In a recent interview with the National Review, Newt Gingrich had this to say about President Obama:
What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" Gingrich asks. "That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."
"This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president.
Newt's comments are beyond asinine and are clearly designed to play on already existing paranoia regarding Obama's race, citizenship and ideology.
Gingrich doesn't even bother giving a single example in support of his argument but instead generally refers to a recent Forbes article, written by Dinesh D'Souza, on the topic. Gingrich must have been thrilled to read the Forbes article. It allows him to attack Obama on multiple levels. First, the argument invokes the "Obama wasn't born in the US" meme without having to say it. Note how he argues Obama has perpetrated a "wonderful con" immediately after pointing out that Obama's actions derive from "Kenyan" behavior. That's no accident. Second, he can play on racial fears by pitting the anti-colonial African (Obama) against the average white American. Third, he suggests that Obama is an extremist- so extreme he is "outside our comprehension." We can only predict his behavior by looking at "anti-colonial tendencies," whatever that's supposed to mean.
I suspect Gingrich is hoping to draw far more attention to the Forbes article cited above in hopes the narratives listed above will take greater hold. It's working- at least with respect to attention for the article. I read the Forbes article. I found it insanely idiotic. The basic premise is that Obama's heritage is from Kenya, and his worldview is best understood by realizing that Obama hates colonialism due to its impact on Africa. His contempt of colonialism leads him to despise the United States in general (which the author of the Forbes article calls "today's neo-colonial leader"). By extension, D'Souza claims, he also hates capitalism and the rich.
I can't begin to list everything wrong with the Forbes article, but here are some of the high points: (the quotations in italics are from D'Souza's article):
-
The President's actions are so bizarre that they mystify his critics and supporters alike. Consider this headline from the Aug. 18, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal: "Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling." Did you read that correctly? You did. The Administration supports offshore drilling--but drilling off the shores of Brazil.
With Obama's backing, the U.S. Export-Import Bank offered $2 billion in loans and guarantees to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras to finance exploration in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro--not so the oil ends up in the U.S. He is funding Brazilian exploration so that the oil can stay in Brazil...
Why support oil drilling off the coast of Brazil but not in America? Obama believes that the West uses a disproportionate share of the world's energy resources, so he wants neocolonial America to have less and the former colonized countries to have more.
This claim is completely false. First, President Obama had nothing to do with the decision of the Export-Import Bank ("ExIm") to give $2 billion in loans and guarantees to Petrobas for offshore Brazilian oil drilling. When the loan was approved, ExIm's board had five members- three Republicans and two Democrats. All five individuals were appointed by... President Bush. I have not located a single quote from President Obama saying anything about the ExIm decision (for or against). Furthermore, ExIm has a very good reason for the transaction: the loan proceeds are to be used to purchase US owned equipment and services (thereby increasing US exports- the very mission of ExIm).
So, D'Souza's first example of Obama's anti-colonial views is something that Bush appointees approved which will benefit the US and of which Obama had nothing to do. Off to a smashing start and we aren't even to the third paragraph.
-
More strange behavior: Obama's June 15, 2010 speech in response to the Gulf oil spill focused not on cleanup strategies but rather on the fact that Americans "consume more than 20% of the world's oil but have less than 2% of the world's resources." Obama railed on about "America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels." What does any of this have to do with the oil spill? Would the calamity have been less of a problem if America consumed a mere 10% of the world's resources?
D'Souza never articulates how this "strange behavior" is evidence of anti-colonialism, but he is successful in articulating a claim that is even dumber than the one in his preceding paragraph. Obama's speech DID focus on cleanup. Clearly D'Souza missed the entire first point in Obama's speech. It was hard to miss because it was actually labeled as the first point:
Tonight I’d like to lay out for you what our battle plan is going forward: what we’re doing to clean up the oil, what we’re doing to help our neighbors in the Gulf, and what we’re doing to make sure that a catastrophe like this never happens again. First, the cleanup....
The speech went on for another four paragraphs discussing the cleanup. Even setting that totally false claim by D'Souza aside, how can he honestly not comprehend why Obama would discuss America's heavy reliance on oil in his address to the nation? Obama went to great lengths to explain this very point:
So one of the lessons we’ve learned from this spill is that we need better regulations, better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling. But a larger lesson is that no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk. After all, oil is a finite resource. We consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.
For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires.... The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight.... We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.
