The Value of Putin
Putin ends up existing to warn us in the West of what we are not. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Vladimir Putin has the world’s attention this week. The circumstances will remind everyone that reset with Russia is dead. Its working hypothesis — that it was the George W. Bush administration, not the […]
Republicans Go On an Immigration Reform Bender
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Rather than twisting the political knife in the gaping wound that is Obamacare, House Republicans are off on a “comprehensive immigration reform” toot. The latest news has the Speaker putting off any action for now, and waiting until after the midterm elections in order not to anger the anti-amnesty […]
An Immigration Morality Tale
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media If there are executive orders overriding federal immigration law to extend amnesty to foreign nationals, without legal residence, and to continue their educations, there are also de facto all sorts of un-Dream Acts that simply allow anyone wishing to enter the United States without much audit. In other words, […]
A Tale Of Two Droughts
by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Content Agency Despite recent sporadic rain, California is still in the worst extended drought in its brief recorded history. If more storms do not arrive, the old canard that California could withstand two droughts — but never three — will be tested for the first time in memory. There is little snow in […]
Al Qaeda: The Defender of Christians?
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com Muslim persecution of Christians is the “Achilles Heel” of the global Islamic movement’s image—the surest way of exposing its supremacist and intolerant elements and one of the main reasons the major media and establishment rarely report or address it. The logic (fully explained here) can be summarized as follows: Islamic and […]
Our Icarus-in-Chief
Obama’s global fantasies are falling to earth along with him. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In the last two weeks, we learned that Bashar Assad has dismantled only 5 percent of his WMD arsenal, despite President Obama’s soaring rhetoric to the contrary. Russia violated a long-observed agreement with the U.S. about testing missiles. Iran’s take on the […]
Executive Tyranny: The Problem’s Bigger Than Obama
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Barack Obama is threatening to bypass Congress and use executive orders to achieve the policy changes he can’t get through legislation. “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need,” he said […]
A Beat-up, Exhausted, and Terrified Republican Establishment
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media On almost every contemporary issue there is a populist, middle-class argument to be made against elite liberalism. Yet the Republican class in charge seems ossified in its inability to make a counter-argument for the middle class. Never has the liberal agenda been so vulnerable, a logical development when bad […]
Hope and Change: Take VI
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner The anemic retread speech was mostly another yearly pep-talk version of the original “summer of recovery”/“millions of new green jobs” boilerplate, “big bank accounts” bad -ich-guy stuff, and “we’re out of Iraq”/close Guantanamo again.” Been there, done that.
The Poison of Postmodern Lying
by Victor David Hanson // Tribune Content Agency All presidents at one time have fudged on the truth. Most politicians pad their resumes and airbrush away their sins. But what is new about political lying is the present notion that lies are not necessarily lies anymore — a reflection of the relativism that infects our entire […]
The Death of the Humanities
A liberal arts education was once a gateway to wisdom; now it can breed ignorance and arrogance. by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas The humanities are in their latest periodic crisis. Though the causes of the ongoing decline may be debated, everyone accepts the dismal news about eroding university enrollments, ever fewer new faculty positions, […]
Kerry Boasts of ‘Pluralistic’ Syria Once Assad Gone
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, was recently interviewed about Syria. While many of his assertions can be debated, one especially requires a response. Throughout the interview, he repeatedly insisted that, if Bashar Assad would only leave power, everything would go well — especially for all of Syria’s minorities. In his words: “I […]
Fight the Next War, Not the Last One
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Tuesday night President Obama will deliver another campaign speech, this one marketed as the State of the Union address. As such, we can expect to hear, through the usual white noise of “I,” “me,” and “my,” vacuous bromides like “moving America forward,” and empty promises “to grow the economy, strengthen the middle class, and empower all who […]
Governing by Pen and Phone
Obama used to sigh that he was not a dictator who could act unilaterally. No more. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Lately a weakened President Obama has fashioned a new attitude about consensual government: “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the […]
Eating Our Young
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media It is popular now to talk of race, class, and gender oppression. But left out of this focus on supposed victim groups is the one truly targeted cohort — the young. Despite the Obama-era hype, we are not suffering new outbreaks of racism. Wendy Davis is not the poster […]
‘Duty,’ and the Taint of the Tell-All
Robert Gates’s insider memoir is the latest in a dishonorable genre. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online For all the hysteria over former defense secretary Robert Gates’s new insider memoir of his tenure during the Bush and Obama administrations, the disclosures are more breaches of trust than earth-shattering revelations. Much of Duty: Memoirs of a […]