by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Barack Obama has a habit of trying to energize his legislative agenda by stoking the fires of emotionally charged current events — and in ways usually illogical and incoherent. Continue reading “Obama’s Psychodramas”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
The second-term curse goes like this: A president (e.g., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, etc.) wins re-election, but then his presidency implodes over the next four years — mired in scandals or disasters such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky, the Iraqi insurgency and Hurricane Katrina. Continue reading “Oh, We Forgot to Tell You . . .”
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
David Petraeus’s resignation marks the end of one of the great postwar military and government careers — his successful surge in Iraq being analogous to and as impressive as Matthew Ridgway’s salvation of Korea or Sherman’s sudden taking of Atlanta that saved Lincoln’s and the Union cause before the 1864 elections. In a book due out in late spring, The Savior Generals, I argue that his achievements were comparable to those of the best of history’s maverick commanders who were asked to save wars deemed lost — and did. But for now, the explanation of Petraeus’s resignation unfortunately raises more questions than it answers, in a number of significant ways: Continue reading “Down from Olympus”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
“Gonna be some hard times coming down.”
—Kris Kristofferson, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
One way of making sense out of nonsense in this new age is simply to believe the opposite of what you read. I have been doing that and it often works. Continue reading “Anatomies of Electoral Madness”