Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson

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The New Old Europe

By Victor Davis Hanson (Dec 29, 2011)

Nearly 10 years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld provoked outrage by referring to "Old Europe." How dare he, snapped the French and Germans, call us "old" when the... more

Two Bad September Days

By Victor Davis Hanson (Dec 22, 2011)

Two terrible September days sum up the first decade of the new American millennium. The first, of course, was Sept. 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden's suicide terrorists that... more

The Hundred Years' German War

By Victor Davis Hanson (Dec 15, 2011)

The rise of a German Europe began in 1914, failed twice, and has now ended in the victory of German power almost a century later. The Europe that Kaiser Wilhelm lost in 1918,... more

Oil-Rich America?

By Victor Davis Hanson (Dec 08, 2011)

There is a revolution going on America. But it is not part of the Tea Party or the loud Occupy Wall Street protests. Instead, massive new reserves of gas, oil and coal... more

A Tale of Two Surges

By Victor Davis Hanson (Dec 01, 2011)

From 2007 to 2009, a surge of 20,000 troops under the generalship of David Petraeus saved a mostly lost war in Iraq. Petraeus' counterinsurgency doctrine helped win over the... more

The Castor-Oil Candidate

By Victor Davis Hanson (Nov 24, 2011)

Nominating Mitt Romney is sort of like taking grandma's castor oil. Republicans are dreading the thought of downing their unpleasant-tasting medicine but worry that sooner or... more

Why Does America Defend the Weak and Small

By Victor Davis Hanson (Nov 17, 2011)

Recently, an open mic caught French President Nicolas Sarkozy and American President Barack Obama jointly trashing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sarkozy scoffed,... more

Obama Unbound

By Victor Davis Hanson (Nov 10, 2011)

Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a commie appeaser. To this day, liberals cannot conceive... more

Who Are These Fat-Cat Few at the Top?

By Victor Davis Hanson (Nov 03, 2011)

First lady Michelle Obama the other day railed at "the few at the top," who do all sorts of bad things. A few months ago, we began hearing of the "1 percent" who are... more

Global Warming -- RIP

By Victor Davis Hanson (Oct 27, 2011)

Not long ago, candidate Obama promised to cool the planet and lower the rising seas. Indeed, he campaigned on passing "cap-and-trade" legislation, a radical, costly effort to... more

Railing Against Reality

By Victor Davis Hanson (Oct 20, 2011)

Last week, protests broke out again in Europe, from Rome to London. The monthlong Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York have spread. The current unrest follows this... more

Predator in Chief

By Victor Davis Hanson (Oct 13, 2011)

We are in a long war against radical Islamic terrorism. The struggle seems almost similar to the on-again/off-again ordeals of the past -- like the French-English Hundred... more

Democracy's New Discontents

By Victor Davis Hanson (Oct 06, 2011)

Once upon a time, loud dissent, filibustering in the Senate and gridlock in the House were as democratic as apple pie. A Senator Obama once defended his attempts to... more

Postmodern Class Warfare

By Victor Davis Hanson (Sep 29, 2011)

When President Obama's polls hit 40 percent approval, he fumed at "billionaires and millionaires," "fat cat bankers" and "corporate jet owners." In his sloppy targeting,... more

Can Israel Survive?

By Victor Davis Hanson (Sep 22, 2011)

Will Israel survive? That question hasn't really been asked since 1967. Then, a far weaker Israel was surrounded on all sides by Arab dictatorships that were equipped... more

Obama Becomes the Fall Guy

By Victor Davis Hanson (Sep 15, 2011)

Suddenly, liberal op-ed writers are trashing -- even lampooning -- Barack Obama as a one-term president ("one and done"). Centrist Democrats up for re-election in 2012 openly... more

Myth and Reality After 9/11

By Victor Davis Hanson (Sep 08, 2011)

Why did radical Islamic terrorists kill almost 3,000 Americans a decade ago? Few still believe the old myth that prior U.S. foreign policy or support for Israel... more

What's Off the Table in 2012?

By Victor Davis Hanson (Sep 01, 2011)

What should we not expect during next summer's presidential campaign, given what was put off-limits in 2008 and later? There is much talk about what some are perceiving as... more

The Old Not Enough Excuse

By Victor Davis Hanson (Aug 25, 2011)

To newly inaugurated Barack Obama and his prime-the-pump technocrats, the logic seemed so simple. America's problem was a struggling economy. The solution was to spread... more

Young Westerners -- Deprived or Decadent

By Victor Davis Hanson (Aug 18, 2011)

A once civil and orderly England was recently torn apart by rioting and looting -- at first by mostly minority youth, but eventually also by young Brits in general. This... more

What if the President Liked Businesspeople?

By Victor Davis Hanson (Aug 11, 2011)

The U.S. stock market has nose-dived. Congress just approved the highest debt ceiling in American history, allowing the government to carry over $16 trillion in national debt... more

Spare Us the Sermons, Mr. President

By Victor Davis Hanson (Aug 04, 2011)

During the recent debt crisis, President Obama talked about the need for bipartisan compromise and, as in the past, urged civility. Giving ground and engaging in polite... more

Is the President in Recovery

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jul 28, 2011)

President Obama does not care much about deficits -- other than worrying that big debt might matter in his re-election campaign. In his first three budgets, Obama borrowed... more

A Dumb and Dumber War in Libya

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jul 14, 2011)

Almost daily over the last four months we were told that Muammar Gadhafi was about ready to throw in the towel and give up. Libya, after all, is not a distant... more

