The Best Victor Davis Hanson Quotes Of 2004

Rightwingnews ^ | John Hawkins

[Marguerite]

"For all the European hysteria over the reelection of George Bush, I would wager that privately, leaders there are sighing with relief that a resolute U.S. is fighting the Islamists, taking the heat, and supplying them with both emotional and material cover at no cost. How can you buy off the Iranians to drop their bomb plans without fear by the mullahs that a cowboy George Bush is the dreaded alternative?"

[Finger Monkey]

Wow. Excuse my ignorance, but who is this guy?

[baseball_fan]

Thank goodness for Dr. Hanson's clarity and backbone.

[ChadGore]

Wow . . this guy is good. Thanks for the post.

[Marguerite]

David Hanson is one of the best political analysts ever.
He writes in the National Review.

You can find his latest column at:

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200503110746.asp

[Marguerite]

"Wow . . this guy is good"

I wouldn't post his texts otherwise ;-))

[self_evident]

VDH is the rarest of rare species -- an academic conservative. Mainly, he is military historian. Here is his web site.

I saw him on C-SPAN one night and became an instant fan. I need my Steyn and Coulter, but a dose of Buckley and VDH compliment them well.

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

Excuse my ignorance, but who is this guy?

www.victorhanson.com.

[Miss Marple]

Victor Davis Hanson is a very interesting writer. He is also a fifth-generation Californian raisin farmer and a classical Greek historian, as well as an expert in military history. He was an adjunct professor at the Naval War College (don't know if he is still there).

I have seen him interviewed on Brit Hume's show. Both Bush and Cheney are fans of his writing. He has had several books published in the last few years.

[Marguerite]

He's one of my favorites too.

[John Lenin]

I don't know how this one was left out, it is classic VDH.

FP: Fair enough. But Mr. Hanson, I disagree with you when you say that the Left does not prefer monsters. Chomsky and Moore are not dying to move to Haiti or Syria. . .well yes, the Left has always been hypocritical on this level. But this is not just about silliness or some kind of dishonesty on their part. Throughout the 20th century leftist Western intellectuals worshipped Stalin, Mao and other mass killers. They went in droves to visit the communist concentration camps and they praised these societies while the killing fields were in their highest gear.

It is not just a coincidence that leftists venerate every despot that opposes the United States. The Left’s embrace of militant Islam today is just a logical continuation of Western intellectuals who travelled to Soviet Russia in the 1930s and worshipped Stalin -- and of Jane Fonda praising the North Vietnamese despots.

What I am getting at here is that there is a malicious and sinister objective within the heart of the Left. It craves totalitarianism, because totalitarianism will suffocate freedom and, ultimately, human life itself – which the Left hates the most. That every communist revolution ate its own children reveals a pernicious death wish in the heart of the Left, and I think it is very much in prominence once again in the War on Terror, in which the left is now in love with those despots who, once again, offer them the dream of extinguishing their own civil society and the freedom within it.

You find this interpretation too extreme?

[John Lenin]

Ooops, that is Jamie Glasov talking to Hanson.

[Marguerite]

Hanson by Hanson:

"Every time the United States the last quarter century had acted boldly — its removal of Noriega and aid for the Contras, instantaneous support for a reunified Germany, extension of NATO, preference for Yeltsin instead of Gorbachev, Gulf War I, bombing of Milosevic, support for Sharon's fence, withdrawal from Gaza and decapitation of the Hamas killer elite, taking out the Taliban and Saddam-good things have ensued. In contrast, on every occasion that we have temporized — abject withdrawal from Lebanon, appeasement of Arafat at Oslo, a decade of inaction in the Balkans, paralysis in Rwanda, sloth in the face of terrorist attacks, not going to Baghdad in 1991 — corpses pile up and the United States became either less secure or less respected or both.

So it is also in this present war, in which our unheralded successes far outweigh our notorious mistakes. A number of books right now in galleys are going to look very, very silly, as they forecast American defeat, a failed Middle East, and the wages of not listening to their far smarter recommendations of using the U.N. more, listening to Europe, or bringing back the Clinton A-Team.

America's daring, not its support for the familiar — but ultimately unstable and corrupt — status quo, explains why less than three years after September 11, the Middle East is a world away from where it was on the first day of the war. And that is a very good thing indeed."

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200503110746.asp

[jocon307]

"You find this interpretation too extreme?"

No, in fact it is a model of precision.

[hershey]

Wow is right. Worrying over the "...parlor disdain..." of old Europe, et. al. John Kerry to a T. Thank you for these wonderful quotes. Everything is so obvious, it makes you angry that the left and the likes of Michael Moore get away with outright and stupid lies.

[John Lenin]

If the article wasn't written before Churchill got famous I would swear Jamie was talking about him.

[YepYep]

WOW, thanks for posting these fabulous quotations.

I, too, am a Victor Davis Hanson fan.

[John Lenin]

It's like Chris Rock says. If you make $14 million a year and your wife wants half, it's no problem because you still have $7 million left, but if you make $30 thousand a year and your wife wants half it's time to kill the witch.

[MEG33]

Victor Davis Hanson is an American treasure!