VDH's Blade of Perseus

Obama: Tougher on Congress than on Khamenei

August 11, 2015August 16, 2015 victorhanson

Obama’s Unpresidential Iran Speech: The speech was mean-spirited and dishonest ─ and may have been counterproductive.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

President Obama’s speech last week advocating congressional approval of the Iran deal was mostly made-up history mixed with invective. Indeed, he talked far more roughly about his congressional partners than he did about our Iranian enemies, who have worked so hard to kill Americans over the last 35 years.

Continue reading “Obama: Tougher on Congress than on Khamenei” →

History’s Complexity Should Discourage Liberals’ Cheap Retroactive Morality

August 10, 2015August 16, 2015 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

Some Democratic-party groups are renouncing their once-egalitarian idols, the renaissance genius Thomas Jefferson and the populist Andrew Jackson. Both presidents, some two centuries ago, owned slaves. Consequently, the two men have been suddenly deemed unworthy of further liberal reverence.

Continue reading “History’s Complexity Should Discourage Liberals’ Cheap Retroactive Morality” →

Hillary Clinton, Reactionary

August 9, 2015August 16, 2015 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

Amid the Trump psychodramas, the public has forgotten not just Hillary Clinton’s latest contortions over her emails, but Mrs. Clinton herself. Hillary has assumed the position of a tired vice president in waiting, without any of the perks that might accrue from a lame-duck president to his dutiful VP.

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Israeli Preemptive Action, Western Reaction

August 4, 2015August 4, 2015 victorhanson

Israel Can’t Count on the West to Protect it. Will Israel do the unthinkable to stop the unimaginable?

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

Israeli Air Force F-16 fighter (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty)

The Obama administration seems peeved that almost everyone in Israel, left and right, has no use for the present Iranian–American deal to thwart Iran’s efforts to get the bomb.

Indeed, at times John Kerry has hinted darkly that Israel’s opposition to the pact might incur American wrath should the deal be tabled — even though Kerry knows that the polls show a clear majority of Americans being against the proposed agreement while remaining quite supportive of the Jewish state. President Obama, from time to time, suggests that his agreement is being sabotaged by nefarious lobbying groups, big-time check writers, and neoconservative supporters of the Iraq war — all shorthand, apparently, for pushy Jewish groups.

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Iran, the Munich Comparison, and the Abuse of History

August 3, 2015August 4, 2015 victorhanson

The Iran Deal is not Munich, but the same foolishness of Western leaders is close enough to warn us what happens next. And it will not be good.

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

obama_chamberlain_iran_8-2-15-1 The Iranian deal has called to mind the Munich Agreement of 1938. Then Britain and France signed away the sovereignty of Czechoslovakia, in hopes that Adolf Hitler would be content with absorbing the German-speaking Sudetenland borderlands and cease further territorial acquisitions. But that appeasement only accelerated Nazi atrocities, from Kristallnacht at home to the dismemberment of all Czechoslovakia and, the next year, the invasion of Poland.

Is the Munich disaster a sound analogy for the current proposed agreement with Iran?

Continue reading “Iran, the Munich Comparison, and the Abuse of History” →

Still Blind to the Costs of Illegal Immigration

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 victorhanson

What really explains Trump’s rapid climb to the top of the polls.

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine

Donald Trump’s blunt and clumsy comments about illegal immigration sparked the usual firestorm of criticism from the well heeled of both parties. Particularly vocal were those Republicans who think that an amorphous, make-believe category comprising “Hispanics” or “Latinos” will vote Republican if only Republican meanies like Trump would stop insulting them by complaining about illegal aliens. As usual, willful ignorance or blindness about the costs of illegal immigration underwrites these dubious ideas.

Continue reading “Still Blind to the Costs of Illegal Immigration” →

What True Immigration ‘Reform’ Would Look Like

July 30, 2015 victorhanson

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

Immigration reform rally in Washington, April 2013. (Alex Wong/Getty)

Can we be honest about illegal immigration?

It is a common challenge to almost every advanced Western country that is adjacent to poorer nations.

American employers and ethnic activists have long colluded to weaken border enforcement and render immigration law meaningless. The former wanted greater profits from cheaper labor, the latter wished more political clout for themselves.

Continue reading “What True Immigration ‘Reform’ Would Look Like” →

The Truth About Western “Colonialism”

July 29, 2015 victorhanson

How the misuse of a term legitimizes the jihadist myth of Western guilt.

by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas

Language is the first casualty of wars over foreign policy. To paraphrase Thucydides, during ideological conflict, words have to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which is now given them.

