The Game Changes

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Usually after a presidential debate, both sides spin the results. But after the first face-off between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Obama’s exasperated handlers made no such effort. How could they when most opinion polls revealed that two-thirds of viewers thought Obama lost? Continue reading “The Game Changes”

A Presidency Squandered

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

The Obama narrative is that he inherited the worst mess in memory and has been stymied ever since by a partisan Congress — while everything from new ATM technology to the Japanese tsunami conspired against him. But how true are those claims? Continue reading “A Presidency Squandered”

The Obama Breaking Point

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Was it the blame-gaming — “Bush did it!,” ATMs are at fault, tsunamis are the culprit, no other administration has had such challenges, the euro meltdown is to blame, earthquakes shook our confidence — that finally turned the country off of Obama? Continue reading “The Obama Breaking Point”

Silenced Partner: Two Books on Alfred Wallace

by Terry Scambray

Touchstone

A review of:

Alfred Russel Wallace’s Theory of Intelligent Evolution: How Wallace’s Theory of Life Challenged Darwinism by Michael A. Flannery (Erasmus Press, 2008.  216 pp.) Includes an abridged version of Wallace’s The World of Life, with an Introduction by Flannery and a Forward by William A. Dembski. Continue reading “Silenced Partner: Two Books on Alfred Wallace”

One Nation, Under God?

by Bruce Thornton

Defining Ideas

The role of religion in American social and political life is an ever-present element in our civic conversation. The recent controversy over the contraception mandate ignited a smoldering conflict over just this issue. Continue reading “One Nation, Under God?”

Bankrupt California

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

I thought of my fellow Californian Energy Secretary Steven Chu last week, when I paid $4.89 a gallon in Gilroy for regular gas — and had to wait in line to get it. The customers were in near revolt, but I wondered against what and whom. I mentioned to one exasperated motorist that there are estimated to be over 20 billion barrels of oil a few miles away, in newly found reserves off the California coast. He thought I was from Mars. Continue reading “Bankrupt California”

The Ever-Stranger Case of a Murdered US Ambassador

by Victor Davis Hanson

NRO’s The Corner

In the past — in Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. — the murder of an American ambassador sparked immediate debates over security lapses, but in the Libyan case the media seems to be doing its best not to investigate the circumstances around the murders. Continue reading “The Ever-Stranger Case of a Murdered US Ambassador”

The First Amendment vs. Multiculturalism

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

The American Left used to champion free expression. We were lectured — correctly — that the price of being repulsed by occasional crude talk and art was worth paying. Only that way could Americans ensure our daily right to criticize those with greater power and influence whom we found wrong and objectionable. Continue reading “The First Amendment vs. Multiculturalism”

Anatomy of a Disastrous Debate Performance

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

The Romney-Obama debate was bizarre for so many reasons. Usually spin masters needle the media immediately to “prove” that their so-so candidate won. But after this debate, almost no one made the argument that Obama was close to winning — so great was the risk for even a toadying media to look ridiculous and so clear-cut the ineptness of the president. Continue reading “Anatomy of a Disastrous Debate Performance”

The Clear Alternatives in the Presidential Debate

by Bruce Thornton

FrontPage Magazine

Forget all the pre-debate handicapping and advice about what Mitt Romney needed to do or what Barack Obama had to avoid. Last night’s debate clarified the stark choice facing American voters on November 6. On the one hand, we heard a candidate who endorses limited government, individual rights and freedom, free market economic policies, and personal self-reliance and autonomy that the Constitution was created to protect. Continue reading “The Clear Alternatives in the Presidential Debate”