The Washington Post should not provide a platform for this guy.
I don’t like to criticize the Washington Post‘s or other newspapers’ choices of accepted op-ed columns. Like those Harvard rowers in the Facebook movie, I feel some waspish WASPish reticence to make trouble when I would love to appear in the same spot. I make an exception for this.
This is just a terrible, dishonest piece by a writer who has made a career out of producing such things. There is no justification for providing him a platform for yet another thinly-veiled appeal to people’s prejudices and stereotypes.
Author: Harold Pollack
Harold Pollack is Helen Ross Professor of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. He has served on three expert committees of the National Academies of Science. His recent research appears in such journals as Addiction, Journal of the American Medical Association, and American Journal of Public Health. He writes regularly on HIV prevention, crime and drug policy, health reform, and disability policy for American Prospect, tnr.com, and other news outlets. His essay, "Lessons from an Emergency Room Nightmare" was selected for the collection The Best American Medical Writing, 2009. He recently participated, with zero critical acclaim, in the University of Chicago's annual Latke-Hamentaschen debate.
View all posts by Harold Pollack
D'Souza, of course, is very anxious that someone will mistake HIM for a Luo tribesman.
It may say "Washington Post" at the top of page one, but it is really the "Kaplan Daily."
What puzzles me about D'Souza's column is his referring to anticolonialism as if it is a bad thing. It doesn't surprise me that he would support colonialism, but I didn't think that even the right admits that they do. In his Post column, he writes, "I know about anti-colonialism because I grew up in India in the decades after that country gained its independence from Britain." Does he really regret that India gained its independence?
Please disregard the word "even" in the previous comment.
Glenn Loury stuck up for anti-colonialism at bloggingheads. But in my opinion he chose terrible examples in support. India would have been a much better one.
Isn't this just a rehashing of the NR article? Doesn't D'Souza's new book expand the same thesis? I smell a publicist. I have to believe this "op-ed" is actually a paid "advertisement". It's shameful that WP would sell it's op-ed columns like this but I've seen the same thing in the NYT. And to be honest, I read both of those papers but give nothing back monetarily. So shame on me as well.
Harold, Harold, Harold
This is the newspaper that helped the Cheney Administration sell its wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan - and is still helping the Cheney claque sell the next war, in Iran. In their heirarchy of handlers and owners, D'Souza is a very low level demon, like Screwtape.
Tim, I believe his original article was in Forbes, not NR.