The Obama White House has finally weighed in on the controversial, and surprisingly successful, conservative documentary 2016: Obama’s America. The film, which features right wing author Dinesh D’Souza, attempts to link Barack Obama with his estranged late Kenyan father, and suggests that the two share a deep-seeded hatred for colonialism and capitalism. The White House has called the film, “insidious attempt to dishonestly smear the president.” Entertainment Weekly reports:
President Obama’s team updated their official website, in a post dated Sept. 5, with a response to the film 2016: Obama’s America.
EW critic Owen Gleiberman said the documentary, by Dinesh D’Souza, “goes beyond making a hash of the facts — it’s an outrageously unsubstantiated act of character assassination.” The movie’s central thesis is that “Obama has spent his entire life trying to please his late Kenyan father and that he has done so by evolving into an anti-colonial socialist revolutionary.”
Naturally, the Obama team takes issue with the film. They released a long statement that said, in part:
“In place of an actual documentary, D’Souza employs “pseudo-scholarly leaps of logic” to invent an imaginary character who has inherited “anti-colonial,” “Third World” views from his father—whom he last saw when he was 10 years old. The first third of the movie is dedicated to D’Souza’s own life story, baselessly claiming his supposedly similar background gives him a special insight into the President’s thinking…. The facts show that “2016: Obama’s America” is nothing more than an insidious attempt to dishonestly smear the President by giving intellectual cover to the worst in subterranean conspiracy theories and false, partisan attacks.”
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