"Anti-colonial" Obama not plausible

WASHINGTON (AP) - "2016: Obama's America," a new conservative film exploring the roots of President Barack Obama's political views, took in $6.2 million to make it one of the highest-grossing movies of last weekend. The film, written and narrated by conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza, argues that Obama was heavily influenced by what D'Souza calls the "anti-colonial" beliefs of his father, Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan academic who was largely absent from the president's life.

To document that claim, D'Souza travels to Kenya to interview members of Obama's extended family as well as to Hawaii and Indonesia, where Obama grew up. He also cites several actions and policy positions Obama has taken to support the thesis that Obama is ideologically rooted in the Third World and harbors contempt for the country that elected him its first black president.

The assertion that Obama's presidency is an expression of his father's political beliefs, which D'Souza first made in 2010 in his book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," is almost entirely subjective and a logical stretch at best....