Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor for The Washington Post, defended the paper's publication today of an Op-Ed by Dinesh D'Souza, the author whose recent Forbes piece describing President Obama as an “anti-colonial,” and subsequently released book about the same topic, have both been criticized as inaccurate and far-reaching.

In an e-mail to Media Matters, Hiatt claimed that since the paper had published several pieces criticizing D'Souza, the Op-Ed was appropriate:

I approved publication of this Op-Eed. D'Souza's theory has sparked a great deal of commentary, from potential presidential candidates as well as from commentators on our own pages.

Autumn Brewington, the Post's Op-Ed editor, was unavailable for comment because she is off today.

Hiatt's e-mail linked to Post pieces related to D'Souza from Eugene Robinson, Richard Cohen, and Jonathan Capehart that have recently run.

He said that made it proper to run D'Souza's piece:

Under those circumstances, I thought Post readers, many of whom may not read Forbes magazine, might welcome a chance to read and evaluate for themselves what D'Souza is saying.

Hiatt did not address the question of whether D'Souza's Op-Ed and its controversial claims about Obama should have been allowed given that many have been debunked and found to be inaccurate.