{"id":6904,"date":"2014-01-13T10:38:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T18:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6904"},"modified":"2014-01-13T10:38:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T18:38:54","slug":"what-is-it-about-hubris-politicians-dont-get","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-is-it-about-hubris-politicians-dont-get\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is It about Hubris Politicians Don’t Get?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Gage
Gage Skidmore via Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Have any of them taken two hours to read one Sophoclean play?<\/p>\n

A reelected and proudly iconoclastic Christie in recent months relished in his swagger, braggadocio, media celebrity, and often picked fights, apparently assuming that his first-persona laced speeches and gestures were immune from the sort of nemesis that now has finally caught up with Barack Obama. His only out is the \u201cObama defense,\u201d which so far has been used so successfully with the IRS and AP scandals: Outrage is voiced; promises to get to the bottom of the mess are made; aides are sent before congressional committees and occasionally sacrificed; shock is expressed at any who would dare to suggest a culture and example were set by the man at the top. And the supposedly clueless chief executive rides out the storm \u2014 until, if he continues down the path of hubris, the next attack of the goddess Nemesis strikes him. The only difference from the Obama know-nothing methodology is that the latter had access to far more government power to exempt him from scrutiny, and a far more toadish media that were invested in his mea culpas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner\u00a0 Have any of them taken two hours to read one Sophoclean play? A reelected and proudly iconoclastic Christie in recent months relished in his swagger, braggadocio, media celebrity, and often picked fights, apparently assuming that his first-persona laced speeches and gestures were immune from the sort of nemesis […]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[146],"tags":[917,918,901],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Nm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11237,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/scandals-sanitized-with-linguistic-trickery\/","url_meta":{"origin":6904,"position":0},"title":"Scandals Sanitized with Linguistic Trickery","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Obama becomes an unnamed \u2018government official,\u2019 \u2018investigation\u2019 becomes a \u2018matter,\u2019 and \u2018illegal\u2019 becomes \u2018improper.\u2019 There are lots of strange things throughout Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz\u2019s massive report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 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Then suddenly scandals erupted on nearly every conceivable front: the crony-capitalist half-billion-dollar loan guarantee to a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Left"","block_context":{"text":"The Left","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/liberalism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6311,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-watergates\/","url_meta":{"origin":6904,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s Watergates","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Denial, evasion, \"Let me be perfectly clear\"--is this 2013 or 1973? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online The truth about Benghazi, the Associated Press\/James Rosen monitoring, the\u00a0IRS\u00a0corruption, the NSA octopus, and Fast and Furious is still not exactly known. Almost a year after the attacks on our Benghazi facilities,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/79713948_47244e8c2a.jpg?fit=400%2C273&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5944,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-tainted-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":6904,"position":3},"title":"A Tainted Campaign?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner If it is proven that the IRS\u00a0thwarted some groups from obtaining tax-exempt status in fear that their traditional or\u00a0conservative messages might hurt the 2012 Obama campaign (especially if it did so under pressure from White House-affiliated operatives),\u00a0and if it is\u00a0proven that the Obama administration\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6766,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-tenth-life-of-and-obamacat\/","url_meta":{"origin":6904,"position":4},"title":"The Tenth Life of an Obamacat","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 An Obamcat administration is given nine, but not ten, lives: 1) The dismal economy 2) Guantanamo, renditions, and tribunals that were to be relegated to the Bush-Cheney ash heap 3) Fast and\u00a0Furious 4) The \u201clead from behind\u201d fiasco in Libya 5) Benghazi 6)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11226,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-silencing-of-the-inspectors-general\/","url_meta":{"origin":6904,"position":5},"title":"The Silencing of the Inspectors General","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Impartial watchdogs are useless if the government stonewalls them and ignores their findings of wrongdoing.Department of Justice inspector general Michael Horowitz, an Obama administration appointee, is scheduled to deliver a report this week on DOJ and FBI abuses during the 2016 campaign cycle. 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