by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Think of the hope and change of just the last six months that have changed all our lives. It was, I remember, around the beginning of February when the understandable liberal angst about the Bush deficit simply disappeared. Gone. Vanished. No more haranguing about red ink and shorting our grandchildren.<\/p>\n For the last eight years, I had some admiration \u2014 albeit along with plenty of bewilderment \u2014 at the newly fiscally mature Congressional Democrats and their impassioned attacks on Bush\u2019s fiscal irresponsibility.<\/p>\n But then suddenly their principled opposition paid off. Deficits disappeared \u2014 at least the multibillion species. Yes, borrowing was replaced by kinder, gentler multi-trillion dollar \u201cstimuli.\u201d This was our moment, this was our time when a crushing debt of the last eight years was at last alleviated, and with the New Math we can be so stimulated as to grow our way out any shortfall the naysayers claim follows.<\/p>\n The other Bush nightmare immediately went as well \u2014 the primitive way of counting joblessness by the percentage of unemployed workers. Gone too was the Neanderthal idea that the silly Congressional Budget Office knows anything about the projected growth in GDP. And who can accurately project the likely size of deficits (and especially the arcane idea that you can\u2019t save money on health care by borrowing another $2 trillion first to get the needed economies in place)?<\/p>\n So who said the government couldn\u2019t run GM, or teach Chrysler a thing or two? All gone, those worries. Now I just read the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0columnists or listen to geniuses like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, and have discovered just how light, breezy, sunny things are becoming.<\/p>\n At about the same time we all awoke from our eight-year trance, the energy crisis ended. Flat out was gone. Solar, wind, geo, and bio swept the country. The old anxieties \u2014 nuclear this, coal that, \u2018drill, baby, drill\u2019, shale, tar sands, and that wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing, natural gas \u2014 all went back to Texas with Bush\u2019s oil cabal. Now in the age of alternative energy, I know you share my relief that we have both plentiful power and a green planet, once Cheney\u2019s old friends also slid back into the shadows and Palin \u201cgot over\u201d her fetishes about ANWR.<\/p>\n I once worried that a Civic was too small, and now see that it is far too big. I just drove over the passes of the California coastal range and for the first time realized that I once used to be bored silly with those bleak untouched \u201cnatural\u201d landscapes. Instead, in the \u2018age of wind\u2019 now I just absorb the manmade beauty of a far better horizon of hundreds of swishing windmills-2-, 3-, 4-propellered varieties, some white, others grey, with beautiful dirt roads carved out from the once ugly natural hillsides to each one \u2014 all unobtrusively churning, churning so that I can have air conditioning this summer without a carbon imprint.<\/p>\n I\u00a0think it was around early spring when we could relax that Bush\u2019s godawful \u201cwar on terror\u201d was won. Finally, the Bush\/Cheney hysteria ended, and we got instead the much preferable \u201coverseas contingency operations.\u201d These well-planned humanitarian efforts dispensed with any lingering \u201cman-made catastrophes.\u201d I used to shudder when I heard \u201cGuantanamo\u201d and braced for the \u201cStalag\u201d and \u201cGulag\u201d invective that followed. But then mysteriously that went away too in late winter. In place of those icky \u201cenemy unlawful combatants,\u201d there were suddenly misunderstood \u201cdetainees,\u201d replete with personal stories about like our own.<\/p>\n Better yet, Guantanamo was almost, nearly, about to be closed as well, at least we knew sometime it would be gone and that was just as good as if it already was. Who knows, I thought at the time, maybe the innocent once released may at last turn up on a beach on some Caribbean island, as we make long overdue amends to these framed \u201cterrorists\u201d?<\/p>\n As I said, this spring everything got even better, lighter \u2014 we no longer heard of IEDs and suicide bombers in Iraq. And the occasional Hellfire missile attack in Afghanistan, I think, must have ended as well. True, I was a bit taken back when the Somali pirates were killed. But I am sure that before their heads exploded someone at least text-messaged them their Miranda rights in a way never accorded the poor three who were waterboarded at Bush\u2019s Guantanamo concentration camp.<\/p>\n Well before summer, the Constitution was almost restored. I felt for the first time in eight years that we were a civil, legal society again. Why?