Second Term Reckonings
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media A rule of the modern age: all confident, reelected presidents trip up in the second term. LBJ was sunk by Vietnam. Reagan faced Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton had his comeuppance with Monica. George W. Bush was overwhelmed with the Iraqi insurgency and Katrina. And Obama will have his as well, obsequious […]
Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama on the Debt Ceiling
by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s The Corner Barack Obama once had a lot of insightful things to say about the debt ceiling that transcended the usual political game of voting for debt-ceiling increases when your guy was president and against when he was not — and even some things that were quite blunt if not harsh […]
The Powell Tragedy
by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s The Corner Like many, I was confused not by General Colin Powell’s endorsements of Barack Obama, but rather his recent remarks alleging Republican extremism and racism. His barrage was internally inconsistent and ultimately made little sense at all. Such unfounded charges are out of character with his distinguished record and career.
When Big Deficits Became Good
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama said that he detested budget deficits. In 2006, when the aggregate national debt was almost $8 trillion less than today, he blasted George W. Bush’s chronic borrowing and refused to vote for upping the debt ceiling: “Increasing America’s debt weakens […]
Hagel, Brennan, and the Obama View of the Middle East
by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s The Corner The Meaning of Hagel and Brennan Chuck Hagel and John Brennan, given their long public service, will probably be confirmed. Their appointments will have a force-multiplying effect on our new foreign policy as it pertains to the Middle East. If one were to collate their speeches and more unfortunate […]
The Hipster Façade
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media What Is Hip? America has always been a country of self-invention. Yet there used to be some correlation between the life that one lived and the life that one professed. It was hard to be a phony in the grimy reality of the coal mine, the steel mill, the […]
2013: Welcome to Very, Very Scary Times
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media On the One Hand… These should not be foreboding years. The US is in the midst of a veritable energy revolution. There is a godsend of new gas and oil discoveries that will help to curtail our fiscal and foreign policy vulnerabilities — an energy bonanza despite, not because of[1], […]
A New Year in America: Will We Continue Down the Road to Decline?
by Bruce Thronton Frontpage Magazine Looking back over 2012, one could be forgiven for thinking that if America goes on at this rate, the nation must be ruined. But as Adam Smith replied to a young man who said those same words about British losses during the American Revolution, “there is a great deal […]
The Great New Year Stampede
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services There is a new-year stampede developing that we have not seen for a long time. Gun stores are swamped with panicking customers. They are looking for handguns, semi-automatic rifles and as much ammunition as they can afford.
Bush Reconsidered
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online George W. Bush left office in January 2009 with one of the lowest job-approval ratings for a president (34 percent) since Gallup started compiling them — as compared to Harry Truman’s low of 32 percent, Richard Nixon’s of 24 percent, and Jimmy Carter’s of 34 percent — and […]
VDH UltraAngry Reader #6 Responds to “Bush Reconsidered”
Angry Reader #6 wrote: “VDH Trash” VDH do you actually believe this? I have to doubt your sanity. So many examples but I think the breezy dismissal of Iraq, not mentioning torture, the health of the economy circa 2009 and the Bush tax cuts relationship to the deficits are the real doozey’s.
2012: When Dreams Died
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The year 2012 saw the triumph of cold reality over pie-in-the-sky dreams. Barack Obama in 2008 won an election on an upbeat message of change in the hope that the first black president would mark a redemptive moment in American history.
The Orientalism of Barack Obama
by Terry Scambray New Oxford Review Of course the documentary movie, 2016: Obama’s America, was timed by the conservative, Dinesh D’Souza, to discredit the president. Nonetheless, there can’t be much doubt that the president’s vision of America is driven by his attitude toward the perceived sins of European colonialism and his fear that America has now […]
An Anatomy of a Most Peculiar Institution
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media A Campus Full of Contradictions Almost everything about the modern university is a paradox. It has become a sort of industry gone rogue that embraces practices that a Wal-Mart or Halliburton would never get away with. It is exempt from scrutiny in the fashion that the Left ceased talking […]
Ripples from the Election
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Now that the election is over, we are starting to see the contours of what lies ahead for the next four years. Here are some likely consequences from the Obama victory.
The New Racial Derangement Syndrome
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services There is a different sort of racialist derangement spreading in the country — and it is getting ugly.
A Short History of Amorous Generals
by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas Many were as pursuant of women as they were of the enemy — and the former rarely impaired the latter. “You’re a very bad man.” So yelled Dorothy at the Wizard of Oz, once the imposing, larger-than-life face on the screen was revealed to be a mere projection of […]
Conservative Populism
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The conservative failure in 2012 was not an inability to appeal to hyphenated groups on the basis of ethnic, gender, and age identification. Instead, there was a general cluelessness about how to reach the middle and working classes of all races and ethnicities by explaining how conservative principles […]
Modern Wisdom from Ancient Minds
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The Tragic View Of course we can acquire a sense of man’s predictable fragilities from religion, the Judeo-Christian view in particular, or from the school of hard knocks. Losing a grape crop to rain a day before harvest, or seeing a warehouse full of goods go up in smoke […]
Let the Real Fat Cats Pay Their Fair Share
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Who exactly were the rich who, as the president said, were not “paying their fair share”? The rapper Jay-Z (net worth: nearly $500 million)? The actor Johnny Depp (2011 income: $50 million)? Neither seems to have heard the president’s earlier warning that, “at a certain point you’ve made […]