article in Newsweek about D'Souza's new book and his compilation of an enemies list:
Dinesh D'Souza, the right-wing author and critic, has made his own list, and Ted Kennedy is the very first name. D'Souza identifies more than 100 people and organizations as part of a "domestic insurgency" that is "working in tandem with [Osama] bin Laden to defeat Bush." Among them are such well-known terrorists as Sharon Stone, Henry Louis Gates and Cindy Sheehan. If you've ever given money to Planned Parenthood or the ACLU, D'Souza wants you to know, you've been aiding groups "at least as dangerous as any of bin Laden's American sleeper cells."
This is right wing rhetoric gone completely off the deep end. Worse, he insults our intelligence by saying, "I am not accusing anyone of treason or even of anti-Americanism." The hell you're not. You can't claim in one breath that these people are "at least as dangerous" as Bin Laden's terrorist cells and in the next breath claim not to be accusing them of being anti-American. Own up to your argument, for crying out loud.
When I criticize Christian reconstructionists for their agenda to undermine our liberty, I'll say it boldly: hell yes they're anti-American. They reject the most basic premises upon which this nation was built, the notion of individual rights that no government may justly violate; that makes them anti-American. Worse than being an act of treason against the government, this is an act of treason against those principles that the government was created to protect; that is far worse because, obviously, the government often acts against those principles as well.
Here's his list of domestic enemies, by the way:
Here are some of the names on his list:* The Congressional Left
Sen. Hillary Clinton; Sen. Ted Kennedy; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House; Rep. Charles Rangel; former representative Cynthia McKinney; Rep. Barney Frank
* The Intellectual Left
Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at MIT; Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates; author Thomas Frank ("What's the Matter With Kansas"); Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor; Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe; author Garry Wills
* The Hollywood Left
Martin Sheen; Barbra Streisand; Tim Robbins; Susan Sarandon; Sean Penn; Harry Belafonte; Spike Lee; RosieO'Donnell; Cameron Diaz; Sharon Stone
* The Activist Left
Howard Dean; Michael Moore; philanthropist George Soros; Cindy Sheehan; Paul Begala; Jim Wallis, preacher and activist; blogger Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos)
* The Foreign-Policy Left
Jimmy Carter; Gore Vidal, novelist; journalists Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker), Jonathan Schell (The Nation) and Bob Herbert (The New York Times)
* The Cultural Left
Norman Mailer, Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison, novelists; journalists Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd (The New York Times); playwright Eve Ensler ("The Vagina Monologues"); authors Barbara Ehrenreich ("Nickel and Dimed") and Karen Armstrong ("A History of God")
There's one name that absolutely leaps off the list: Salman Rushdie. What the hell is Rushdie doing on that list? Bin Laden may hate him, but for crying out loud if Rushdie can be accused of providing aid and comfort to Muslim terrorists, who can't be accused of that? Rushdie is an outspoken critic not only of radical Islam, but of Islam itself. The rest of the list is predictable; it includes pretty much any famous person who disagrees with Bush or with D'Souza; I'm sure that's purely coincidental.
Comments
This is a few days old but it is a great takedown of DD
http://world-o-crap.com/blog/?p=364
Posted by: T | February 1, 2007 10:16 AM
that's from me dunno what happend to the name
Posted by: TomMil | February 1, 2007 10:17 AM
But you see, Rushdie offended Muslims, therefore its his fault that Bin Laden wants to kill us. Anyone who offends Bin Laden mad at us must really hate us, and D'Souza would never make Bin Laden angry...Hmm, let's that try that again... Immoral western freedom makes Bin Laden angry. D'Souza agrees with Bin Laden about the immoral freedom...No, no, that can't be right. Never mind.
Posted by: Nick | February 1, 2007 10:28 AM
I'm actually more stunned to see Laurence Tribe's name on that list, than Salman Rushdie's. Does D'Souza think bin Laden spends much time reading about US Constitutional law?! And if it were the case that the principles of the American Constitution were part of bin Laden's animosity, does that mean we should stop writing about them?? The mind boggles.
Posted by: Russell | February 1, 2007 10:36 AM
My russian history professor called this sort of thinking "maximalism", specifically to describe V.I. Lenin. It's the doctrine that anyone who disagrees with you, on practically anything, is not simply mistaken, but out to undermine common goals. Even allies can be called traitors if they deviate one iota.
Posted by: Matthew | February 1, 2007 10:48 AM
This is nothing if not standard operating procedure for the Bush Administration. Even before 9/11, they were saying that the only reason anyone could oppose the tax cut (for instance) was that they were evil. Not just anti-American, but downright going-to-Hell evil. There is no possibility that more than one rational argument can exist on a given subject, and that would be whatever the Maximum Leader decreed.
The irony, of course, was that the RNC made this exact argument about "San Francisco Democrats" in the last election. And yes, there are Stalinists on the left as well. But they have never captured the White House.
Posted by: kehrsam | February 1, 2007 11:10 AM
Can anyone get on the list, or do you have to be well known? I ask becasue I want to get on that list. While I am not in government, I did give money to people on the list. Is that enought to get me on? I think that it would be ammusing if a bunch of people emailed him requesting to be put on the list and touting their qualifications.
