There are people out there who are angry about what's happening in the world. Some of them gravitate to the Nutcase Left. Others find their way to the Wacko Right. There are serious dollars to be made — especially in talk radio and book publishing — by telling either of those groups exactly what they want to hear. It doesn't have to be fair. Matter of fact, the extremists would prefer it if you not be fair to the opposition because they don't think the opposition deserves fairness.
Your attack doesn't have to be accurate, either. They just want to hear — and will pay good money to be told — that their political opponents are neither right nor honest with any syllable they utter.
I haven't read the new book by Dinesh D'Souza that blames "the left" for 9/11 but I keep catching appearances on his book tour. Mr. D'Souza is obviously a smart enough guy to know that much of the promotional hype for his book is just indefensible red meat. You can see him struggling to sound reasonable, trying to back away from his own jacket copy and the claims of his publisher while still reaping the potential sales benefits from that line.
He wasn't smart enough, however, to know he shouldn't go on The Colbert Report. Last night, Stephen Colbert eviscerated the guy so thoroughly, I'm not even sure D'Souza realized he'd been fileted wide open and had his innards removed. It was such an amazing piece of surgery that I once again take my life in my hands by embedding not one but two video links from the functionally-insane Comedy Central website. I think this will show you the interview. If Colbert was just warming up for this week's reciprocal guest appearances with Bill O'Reilly, it's going to be brutal.
