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Author and fearmongering filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza appeared on this Friday evening's Real Time with Bill Maher and had his latest film, 2016: Obama’s America, and the justifications for his depiction of President Obama taken apart one by one by Maher.

Whether it was D'Souza pretending that President Obama didn't reach out to Republicans on their health care bill, when as Maher rightfully pointed out, it was Bob Dole's plan from the '90's, trying to blame the President for the gridlock in Washington rather than Republican obstruction designed to make sure President Obama is not reelected, to pretending that President Obama did anything much differently than other presidents when it came to stimulus, regulating industry or that he's somehow anti-capitalist, D'Souza just was no match for Maher.

We've been down this road before here at C&L with a critique of D'Souza's work, so anyone not already familiar with him might want to go back and read this post -- Doing the Right Wing Limbo – How Low Can They Go?.

Maher did a pretty good job with D'Souza if he's going to allow someone like him who traffics in lies on his show in the first place. I still think the most brutal interview I've seen with him was Cenk Uygur from earlier this month which you can watch here -- Cenk Uygur Destroys Anti-Obama Author Dinesh D’Souza.

Thom Hartmann debates Dinesh D'Souza about whether we had followed Jimmy Carter's proposed energy policy to get us off of foreign oil in 1977 we'd be in the mess we're in now almost 33 years later. He does actually get D'Souza to admit that we would not be in the Middle East were it not for our dependence on that oil

Thom wrote about this back in 2005. Carter Tried To Stop Bush's Energy Disasters - 28 Years Ago:

In his recent news conference, George Bush Jr. suggested that our nation's "problem" with high gasoline prices was caused by the lack of a national energy policy, and tried to blame it all on Bill Clinton. First, Junior said, "This is a problem that's been a long time in coming. We haven't had an energy policy in this country."

This was followed by, "That's exactly what I've been saying to the American people -- 10 years ago if we'd had an energy strategy, we would be able to diversify away from foreign dependence. And -- but we haven't done that. And now we find ourselves in the fix we're in." As is so often the case, Bush was lying.

Consider President Jimmy Carter's April 18, 1977 speech. Since it was given nearly three decades ago, when many of the reporters in Bush's White House were children, it's understandable that they don't remember it. But it's inexcusable that Bush and the mainstream media (which, after all, has the ability to do research) would completely ignore it. It was the speech that established the strategic petroleum reserve, birthed the modern solar power industry, led to the insulation of millions of American homes, and established America's first national energy policy. "With the exception of preventing war," said Jimmy Carter, a man of peace, "this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes."

He added: "It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. "We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.

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I love that Hartmann makes these debates with conservatives a daily feature on his radio show. If they'd let Thom anywhere near our television screen and the cable news shows, they would have their collective IQ raised quite a few points immediately, but that's not going to happen any time soon.

Here's a tidbit on Dinesh D'Souza I'd never read before if his Wiki page is accurate:

Prior to his marriage in 1992, D'Souza had relationships with two well-known female conservatives, Laura Ingraham, a nationally syndicated radio commentator to whom he was engaged but never married, and best-selling conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter.