Will Anyone Take Debate?

Dinesh D’Souza, having been given a presidential pardon by his owner after being convicted of violating federal election law, has decided to devote the rest of his earthly life — or the rest of Trump’s shelf life as a viable gravy train for conservative media profiteers, whichever ends first — to licking Trump’s boots on the “election fraud” fraud, specifically by accusing anonymous others of being federal election criminals like himself. Now, every time someone on the Republican side of the tribal banter dismisses his 2000 Mules documentary, D’Souza calls that individual out for a debate. This time it is Trump’s former attorney general William Barr, who is officially a marked man in Trump world — no mere metaphor, sadly, given the “Hang Mike Pence!” reality, along with the continued existence of public lunatics like Lin Wood and Michael Flynn — after daring to tell Trump what he already knew, namely that there was no evidence to support his well-planned and pre-determined stolen election crap show. 

This debate challenge is funny to me coming from D’Souza, who apparently still sees himself as some sort of intellectual powerhouse. I remember several years ago, when a friend directed me to D’Souza’s debate with Bill Ayers, where I found D’Souza, who was only a name to me at that point, hopelessly out of his depth and singularly unimpressive pitted against the infamous communist smart aleck. I hope he has improved since then, if he is going to keep challenging everyone to a debate. On the other hand, since he knows none of those people will waste their time on his nonsense, and that he is only shooting his mouth off to get attention and make money, he apparently feels free to challenge on with impunity. Perhaps, like his owner, he knows the secret of looking tough for the audience when you are nothing but a paper tiger: Pick your fights publicly, remotely, only with people you know will never actually call your bluff, and only when you have a large crowd of allies to hide behind and to make you feel strong.

I assume Ann Coulter will be next on his list of challenges. Unlike D’Souza, Coulter has never been convicted of a crime and needed Trump’s help to get out of dodge, so she isn’t clinging to Daddy’s apron strings anymore. She has her own career to think about, and is apparently a little less shortsighted than the rest of the conservative media profiteers.