<\/p>\n Well you see, suddenly Ivy-League brilliant legal scholars, \u201con our side\u201d for a change, discovered a sophisticated and humane way to rehabilitate military tribunals, renditions, wiretaps, intercepts, phone intercepts, predator assassinations, even Iraq itself. I know they did so, because I see no announcements of any more forthcoming cutting-edge Hollywood movies with hard-hitting titles like \u201cRendition\u201d, \u201cRedacted\u201d, \u201cStop-loss\u201d, and \u201cLambs for Lions,\u201d no more George Clooney Middle East films about oil intrigue and evil white guys cozying up to Gulf sheiks, no more empathetic, sensitive Robert Redfords as professors with glasses down over their noses, Charlie Gibson style, as they dissect Bush\u2019s war. Oh yes, we are a civil society again, both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n I remember sometime in April as well, corruption just ceased on its own as if by magic. As a conservative, I was bothered by a creepy Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, and Tom Delay, and what Ms. Pelosi swore was a \u201cculture of corruption.\u201d But then these miscreants long ago either all quit, or were indicted or just crawled away.<\/p>\n In their place far better men like Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, John Murtha, Tom Daschle, Timothy Geithner and others taught me that, unlike those right-wing crooks and deviants of the last Congress, a more noble caste can sometimes get tangled up in detail, caught amid the bureaucracy, bogged down in forms and paperwork. As a result, the better sorts forget to dot an \u2018i\u2019, or cross a \u2018t\u2019, turn in a 1040 or do the last page on a financial disclosure. And why not in their zeal to protect us, the little guy and ensure the big boys do not devour the noble lambs among us? So corruption and venality and perversion in Washington, they too have ceased as well. There are no lobbyists in government. Period. I can assure you of that.<\/p>\n With the April rain the planet stopped heating up and the oceans receded. Gone are the days when hot streaks in Phoenix were proof of Bush\u2019s global warming, or falling bridges in Minnesota or subway crashes in DC revealed rightwing neglect of the people\u2019s needs. Instead, the occasional train crash, plane implosion, or hot\/cold, dry\/wet, cloudy\/clear streak, well, told us nothing at all about anything. Once in a while stuff just happens even in the new America.<\/p>\n Was it in May \u2014 do you remember? \u2014 when suddenly the world loved us again, even those we used to defame as \u201cthugs.\u201d Think of it \u2014 Ahmadinejad, Assad, Castro, Chavez, Ortega, etc., all polarized the last eight years, were finally at least talking not so unfairly about America. All these, we discovered, had legitimate grievances against our America all along \u2014 some dating back to Hiroshima, others to 1953 in Iran, still more originating with the treatment of the Native Americans, colonialism, and the shameful harassment of Muslims after September 11. The reset button was pushed, and as the weather got warmer, so did our former enemies. They gave books to a literate President, and offered kindly advice about the pernicious America of his youth. No wonder an American President in shades can golf again and be \u2018cool\u2019 as he swings, rather than being wealthy and snooty prancing on the course while the innocent die in Iraq.<\/p>\n Now in near summer there are no tensions any more, at least those serious ones that Bush created out of thin air. It\u2019s good to know that we don\u2019t \u201cmeddle\u201d any more in Iran, that North Korea is just blustering when it claims (who can believe that?) it will shoot a missile Hawaii way. Who believes that Putin really wants to bully his neighbors or replace the dollar as the international currency?<\/p>\n There never really was an \u201caxis,\u201d much less the reductionist \u201cevil,\u201d still much less any notion that North Korea or Iran posed much of a threat to anyone. (As if Hawaii ever might have needed one of those Bush boondoggle missile-defense systems!). It\u2019s good to see the Queen, Sarkozy, and Merkel at last at ease with a competent, sensitive President. Unwatchable DVDs and inscribed i-Pods are a hell of a lot better than neck rubs for Angie and \u201cYo Blair!\u201d<\/p>\n By June it had been almost six months of joy in not having an historically-challenged President mangling the English language and \u201cmaking-up stuff\u201d as he went along. (And wasn\u2019t it nice to get rid of the hack Scott McClellan and finally get a true intellectual like Mr. Gibbs, as suave and cosmopolitan as his boss at those televised press briefings?).<\/p>\n Some of us, true, were a little confused about that bit about Muslims suddenly fueling the Renaissance and Enlightenment, or stopping those awful Christians in Cordoba from torturing, or Islam inventing printing and medicine and high math. But then for the first time I realized I went to school in the old days and was brainwashed by the \u2018narrative\u2019 that had privileged white male Christian heterosexuals. Brilliant speechwriters of a younger, better generation disabused me of all that. And if not, what\u2019s wrong with a few \u2018noble lies\u2019 anyway?