by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Barack Obama has a habit of identifying a supposed crisis in collective morality, damning straw men “them” who engage in such ethical lapses, soaring with rhetorical bromides — and then, to national quiet, doing more or less the exact things he once swore were ruining the country. Continue reading “Obama’s Hypocritic Oath”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJMedia
The World We Don’t Question
I’ve witnessed two of the most radical developments in my lifetime the last four years — changes far greater than those brought on by the massive new increases in the national debt, the soaring gas costs, the radical decrease in average family income, the insolvent Medicare and Social Security trajectories, or the flat housing market. Continue reading “The Terrifying New Normal”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Starting in the 1930s and continuing after the war, the Democrats offered a liberal critique of, or perhaps enhancement to, the Republican vision of rugged individualism. A modern American state now had the capital and the moral ambition to smooth the rougher edges of capitalism by insisting on unemployment and disability insurance, a 40-hour week, overtime pay, and what we now associate with the social safety net. Such entitlements, along with a rapidly growing economy, redefined poverty — so much so that whereas in 1930 malnourishment was endemic among the poor, by 2000 obesity was far more injurious to the nation’s collective health. Continue reading “The New Reactionaries”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
It could not last — the attendee of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church sermonizing on tolerance; the practitioner of Chicago politics lecturing on civility; the most partisan voting record in the Senate as proof of a new promised bipartisanship; earlier books and speeches calling for hard-core progressivism as evidence of a no-more-red-state-blue-state conciliation. And in fact the disconnect did not last, and Barack Obama finds himself dealing with assorted chickens coming home to roost. Continue reading “Liberal Chickens”
by Bruce S. Thornton
FrontPage Magazine
Obama’s presidency has failed miserably, but it has accomplished one thing: it has revealed for all to see the lethal pathologies of progressive ideology. This doesn’t mean progressivism will go away. Continue reading “Obama’s Presidency and the Pathologies of Progressivism”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
As the campaign heats up, one problem is that we continue to meet lots of different Barack Obamas — to such a degree that we don’t know which, if any, is really president. Continue reading “Two, Three, Many Obamas”
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
Recently, I was driving down pot-holed, two-lane, non-freeway 101 near Monterey (unchanged since the 1960s) when the radio blared that on a recent science test administered to public schools, California scored 47th in the nation. Continue reading “Can California Be Fixed?”
by Bruce S. Thronton
FrontPage Magazine
The presidency of Barack Obama has established once and for all that modern liberalism is now the stupid party. Very little of liberal thought these days represents anything fresh or new, but rather comprises what Lionel Trilling once reduced conservatism to: “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” Continue reading “The Stupid Party”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
We’ve had some unusual Cabinet secretaries in past administrations — Earl Butz, John Mitchell and James Watt come to mind — but never anything quite like the present bunch. Continue reading “Cabinets Gone Wild”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
In 2008, a mostly unknown Barack Obama ran for president on an inclusive agenda of “hope and change.” That upbeat message was supposed to translate into millions of green jobs, fiscal sobriety, universal healthcare, a resetting of Bush foreign policy, and racial unity. Continue reading “Campaigning on Grievances”