Move over Michael Moore for Dinesh D'Souza

Michael Moore made a big splash when he went after President Bush using documentary/movies shown in movie theaters. 

Well, conservative writer, author, speaker Dinesh D'Souza with the help of "Schindler's List" producer Gerald Molen has turned the tables by coming out with a documentary/movie on President Obama entitled, "2016".  It seeks to chronicle the deep seated beliefs, motivating ideology of our current president.  Beliefs, D'Souza, are at odds with most Americans.

Thomas Sowell, economist and columnist, gave this critique of the film:

Years, and sometimes decades, pass between my visits to movie theaters. But I drove 30 miles to see the movie 2016: Obama's America based on Dinesh D'Souza's best-selling book, The Roots of Obama's Rage. Where I live is so politically correct that such a movie would not even be mentioned, much less shown.

Every seat in the theater was filled, even though there had been an earlier showing that day, and more showings were scheduled for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I had to sit on a staircase in the balcony, but it was worth it.

The audience was riveted. You could barely hear a sound from them, or detect a movement, and certainly not smell popcorn. Yet the movie had no bombast, no violence, no sex and no spectacular visual effects.

The documentary itself was fascinating, as Dinesh D'Souza presented the story of Barack Obama's life and view of the world, in a very conversational sort of way, illustrating it with visits to people and places around the world that played a role in the way Obama's ideas and beliefs evolved.

 Sowell notes the unique, Third World perspective D'Souza brings to the film.

Dinesh D'Souza's own perspective, as someone born in India who came to America and became an American, provided a special insight into the way people from the Third World often perceive or misperceive the United States and the Western world.

That Third World perspective is Obama's perspective, D'Souza demonstrates in this documentary, as in his book — and it is a perspective that is very foreign to that of most Americans, which may be why some believe that Obama was born elsewhere.

D'Souza is convinced that the president was born in Hawaii, as he claims, but argues that not only Obama's time living in Indonesia and his emotionally charged visits to his father's home in Africa, have had a deep and impassioned effect on his thinking.

The story of Barack Obama, however, is not just the story of how one man came to be the way he is. It is a much larger story about how millions of Americans came to vote for, and some to idolize, a man whose fundamental beliefs and values are so different from their own.

For every person who sees Obama as somehow foreign there are many others who see him as a mainstream American political figure — and an inspiring one.

This D'Souza attributes to Barack Obama's great talents in rhetoric, and his ability to project an image that resonates with most Americans, however much that image may differ from, or even flatly contradict, the reality of Obama's own ideological view of the world.

 What does D'Souza say is President Obama's worldview, ideology?

The Third World, or anti-colonial, view is that the rich nations have gotten rich by taking wealth from the poor nations. It is part of a much larger vision, in which the rich in general have gotten rich by taking from the poor, whether in their own country or elsewhere.

Whatever its factual weaknesses, it is an emotionally powerful vision, to which many people have dedicated their lives, and for which some have even risked their lives. Some of these people appear in this documentary movie, as they have appeared throughout the formative phases of Barack Obama's life.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is just the most visible and vocal of a long line of such people who played crucial roles in Obama's evolution. When Jeremiah Wright thundered about how "white folks' greed runs a world in need," he captured the essence of the Third World or anti-colonial vision.

Sowell's ringing endorsement has piqued my interest.  It's impact?  I suspect most people seeing it will already be inclined not to support Obama, so it won't probably impact most Americans.  However, it may motivate many people to get more involved as the election moves towards the home stretch.