<\/p>\n Here it is nearly the first of July and all racism has disappeared as well and there are no more red, no more blues states. I know that because Justice Sotomayor has assured me that I could never, with all the legal training in the world, be as good a justice as someone of her race and gender. Eric Holder, thank God, taught me, a mere typical white person who clings to my guns, that I was cowardly in keeping silent about race. Michelle reminded me that Princeton must have been something like Guantanamo for once tormented poor souls like herself and Justice Sotomayor stranded on an Ivy-League atoll \u2014 always forced to look over their shoulders as they endured all those nasal-voiced Buffys and Brents scurrying around in their V-neck sweaters and Gucci shoes on their Friday-night way to Nantucket or the Hamptons. I now know by this fall that Acorn, \u201ccomprehensive\u201d immigration reform, the \u201crace on the table\u201d discussions with Hugo Chavez in South America, the Senate apologies for slavery, and more to come have made us a more racially tolerant society in a way George Bush with his inauthentic Powell, Rice, Gonzales, etc. appointments could never imagine.<\/p>\n It is an incredible time. We all feel in our legs, in our souls this new lightness of being, in which the old burdens \u2014 that tired jobless recovery, those billion-dollar deficits, the hatred of the world, the old stegosauruses GM and AIG, those nasty energy shortages, the old unpatriotic, won\u2019t-pay-their-fair-share misers, that trumped up GWOT-have godlike, magically been ordered to go, and so they just vanished. We have become ever so happy, ever so light as never before.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Think of the hope and change of just the last six months that have changed all our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[715],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Gq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12757,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-brave-new-biden-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":2630,"position":0},"title":"Our Brave New Biden World","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review America\u00a0traditionally has not reinvented reality after an election, although prior presidential winners have often tried, as in the fashion of our politics. But the new powers of social media, Silicon Valley, and a woke media have made reality-changing now a reality. Suddenly Antifa and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11303,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/07-30-18-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":2630,"position":1},"title":"07-30-18 Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Subject: NATO Maybe it\u2019s my old age but you seem to be contradicting yourself. You explain quite correctly how useless it is and then suggest that you think strengthen it is a good idea??? Looks like trump wants to dump it knowing Germany will never pony\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11590,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/an-epidemic-of-erasures-redactions-omissions-and-perjuries\/","url_meta":{"origin":2630,"position":2},"title":"An Epidemic of Erasures, Redactions, Omissions, and Perjuries","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 7, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Imagine the following: The IRS sends you, John Q. Citizen, a letter alleging you have not complied with U.S. tax law. In the next paragraph, the tax agency then informs you that it needs a series of personal and business documents. Indeed, it will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "IRS"","block_context":{"text":"IRS","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/irs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12381,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-arts-of-government-criminality\/","url_meta":{"origin":2630,"position":3},"title":"The Arts of Government Criminality","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In\u00a0the entire 2016\u201319 efforts to derail the Trump campaign, transition, and presidency, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Steele, and the FBI, Department of Justice, CIA, and other government bureaus have consistently sought to distort reality. Some of our best and brightest have destroyed evidence, altered documents,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6531,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-9-a-facebook-comment\/","url_meta":{"origin":2630,"position":4},"title":"Angry Reader #9 — A Facebook Comment","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I will concede that you are almost always right (no joke). However, I don't agree that a year from now the \"American public will have a vague idea that about a year earlier something happened sometime to someone in Syria, but what and when and where and why they are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7498,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/russia-weaker-than-what\/","url_meta":{"origin":2630,"position":5},"title":"Russia: Weaker than What?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"VDH commentary on the 'CAN OR SHOULD THE WEST TRY TO STOP VLADIMIR PUTIN'S ATTEMPTS TO REABSORB PORTIONS OF THE OLD SOVIET UNION?' issue 13 of Strategika by\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ Strategika Our elites often diagnose Vladimir Putin as acting from \u201cweakness\u201d in his many aggressions. 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