Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza says the reason Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin get along so swimmingly is that they share a love for their respective countries. D’Souza offered his praise of the foreign leader during an imagined respite from his alleged political persecution in the Western world.
What @realDonaldTrump admires about Putin is the way Putin–unlike someone else we know–LOVES his country & FIGHTS for its interests
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 14, 2016
Who that “someone else” is may be unclear.
D’Souza questioned President Barack Obama’s patriotism for years, going so far as to assault the president’s Kenyan ancestry in the 2012 political documentary Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream.
This election year, he’s busy promoting its spiritual sequel, Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.
You may know D’Souza, though, as the guy who called the 9/11 terrorists “warriors” a week after the terror attacks; a fitting moment to recall days after the 15-year anniversary of the attack.
The “warriors” quote came on the most controversial episode of Politically Incorrect. Host Bill Maher followed up on D’Souza’s remarks saying it was a mistake to label the suicide attackers as “cowards,” a remark widely credited with leading to the show’s cancellation.
Granted, both pundits had a point during the broadcast, but it’s worth recalling that conservatives crucified Maher while D’Souza became a delivery boy for all the mud the right sees fit to sling.
Back to Russia… The most recent praise of Trump and Putin came as the Republican nominee comes under fire even from members of his own party regarding his coziness with the former KGB star. Trump in a press conference in July said he would not treat Putin as an adversary.
As reported by Fox News, Trump stated:
“Wouldn’t it be nice if [they] got along, as an example, with Russia?”
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, a deeply conservative Republican, has responded by condemning Putin.
.@SpeakerRyan says Putin "is an aggressor that does not share our interests." pic.twitter.com/7NjGqoeTVn
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 8, 2016
Republican critics of Russia often note Putin’s history in the KGB, the notorious Soviet security agency. Putin’s official bio even boasts about his training at KGB School No. 1 in Moscow.
More recently, Putin has come under fire for such misbehavior as imprisoning political dissidents – the jailing of the Bolotnaya protesters for example, and assassinating opponents of his agenda (see this BBC report on the death of Boris Nemtsov).
D’Souza’s pro-Putin tweet, of course, drew immediate criticism from the left and right.
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/776030297263669248
Like jfc people, praising Putin because daddy Trump is? How old are we?
— Shoshana Weissmann, Regulatory Reform Muse (@senatorshoshana) September 14, 2016
ABC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent even went so far as to call D’Souza an “idiot: for offering the accolades:
By stealing billions from its people? By strangling freedom? By chaining it to a backwards petro-economy? You're an idiot.
— Terry Moran (@TerryMoran) September 14, 2016
The only critic he has thus responded to was famous chess grandmaster-turned-Putin critic Garry Kasparov, who tweeted shock at D’Souza’s remark.
Are you insane? Look at the disastrous state of Russia! The only interests Putin fights for are his own! https://t.co/CHzSd2WS60
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 14, 2016
D’Souza responded with this:
I'll concede to you on this–what I meant is we could use a president who unabashedly defends America's interests https://t.co/cpYeQhsyCN
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 15, 2016
Of course, that hardly addresses the irony that D’Souza himself has employed remarkable hyperbole in painting himself a political prisoner within the Western World. Why? He had to spend eight months incarcerated after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws, as reported in Politico. He even famously compared himself to Martin Luther King, Jr.
AN INTERESTING PARALLEL: MLK was targeted by J. Edgar Hoover, an unsavory character; I was targeted by the equally unsavory B. Hussein Obama
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) January 19, 2015
The imprisonment, of course, didn’t stop D’Souza from continual financial activities or prevent him from making a new movie slashing at Clinton, Obama and the entire Democratic Party in the build-up to another election.
Boris Nemtsov should be so lucky.
Featured Image By Gage Skidmore Via Flickr/CC-By-SA-2.0.