Posted by: mess | February 1, 2007 11:25 AM
You know, there was at least a small bit of intellectual honesty and reasonable discourse in his original piece, but this is just pure political paranoia. I also find it ineresting that I have not seen Mssr. D'Souza mention any of the conservative actions and policies that embolden radical Islam - like overlooking the huge amount of human rights abuses and political repression in our "ally" states of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, or the funding of Bin Landen and the other Afghan anti-Soviet rebels (sure this could have been an honest mistake, but it sure didn't work out well), or the propping up of Hussein as an Iranian counter-weight for years.
In fact, if Mssr. D'Souza were to read history, he might find out that the mess in Iraq, not to mention the recent mess in the former Yugoslavia, can be traced back to the political horse-trading by the Allied powers at the end of WWI. If you want to blame Democrats for our mess in Iraq, at least go to where the criticism lies, with Wilson.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | February 1, 2007 11:31 AM
What the hell is it with right wingers these days and enemies' lists? Bernie Goldberg, David Horowitz and now Dinesh D'Souza have all had books out in the last few years consisting entirely of these things.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | February 1, 2007 11:42 AM
Does anyone else think this may be the way for the right to stay in power in 2008 and after? The war in Iraq will not be going well, so those who support it will be in political jeopardy. Now the right needs some way to hold onto their base and again get the votes of those who want to feel secure regardless. Make the left responsible for the feeling of insecurity - they have recklessly exported movies to Moslem countries, leftist NGOs such as Planned Parenthood are exported women's lib, and religious ideas have to compete with secular ideas and often lose. So, if you vote for anyone other than a righty, who will clamp down on all these things, then the Islamic fanatics will strike again and with good reason. DD is not talking to us - his audience are those who listen to Christian radio and right wing radio. That audience will then echo this to the nation in an effort to scare people again with the specter of Islamic terrorists out to get us. Pat Robertson's recent prophecies about another terrorist strike seems to me to fit in with this as well.
Posted by: bc | February 1, 2007 12:26 PM
Ginger,
It makes you wonder if these are not really "hit" lists. They are hoping some Timothy McVeigh type will use their handy list as a guide. I really would be surprised if this didn't at least cross their minds.
Posted by: TomMil | February 1, 2007 12:28 PM
Are professions on the list? I would think educators, the "liberal media," (guffaw), and other similar groups would qualify and possibly be even more "dangerous" to the country.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | February 1, 2007 12:32 PM
D'Souza's statements are a great example of the what Hoffsteder once called the "Paranoid Style of American Politics," where there is no such thing as an honest difference of opinion bascically anything. For activists like Mr. D'Souza, a controversy is a zero-sum game where contestants are in a life or death battle for cutlural/political hegemony. Social problems not things to be compromised on inorder to reach mutually beneficial solutions, but apocolyptic struggles between some transcendent good or evil.
It's kind like a Cecil B. Demille epic movie.
GE
Posted by: Guitar Eddie | February 1, 2007 12:39 PM
Surprised he didn't list any corporations. You know, the one with PC Human resources policies, that have woman CEOs, that practice "diversity."
Course he would never think of companies that support what Islamacists call Zionism (Bulldozers in the holy land, cluster bomb manufacturers) or that support the Bush Vanity War (Haliburton, Blackwater, et al.) or the multinationals that encourage and facilitate the dependency on Arabia, propping up the despotic pro-Western governments (Oil corporations).
Of Course!
Posted by: SharonB | February 1, 2007 12:47 PM
This is just more of the typical rhetoric that goes like this:
"Either you support my position on [microwaving cats, or anything else], or you're supporting the terrorists."
Actually, in the week before the AFC Championship game between the Pats and the Colts, I heard a great joke on sports talk radio. "Either you cheer for the Patriots to win, or you're supporting the terrorists".
Of course, here in New England, people usually recognize this as a joke. In other parts of the country? ...not so much...
Posted by: doctorgoo | February 1, 2007 1:12 PM
What the hell is Rushdie doing on that list?
If for no other reason than he's not American, and by definition cannot be part of a "domestic insurgency" against the United States. That said, Rushdie is setting up a terrorist cell in Atlanta -- where he is the new write in residence at Emory.
Posted by: Grumpy | February 1, 2007 1:17 PM
Dinesh D'Souza? Sounds foreign. I'm thinking "enemy combatant." Shouldn't we have him in solitary confinement just to be safe?
Posted by: ompus | February 1, 2007 1:19 PM
Rushdie is one of my heroes, if for no other reason than for the fact that a balding, slightly pudgy, not terribly attractive middle aged guy like him managed to get Padma Lakshmi to fall for him.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 1, 2007 1:26 PM
This guy is a raving loon! When will he self-destruct? I can't tear my eyes away!
Posted by: ruidh | February 1, 2007 2:46 PM
What makes me marvel is how random this list is. It would be hard for the list to be more brazenly just a list of people the author has negative emotional responses toward.
Some (most?) of these actors haven't been relevant either artistically or politically in a decade.