Obama discussed reliance on oil because that's the root of the problem. The leaking well is but a symptom. Somehow, this is but more evidence for D'Souza that Obama is a neo-colonialist (D'Souza should note that President H. W. Bush formulated a new national energy policy following Exxon Valdez designed to reduce US reliance on oil; maybe he was a Kenyan anti-colonialist too).
-
The oddities go on and on. Obama's Administration has declared that even banks that want to repay their bailout money may be refused permission to do so. Only after the Obama team cleared a bank through the Fed's "stress test" was it eligible to give taxpayers their money back. Even then, declared Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Administration might force banks to keep the money...
Rejecting the socialist formula, Obama has shown no intention to nationalize the investment banks or the health sector. Rather, he seeks to decolonize these institutions, and this means bringing them under the government's leash. That's why Obama retains the right to refuse bailout paybacks--so that he can maintain his control.
D'Souza would have been far better served to look up bailout repayments before publishing this bit of nonsense. The total "bailout" payments already dispersed to lenders (other than Fannie and Freddie) is about $396 billion. Of that amount, $200 billion has already been repaid. That's only 50%, but keep in mind that AIG and GM account for an enormous percentage of the remaining bailout dispersed funds ($111 billion in total). Excluding AIG and GM, 70% of bailout funds have been repaid so far. That doesn't sound much like an administration doing everything it can to prevent banks from repaying as part of a conspiracy to keep banks under government control. In fact, GM has also recently taken steps to eliminate the government's share ownership by filing registration papers for an IPO. AIG is also preparing to end government ownership.
Furthermore, D'Souza should know by now that TARP I was enacted under President Bush with significant Republican support.
D'Souza spews off a few more equally stupid "examples" of Obama's anti-colonial nature, including support for the Ground Zero mosque, "half-hearted" opposition to the release of the Lockerbie bomber (seriously), and the NASA chief's statement that he was told by Obama that NASA should help improve relations with the Muslim world (which the White House denied).
There is a lot wrong with the examples given by D'Souza above, but chief among them is that even assuming everything he just said is true, it's hardly evident from his arguments that it has anything to do with "anti-colonialism," or that "anti-colonialism" is necessarily a bad thing (the original tea partiers sure opposed colonialism).
In trying to connect the dots for the "examples" above to anti-colonialism, D'Souza argues the following:
Anticolonialists hold that even when countries secure political independence they remain economically dependent on their former captors. This dependence is called neocolonialism... [P]oor countries may be nominally free, but they continue to be manipulated from abroad by powerful corporate and plutocratic elites. These forces of neocolonialism oppress not only Third World people but also citizens in their own countries. Obviously the solution is to resist and overthrow the oppressors. This was the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. and many in his generation....
It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.
For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. And here is where our anticolonial understanding of Obama really takes off, because it provides a vital key to explaining not only his major policy actions but also the little details that no other theory can adequately account for.
True to form, D'Souza's conclusion is as baseless as everything else he has written. In fact, the weight of all available evidence leans strongly against D'Souza's conclusion. It isn't just "incredible" to say that Obama views America's military as a force for global domination and destruction (and an instrument of neocolonial occupation), it is completely unsupportable. Perhaps D'Souza is unaware that Obama has escalated the war in Afghanistan since taking office and left troops in Iraq longer than he said he would as a candidate. He has also increased predator drone attacks into Pakistan and deployed troops to the US border with Mexico. Are these honestly the acts of a man driven by an impassioned hatred of the US military or who views the US military as a neocolonial force?
D'Souza's argument regarding Obama's hatred of profits is equally fabricated. Clearly D'Souza is unaware that corporate profits just hit an all-time high of $1.37 trillion in the first quarter. Maybe he is also unaware of Obama's proposals to give businesses billions in tax breaks for equipment investment, or the many other programs Obama favors which allocate billions more for business interests. If Obama really is an "anti-colonialist" as defined by D'Souza, he simply awful at executing his agenda.
D'Souza's one success is in writing arguably the least supportable article Forbes has published in recent history. It's as clear an example of starting with a conclusion and working backwards as you will find in a publication as mainstream as Forbes. Gingrich's citation of this article is dirty politics at best. If Gingrich actually believes the contents of D'Souza's article we are left with a worse conclusion- he's a lot less intelligent than we have been led to believe.
Check us out at http://www.thefourthbranch.com