Ted,

Because I respect your intelligence, I’ve taken away these valued tid-bits from your article:

• Letters to a Young Conservative and End of Racism – don’t read
• Books by D’Souza in general – don’t read
• Christopher Hitchens’ Letters to a Young Contrarian – put it on the list to be read
• Anna Deavere Smith's Letters to a Young Artist. – put it up high on the list to be read

(And please note that I do value reading recommendations and warnings)

But your call to discuss someone you just trashed and whose books I now have no interest in reading…. Why bother?

Am I missing a point or is it just a difference in what we like to respond to in this context?

From the link to Amazon:
Pointing to Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears and Noam Chomsky, he decries those who have teamed up with Hollywood and the U.N. to foist an irreligious, sexually licentious, antifamily liberal culture—epitomized by Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues and gay marriage initiatives—on a Muslim world that rightly reviles it.
From Publishers Weekly
...  by pressing for sexual freedom for women and gays through birth control, no-fault divorce, and support for gay marriage, has not only undermined American culture but also provoked the ire of religious conservatives in other nations, most prominently Islamic fundamentalists.
From Booklist

Sexuality and license were always high on my list of priorities ever since I was 16 amd my girlfriend and I read Atlas Shrugged...  In fact, when I hear of "family values" I always think of Thanksgiving at the Reardens.  I have no personal problems with talking vaginas or gays inheriting each others property.  I do have a problem with Islam, several in fact, beginning with the existence of God and passing through the assumption into heaven of Mohammed -- and remember: the Qu'ran has 25 references to Jesus, calling him the Son of God and God, and another dozen to Mary, calling her the Virgin Mary and the Mother of God.

Here are my favorite pin-up sites, the Hegre site, Body Mind, and Suicide Girls being the result of a thread posted to Solo before the cleavage (!) of RoR.

http://www.voyeurweb.com/
http://suicidegirls.com/
http://www.bodyinmind.com/
http://www.hegre-art.com/
http://www.superbeauty.org/
http://www.agentprovocateur.com/


I also agree that the war with Islam has less to do with our nipples and more to do with America's  bases in Saudi Arabia, otherwise, they would have attacked Amsterdam, not New York and Washington.  P. J. O'Roarke hit the nail on the head: the American military is the mercenary of the Sauds, a family that wants to dominate the area, but lacks an army of its own.  "What is the national anthem of Saudi Arabia? Onward, Christian Soldiers." -- P. J. O'Roarke.  This is has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with realpolitik.  Anyone who condemns "islamo-fascists" needs to identify the facts of reality: the American military is fighting on behalf of islamo-fascism, just as they fought to defend the USSR (international socialists) from the Germans (national socialists).

His End of Racism was based on a promising subject, but was overly smug and suffered from its ivory-tower author's isolation from the real world. D'Souza, of dark skin, acts as if he has faced real racism (I doubt it) and as if his skin color immunizes him from criticism.