by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Rasmussen reported last Friday that 52% of likely voters approve of Obama’s job performance. This number is both astonishing and depressing. The avalanche of Obama’s failures both domestic and foreign should have buried this presidency months ago. Yet despite the slow-motion implosion of Obamacare now catching the attention of […]
For Obama, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure Read More »
Obama’s foreign policy of appeasement has created a dangerous void in the international order. by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas The standard critique of President Obama’s foreign policy is now generally well-known—mercurial, paradoxical, and passive. “Leading from behind” seems at odds with the traditional American commitment to ensure—preferably with allies or, if need be, alone—the
The Failure of American Leadership Read More »
History teaches us that nations must always respond vigorously to an enemy’s challenge, a lesson the U.S. should remember in Syria. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas President Obama, responding to widespread criticisms that his handling of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis was clumsy and ad hoc, said, “I’m less concerned about style points, I’m
Prestige and Power in Statecraft Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services When — not if — is the only mystery about an Iranian nuclear bomb. All the warning signs are there. ‘Game changers’ In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama on two occasions went out of his way to warn the Iranians that the development of a nuclear weapon “would be a
From energy to foreign policy to the presidency itself, Obama’s agenda rolls along. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” — Barack Obama, October 30, 2008 “We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our
Obama: Transforming America Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Myth I. Conservatives opposed to bombing Syria are isolationists. Hardly. It would be better to call conservative skepticism a new Jacksonianism that is not wedded to any Pavlovian support for intervention or particular political party. Share This
Syria in the Age of Myth Read More »
Only when we recognize the fundamental role Islam plays in the region can we begin to craft sensible policies that put U.S. interests first. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas The revolutions against dictators in the Middle East dubbed the Arab Spring have degenerated into a complex, bloody mélange of coups and counter-coups, as have
Watching the Middle East Implode Read More »
He sold his plan for bombing Syria on flawed political assumptions. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online To support the president’s enforcement of his red line in Syria requires suspensions of disbelief. Here are several. I wish it were not true, but there is scant evidence that the world, led by the U.S.,
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine President Obama Saturday laid out the case for a military strike on Syria. He evoked the same rationales Secretary of State Kerry and others, including some conservatives, have been articulating for the last week. We’ve heard of “international norms,” “common understandings of decency,” the “international community” that codified a “normal prohibition against chemical
Bad Reasons for Bombing Syria Read More »
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Remember the “contrary” Sioux warrior from Little Big Man? He did everything backwards––said “hello” for “goodbye,” washed in sand instead of water. Our president is the foreign policy contrary. He has gotten backwards every maxim of proven wisdom for dealing with the rest of the world. Teddy Roosevelt counseled, “Speak
Our Contrary President Read More »