The conservative Indian-Americans

I am not sure whether there has been any systematic polling done on the political leanings of Indian-Americans--the naturalized and the natural-born.  I would not be surprised if it shows a near even split.

For instance, the politics of Bobby Jindal in New Orleans and Nikki Hawley in South Carolina are not only Republican but with a good chunk of social and religious conservatism as well.  The conservative commentators Ramesh Ponnuru and Dinesh D'Souza also share that social/religious conservatism.

But, it appears that recently D'Souza has swung even further right with his weird psychoanalysis of Obama's politics; what happened to him?

Here is Shikha Dalmia--another Indian-American--writing about D'Souza's thesis (in, of all places, her regular column in Forbes, which had given D'Souza the cover-story privilege!):

What is even more unsettling than D’Souza’s unsubstantiated ideological accusations against Obama are his gratuitous digs at polygamy in Obama’s family. He plays this up repeatedly. What is the point of this except to remind Americans that Obama is a Muslim – the most dreaded of “others”? Ultimately, D’Souza’s rumination reveals less about how Obama thinks and more about how D’Souza thinks. It shows not that Obama is motivated by malice toward America, but D’Souza is motivated by malice toward Obama. How pathetic.

From an an essay that comes across as a little too calm for the usually volcanic Christopher Hitchens comes this note:

For Dinesh D'Souza to label Obama the equivalent of a Kenyan Mau Mau was one thing, but for former Speaker Newt Gingrich to endorse the analysis with such dispatch was quite another. What will they do for an encore?

 Salon has the best place for D'Souza's rant: This week in crazy

His newest, "The Roots of Obama's Rage," is the story of Dinesh D'Souza flailing to find a new and unique way of making a moderate pragmatic Democrat sound like a horrible monster bent on the destruction of America and enslavement of its people. He's recreating the nation in the image of his "philandering, inebriated African socialist" father. He is stealing America's wealth and redistributing it to third-world nations. Sources include, in addition to Obama's memoir about the absence of his father from his life, one obscure paper Obama Sr. wrote, and also something one of Obama's grandmothers said, once.

D'Souza's embarrassing history should've led this book straight to the remainder bin. Instead it made the cover of Forbes. Then Newt Gingrich endorsed it. Then Glenn Beck endorsed it. The book immediately climbed up the Amazon bestseller list.

Now the White House is involved, with Robert Gibbs asking Forbes to retract the numerous factual inaccuracies. All Forbes will say is that facts don't apply in opinion pieces.

D'Souza is enjoying all the attention, of course.

Ahem, time for me to admit that there are some crazy Indian-Americans, too :)

Speaking of crazy Indian-Americans, nobody better than Peter Sellers' Hrundi V. Bakshi in The Party:)