Illiberal Immigration

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jul 07, 2011)

Recently, in symbolic fashion, spectators of Mexican ancestry in Pasadena's Rose Bowl did not merely cheer on the Mexican national soccer team in a game against the... more

An Exceptional Fourth of July

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jun 30, 2011)

For the last 235 years, on the Fourth of July, Americans have celebrated the birth of the United States, and the founding ideas that have made it the most powerful,... more

The Department of Food Subsidies

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jun 23, 2011)

The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead, it is a vast, self-perpetuating postmodern bureaucracy with... more

Our Reactionary President

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jun 16, 2011)

Barack Obama is the most reactionary president in the recent history of the United States. Obama seems intent on turning back the clock to the good old days of the 1960s... more

Europe Is Warning Us

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jun 08, 2011)

ROME -- If Americans think fuel and food prices are high, they should try Europe, where both can nearly double those in the United States -- while salaries here are often... more

The Factory of Selective Moral Outrage

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jun 02, 2011)

Democrats in Congress recently went all out to try to pass the Dream Act, an amnesty for illegal-alien students willing to enroll -- and stay -- in college. Most who opposed... more

Back to the Pre-American World

By Victor Davis Hanson (May 26, 2011)

Is America's preeminent world role over? That's what a recent New Yorker essay, based on interviews with presidential advisers, claimed. It characterized the new Obama... more

Alligators, Moats and Other Such Nonsense

By Victor Davis Hanson (May 19, 2011)

President Obama gave what was billed as an important speech on immigration last week near the border in El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately, it was one of the most demagogic... more

Tough Times for Radical Islam

By Victor Davis Hanson (May 12, 2011)

Osama bin Laden is dead. The Middle East is in chaos. And radical Islam is floundering. For a time after 9/11, bin Laden was riding high. Destroying 16 acres in... more

Rules for Killing Rogues

By Victor Davis Hanson (May 05, 2011)

The welcome end of Osama bin Laden at the hands of helicopter-borne American military commandos raises a number of issues. Americans rejoiced at news of the end of... more

Are Sky-High Gas Prices Good?

By Victor Davis Hanson (Apr 28, 2011)

Are high gas prices a good thing? That is not as dumb a question as it sounds. Examine a few revealing past remarks from President Obama and the Cabinet officials who... more

Make the Rich Pay!

By Victor Davis Hanson (Apr 21, 2011)

Last week, President Obama reversed course once again and now wants to raise taxes on the "rich" making above $250,000 per year. Obama is in dire need of additional revenue... more

Dreamland, USA

By Victor Davis Hanson (Apr 14, 2011)

Barack Obama just gave a belated but stern warning about escalating debt -- a few weeks after he presented a 2011 budget with a $1.6 trillion annual deficit, the largest... more

Did We Give Up on Libya?

By Victor Davis Hanson (Apr 07, 2011)

President Obama has announced that America would stop attacking Col. Muammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya. He instead hopes that others can force out Gadhafi -- or that... more

President Obama's Most Amazing Libyan Achievements

By Victor Davis Hanson (Mar 31, 2011)

By bombing Libya, President Obama accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America: a) War-mongering liberals. Liberals are now chest-thumping about... more

Energy Fantasyland

By Victor Davis Hanson (Mar 24, 2011)

Gas is well over $4 a gallon in most places in California -- and soaring elsewhere as well. But are such high energy prices good or bad? That should be a stupid question.... more

President Hamlet

By Victor Davis Hanson (Mar 17, 2011)

More than 400 years ago, William Shakespeare wrote a riveting tragedy about a young, charismatic Danish prince who vowed to do the right thing in avenging his murdered... more

The Put-Off, Postpone and Procrastinate Generation

By Victor Davis Hanson (Mar 10, 2011)

The Obama administration figures that it has read the national mood well. This therapeutic generation of Americans loves to talk and worry about problems and then assumes... more

Caught in the Middle East Minefield

By Victor Davis Hanson (Mar 03, 2011)

America seems trapped in an exploding Middle East minefield. Revolts are breaking out amid the choke points of world commerce. Shiite populations are now restive in the... more

After Obama, the Deluge

By Victor Davis Hanson (Feb 24, 2011)

President Obama established a bipartisan debt-reduction commission -- and then ignored its findings, which called for unpopular reductions in entitlements and... more

Pruning Farm Subsidies

By Victor Davis Hanson (Feb 17, 2011)

In times of massive deficits, why are we borrowing millions to subsidize profitable agribusiness? Lots of presidents have asked that question. George H.W. Bush tried to cut... more

Jerry Brown, a Modern Sisyphus

By Victor Davis Hanson (Feb 10, 2011)

California Gov. Jerry Brown must rapidly close a $25 billion budgetary shortfall. But right now it seems almost a hopeless task since the state's disastrous budget is a... more

The Loud Passing of the Old Order

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jan 27, 2011)

American reality has been turned upside down in just 20 years. Americans no longer count on their news to be filtered and shaped by the Associated Press or the New York... more

The Bloomberg Syndrome

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jan 20, 2011)

After the recent Tucson, Ariz., shootings, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, a Democrat, almost immediately and without evidence claimed that conservative... more

The Tab Comes Due in 2011

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jan 13, 2011)

Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and both the elder and younger George Bush all found the third and fourth years of their presidencies harder than the first and second. The nation... more

The New Sophists

By Victor Davis Hanson (Jan 06, 2011)

In classical Athens, public life became dominated by clever and smart-sounding sophists. These mellifluous "really wise guys" made money and gained influence by their... more