Few congresspersons noteworthy for actual opposition to George W. Bush or the operation of the "War on Terror" are present on his Congresspersons list (one wonders if this is just because D'Souza hasn't heard of, for example, Russ Feingold*); but present on the list is Cynthia McKinney, an almost totally politically irrelevant House member who was mostly known because of an altercation she had with a Capitol Hill policeman and was voted out of office by her own party (twice), as well as Hillary Clinton, who at the moment is currently facing significant political difficulties specifically for being too cozy with Bush and supportive of his "War on Terror" policies.
Toni Morrison???
* Or if possibly Newsweek's version of the list was edited to only contain people they think their readers would have heard of. I wonder if there is a copy of the full list somewhere...
Posted by: Coin | February 1, 2007 3:21 PM
Is Padma Laksmi the actress who was recently on the show Rome, and more famously, in Kama Sutra? If so, then damn, Rushdie has moved up my list as well. Pissed off extremists and bagged a complete hottie. That's a full life for any man.
Posted by: Kevin | February 1, 2007 3:35 PM
Padma Lakshmi.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 1, 2007 4:01 PM
That's funny...unless I'm misreading something, Ralph Nader isn't on DD's enemies list. I wonder why? Could it be because Nader helped Bush get elected? Or because Nader accepted lots of money from Republicans to repeat that trick in 2004?
Or could it be because Nader hates American culture just as much as DD and Osama do?
Or could this just be one more clue that DD is nothing more than a clueless, morally bankrupt, hysterical twit?
Posted by: Raging Bee | February 1, 2007 4:10 PM
Tis always reassuring that the paranoia of the loony right is alive and well. I'm also pleased to note that this nobody would qualify for the list if anyone knew who I was. After all I've supported the ACLU for 47 years and Planned Parenthood for nearly as long, and volunteer weekly as an escort at Planned Parenthood fencing with D'Souza's disciples on the sidewalk.
Posted by: Keanus | February 1, 2007 4:32 PM
It's a disappointingly mundane list. Other than Rushdie, who does seem to be the odd one out, these are just the usual hackneyed public lefties. I'd have hoped he could come up with one or two sinister, mostly unknown, behind-the-scenes leftist master manipulators.
Oh well.
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | February 1, 2007 8:23 PM
Judging from Rushdie's Wiki entry, I can only speculate that the reason DD has him on his list is Rushdie's support for the Sandanistas in Nicaragua.
Posted by: Ted | February 1, 2007 8:24 PM
What? No Paul Krugman?
What a disappointingly sparse list. I haven't felt so let down since Richard Nixon left the SDS off his enemies list.
Posted by: Ereshkigal | February 1, 2007 9:51 PM
Err....I read an interview a while back, and honestly she appears to have the intellect of a scallop. Balding, pudgy middle-aged famous and/or rich men have always managed to attract such women.
Posted by: Gretchen | February 2, 2007 6:46 AM
Hmmm...
D'Souza looks a bit middle-eastern to me - maybe he is just trying to deflect suspicion off himself by accusing everyone else of being 'the enemy'?
Maybe HE is a terrorist! Yeah, thats it!
It is easier than thinking - just declare everyone that does not agree with your position a terrorist. It seems to work for right-wing douche bags...
Posted by: slpage | February 2, 2007 8:40 AM
Actually, all I could think of when he argued for a return to "traditionalism" was that if we went far enough back to the "traditional values" of this country, Mr. D'Souza would be limited to jobs such as a hotel bellhop, given his ethnicity, and would not be bothering us with his opinions or his "enemies list" - hey, maybe he IS on to something.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | February 2, 2007 10:59 AM
And, of course, D'Souza also has a fondness for dating white women (yes, I know, most Indians are technically Caucasian; try explaining that to a redneck). So if we went back to "traditions" from a few decades ago, he'd be liable to end up hanging from a tree if he ventured too far south.
Posted by: MJ Memphis | February 2, 2007 11:34 AM
Gerard Harbison:
I think the closest they can get is George Soros, who to the average liberal is a rather shadowy figure anyway, and possibly Ward Churchill (bogeyman to the Right, "who is that again?" to the Left). I don't know that there are any equivalents to a J. Rushdoony or a Richard Mellon Scaife on the left -- most leftist financiers tend to be far more, uh, accepting about publicity.
Posted by: Brian X | February 2, 2007 5:42 PM
They tried this shtick in the 90s and earlier 00s and it worked and so they're just repeating a successful formula. D'Souza appears to be quite surprised at the negative reaction.
This looks to me like the Left in the 80s and 90s when they kept trying all the 60s/70s tried and true formulas against the resurgent Reaganite conservatives.
As the Left has come back revitalised, I'm hoping the conservatives will suffer the humiliating experience of the Left's 80s and 90s - obsessively repeating what used to work, before dropping into a good decade of depressed navel-gazing.
May the Left never forget the lesson they've spent 2 decades learning.
Posted by: Andrew | February 3, 2007 5:47 AM
Andrew:
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history." -Georg Hegel
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Those who do learn from history are doomed to make different mistakes."
Posted by: Alan B. | February 3, 2007 9:08 AM