What Defines ‘Hispanic’?
In a racially diverse America, we have no discernible rules for what determines one’s race. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Once upon a time, the liberal position was to reject the old discriminatory branding of people by the color of their skins rather than by the content of their characters. Not now. […]
Still Getting Jihadism Wrong
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine President Obama’s recent claim that Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam was nothing new. Since 9/11, we have heard from both ends of the political spectrum that jihadist terror has material causes and psychological conditions created by social, political, or economic dysfunctions. This argument is an […]
Ruins of the Middle East
Obama shuns our friends and courts our enemies. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Obama’s unfortunate Middle East legacy was predicated on six flawed assumptions: (1) a special relationship with Turkey; (2) distancing the U.S. from Israel; (3) empathy for Islamist governments as exemplified by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; (4) a sort […]
‘Small and Petty’ from Small and Petty
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO- The Corner Deconstruct former Obama flack Bill Burton’s hit on Leon Panetta: On Secretary Panetta, he is a guy who has had a long and storied career in Washington and has really served his country well. And it is kind of sad that in its twilight he’s done such […]
From Comedy to Farce
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia It was tragically comical that the commander in chief in just a few weeks could go from referring to ISIS as “jayvee” and a manageable problem to declaring it an existential threat, in the same manner he upgraded the Free Syrian Army from amateurs and a fantasy to our […]
Obama’s Ideal Revolution
America’s current revolutionary inspiration seems to derive more from Robespierre than Madison. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online At the end of the 18th century, there were two great Western revolutions — the American and the French. Americans opted for the freedom of the individual, and divinely endowed absolute rights and values. A […]
Making Harding Look Good
The Obama administration has tarnished nearly every major federal agency. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Many have described the Obama departure from the 70-year-old bipartisan postwar foreign policy of the United States as reminiscent of Jimmy Carter’s failed 1977–81 tenure. There is certainly the same messianic sense of self, the same naïveté, […]
Welcome to Fantasy Island
Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Listen to the president and one would think that he was in office during the financial crisis that began on September 15, 2008. For the nth time, Obama reminded the nation on 60 Minutes of the financial meltdown he inherited. That is his usual way of suggesting to the […]
Reasons for Political Hope
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Many Republicans are excited about the midterm elections. They see a good chance of taking over the Senate, which means they can neutralize Obama’s last few years in office. Many also are hopeful about the presidential election in 2016, though Hillary Clinton will enter that race with decided […]
Bomb, Occupy, or Neither?
Blowing apart a problem for a while is different from ending it for good. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Wars usually end only when the defeated aggressor believes it would be futile to resume the conflict. Lasting peace follows if the loser is then forced to change its political system into something […]
Iraq Was Then, Syria Is Now
Obama hasn’t a clue what he’s doing, but at least he isn’t George W. Bush. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The Iraq War lies now mostly in the realm of myth. We have forgotten exactly how we got both into and out of the war. The October 2002 joint congressional authorization to […]
The Moral Failures of Eric Holder
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Eric Holder’s left many baleful legacies: being censured by the House of Representatives; withholding subpoenaed documents, proving untruthful about a failed gun-walking caper in Mexico; failing to enforce laws on the books, from immigration to the elements of the Affordable Care Act; illegally billing the government for his […]
The Incredible Lightness of Being Barack Obama
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Barack Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly was so insubstantial, so full of airy platitudes, and so adulterated with the gaseous clichés of bankrupt internationalism and progressive bromides that I thought at any minute he might just float away. First was the obligatory call “to renew the […]
Should We Hope to Die at 75?
Contra Ezekiel Emanuel, age is no absolute barometer for human vitality and dignity. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Normally, no one would care that in a recent Atlantic essay — “Why I Hope to Die at 75” — 57-year-old Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel argued that living to be 75 years old was long […]
Confederacy of Dunces?
From the president on down, they are in resolute denial about radical Islam. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The military effort against the Islamic State hinges on a successful threefold approach involving intelligence, homeland security, and diplomacy. Unfortunately, the Obama administration does not have much past history in these areas to warrant […]
Versailles in California
Versailles or San Francisco, it’s good to be the king. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media California is run from a sort of Pacific Versailles [1], an isolated coastal compound of elite rulers physically cut off from its interior peasantry. To understand how California works — or rather does not work — drive over […]
Where Is Obama’s ‘Broad Coalition’?
Potential allies against ISIS doubt America’s commitment to being engaged abroad. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The so-called Islamic State has left destruction everywhere that it has gained ground. But as in the case of the tribal Scythians, Vandals, Huns, or Mongols of the past, sowing chaos in its wake does not […]
REAL REASON JAPANESE ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR
by Victor Davis Hanson // WND The Japanese did not see their attack on Pearl Harbor as foolish at all. What in retrospect seems suicidal did not necessarily seem so at the time. In hindsight, the wiser Japanese course would have been to absorb the orphaned colonial Far Eastern possessions of France, the Netherlands and […]
The Buckley Program Stands Up for Free Speech
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The William F. Buckley Program at Yale University lately showed bravery unusual for an academic institution. It has refused to be bullied by the Muslim Students Association and its demand that the Buckley Program rescind an invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak on campus September 15. Hirsi Ali […]
When Activism Kills
by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas For four decades genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been vilified and caricatured as “Frankenfoods,” the abominations of mad scientists meddling with nature and putting the human race at risk. Currently, over sixty bills have been introduced in over twenty states […]