One word that has been central to our foreign policy for over a century is “colonialism.” Rather than describing a historical phenomenon––with all the complexity, mixture of good and evil, and conflicting motives found on every page of history––“colonialism” is now an ideological artifact that functions as a crude epithet. As a result, our foreign policy decisions are deformed by self-loathing and guilt eagerly exploited by our adversaries.

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The Obama Administration’s Chicago Politics

July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 victorhanson

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

President Obama delivers a statement on immigration reform, June 30, 2014 Photo by Mark Wilson via Getty Images — President Obama Photo by Mark Wilson via Getty Images

Barack Obama is the first American president from Chicago. That fact will be the trailblazing Obama’s most lasting legacy.

Chicago has long been stereotyped as a city where any-means-necessary politics have ruled, and where excess is preferable to moderation. Convicted felon Tony Rezko, leftist extremists Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger, radical Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky’s take-no-prisoners Rules for Radicals, felon and former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich — all these were part of Barack Obama’s Chicago tutelage. Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel’s infamous adage — “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before” — was the unofficial motto of the Obama administration’s efforts to grow government, up-regulate, and borrow immense sums — measures impossible without a climate of induced panic and fear.

Continue reading “The Obama Administration’s Chicago Politics” →

Donald Trump and the Fed-Up Crowd

July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 victorhanson

Watching Trump’s rise, America’s middle class “fed-up crowd” is enjoying the comeuppance of an elite that never pays for the ramifications of its own ideology.

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

Yeah, I kind of love this guy —->@unsavoryagents [1] Ha ha #LosAngeles [2] violent crime up 26% wake up! #SanctuaryCity [3] pic.twitter.com/4TtvwVWY5C [4] — RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) July 10, 2015 [5] — Yeah, I kind of love this guy —->@unsavoryagents [1] Ha ha #LosAngeles [2] violent crime up 26% wake up! #SanctuaryCity [3] pic.twitter.com/4TtvwVWY5C [4]
— RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) July 10, 2015 [5]

Donald Trump — a former liberal and benefactor of Democrats — is still surging. But his loud New York lingo, popular put-downs of obnoxious reporters and trashing of the D.C. establishment are symptoms, not the catalyst, of the growing popular outrage of lots of angry Americans who are fed up.The fed-up crowd likes the payback of watching blood sport in an arena where niceties just don’t apply anymore. At least for a while longer, they enjoy the smug getting their comeuppance, as an uncouth, bullheaded Trump charges about, snorting and spearing liberal pieties and more sober and judicious Republicans at random.

Continue reading “Donald Trump and the Fed-Up Crowd” →

VDH's Blade of Perseus

Obama: Tougher on Congress than on Khamenei

Obama’s Unpresidential Iran Speech: The speech was mean-spirited and dishonest ─ and may have been counterproductive.

Like this:

History’s Complexity Should Discourage Liberals’ Cheap Retroactive Morality

Like this:

Hillary Clinton, Reactionary

Like this:

Israeli Preemptive Action, Western Reaction

Israel Can’t Count on the West to Protect it. Will Israel do the unthinkable to stop the unimaginable?

Like this:

Iran, the Munich Comparison, and the Abuse of History

The Iran Deal is not Munich, but the same foolishness of Western leaders is close enough to warn us what happens next. And it will not be good.

Like this:

Still Blind to the Costs of Illegal Immigration

What really explains Trump’s rapid climb to the top of the polls.

Like this:

What True Immigration ‘Reform’ Would Look Like

Like this:

The Truth About Western “Colonialism”

How the misuse of a term legitimizes the jihadist myth of Western guilt.

Like this:

The Obama Administration’s Chicago Politics

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

Like this:

Donald Trump and the Fed-Up Crowd

Watching Trump’s rise, America’s middle class “fed-up crowd” is enjoying the comeuppance of an elite that never pays for the ramifications of its own ideology.

Like this:

Obama’s Unpresidential Iran Speech: The speech was mean-spirited and dishonest ─ and may have been counterproductive.

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Israel Can’t Count on the West to Protect it. Will Israel do the unthinkable to stop the unimaginable?

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Like this:

The Iran Deal is not Munich, but the same foolishness of Western leaders is close enough to warn us what happens next. And it will not be good.

Share this:

Like this:

What really explains Trump’s rapid climb to the top of the polls.

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Like this:

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Like this:

How the misuse of a term legitimizes the jihadist myth of Western guilt.

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Like this:

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

Share this:

Like this:

Watching Trump’s rise, America’s middle class “fed-up crowd” is enjoying the comeuppance of an elite that never pays for the ramifications of its own ideology.

Share this:

Like this: