Roasting D'Souza

George Packer has an amusing piece in The Nation skewering Dinesh D'Souza for his intellectual complacency. "Rather like certain graybeards who never got over Berkeley or Columbia," Packer writes, "D'Souza's mental world has been stunted by early glory at Dartmouth, and by having spent most of his subsequent career as a heavily subsidized, traveling provocateur who specializes in baiting college audiences and watching them react."

Packer's critique is mostly successful, though some of his arguments would be more credible coming from a conservative than from a liberal. When he suggests a left-wing resurgence could be in the offing, for example, it comes off less as a genuine threat to the likes of D'Souza and more as a little wishful thinking of his own. Yes, conservatives have gotten complacent; and yes, under certain circumstances that could mean an opening for the left. Trouble is, the left is pretty complacent, too.