Conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza took time out from dealing with his legal wranglings centered on alleged campaign law violations to debate former domestic terrorist and current Obama supporter Bill Ayers.

The event was at Dartmouth Colege, and student Sandor Farkas has this report:

The debate, titled “America: Good or Bad?” started right away with a few good japes, as D’Souza told the audience: “We decided not to have metal detectors for the audience, but we did have metal detectors for the speakers.”

The highly anticipated debate, hosted by the Dartmouth Review campus newspaper – of which D’Souza is a former editor-in-chief – was D’Souza’s first public appearance after his federal indictment for campaign finance fraud, though he was neither asked for nor gave any comments on the subject.

Instead, the parlays focused around the fundamental differences between the speakers’ views on America.

While Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois, launched his remarks by citing America’s “spirit of democracy,” and how change comes from mass resistance to oppression, D’Souza instead compared the United States not to some generic utopia, but to the world as a whole.

…As the debate digressed, it began to rest on foreign policy, which D’Souza summed up with the words: “Trade with us, don’t bomb us.”

He took the view that despite the horrible effects of colonialism and slavery, they nevertheless precipitated the modernization of destitute nations and groups of people.

This drew the ire of Ayers, who retorted that this implies that the existence of a Jewish state must justify the Holocaust using D’Souza’s logic. Just as Ayers’ later demonization of Israel fell on deaf ears, this comment provoked more audible horror in the audience than respect.

The remainder of the questions shifted between the role of the United States as an international defender of freedom and civil rights.

Throughout Ayers’ remarks on the discriminatory nature of everything under the sun, D’Souza maintained that the founders provided for equal rights for all, and that contrary to Ayers’ assertion that “minorities” are being oppressed, it is religious people that suffer real discrimination.

Returning to the theme of America’s greatness, D’Souza summed up both his problem with Ayers’ views and his pride in the foundation of our country.

“(Americans can take) a certain justifiable pride, not just in the agitation, but in the principles the founders got right from the start,” he said.

The conference was co-hosted by Young America’s Foundation, and campus Republican and libertarian groups.

CLICK HERE to watch a video of the debate.