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What was billed as a debate between an esteemed Boston College political science professor and a best-selling author over the role of American liberals in emboldening terrorism instead turned into what one student called a "third grade cat fight." More than 200 students packed into the Rat last night to hear Professor Alan Wolfe and Dinesh D'Souza, author of The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, square off, but many left in disappointment while moderator Luke Russert, A&S '08, struggled to contain the question-and-answer session.
D'Souza, a conservative senior fellow at Stanford University, said his book's title was "deliberately provocative" and that he was "not saying the cultural left did 9/11," but the debate soon unraveled into semantics. He said the American left "was not treasonous" but that it has emboldened Islamic radicals to strike as they did on Sept. 11 because of politicians like Jimmy Carter "[acquiescing] his liberal advisers" during the 1979 revolution in Iran.
Once in power, Ayatollah Khomeini benefited from Clinton's cabinet members who "did little or nothing" in response to terrorist attacks throughout the '90s. "Had America struck back at bin Laden in the '90s," said D'Souza, "it's not clear that 9/11 would have happened."
Wolfe used much of his pulpit power to decry what he saw as D'Souza's division of the American people."According to D'Souza, Teddy Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi killed those 22 BC alumni [on Sept. 11] whose deaths are honored in the labyrinth just outside [Burns Library]," said Wolfe. "In D'Souza's view, conservatives should hate their fellow Americans who happen to be liberal more than the enemy."
Wolfe repeatedly referenced his Jan. 21 New York Times review of D'Souza's book that said, "Once he learned how Osama bin Laden was viewed in the Muslim world, D'Souza changed his mind. Now he finds bin Laden to be 'a quiet, well-mannered, thoughtful, eloquent, and deeply religious person.'"
This came after Wolfe referenced D'Souza's Feb. 27 blog that boasted of his four best-selling books and the "considerable fees" he collects lecturing at universities. But the real crowd pleaser came when Wolfe quoted D'Souza as saying, "I am a scholar at Stanford University's prestigious Hoover Institution, while Wolfe is a scholar at mediocre Boston College."
D'Souza called Wolfe's review "vitriolic" and said Wolfe was "very cunningly and selectively [peeling] out these quotes, and [pretending] that I am praising bin Laden."
"All my major arguments were completely ignored," said D'Souza. "He is making up positions and attributing them to me."
Wolfe said he didn't even have to find a quote, though, since the "tone" of D'Souza's book was enough, adding that "the NYT is unbelievably careful about what they publish."
Wolfe also characterized D'Souza's "poisonous" idea to relate to "traditional Muslims" as "worse than anything associated with Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld," adding that President Bush's war in Iraq has made it so "there is no difference between traditionals and radicals" since "we've united the Muslim world against us."
D'Souza lit up at this remark and quickly asked Wolfe, "What percentage of Muslims in the world live in democracy?"
"Do I know the precise percentage?" Wolfe repeated.
"You have no idea," said D'Souza, then asking, "What is the most populous Muslim country in the world?"
Wolfe guessed wrong.
"I am being criticized by a guy who doesn't know a thing about Islam," D'Souza said, calling Wolfe a "dishonest scholar."
"You charge specific Americans with murder," Wolfe shot back. "[But] you must recognize that Nancy Pelosi, Teddy Kennedy, and Barney Frank are great Americans," Wolfe said.
"Let's stop this grandstanding," D'Souza said. "The left did not do 9/11." n
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