The Imaginarium of Barack Obama [Victor Davis Hanson]

PJMedia ^ | November, 16, 2011 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Strategerist]

The presidency of Barack Obama is full of funny things that need not follow any sort of logic. Images and ideas just pop in and out, without worry of inconsistency, contradiction, or hypocrisy. It’s a fascinating mish-mash of strange heroes and bogeymen, this imaginarium of our president.

In the imaginarium there are no revolving doors, earmarks, or lobbyists. So Peter Orszag did not go from being OMB director to a Citigroup fat-cat. Once chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel did not make $16 million for his well-known banking expertise. The more you damn the pernicious role of lobbyists and the polluting role of big money, the more you must hire and seek out both. Public financing of campaigns is wonderful for everyone else who lacks the integrity of Barack Obama who understandably must renounce such unfair impositions.

Those who now vote against raising the large Obama debt ceiling are political hucksters and opportunists; those who not long ago voted against raising the smaller Bush debt ceiling were principled statesmen. “Unpatriotic” presidents borrow $4 trillion in eight years; patriotic ones we’ve been waiting for can trump that in three.

Catching known terrorists and putting them in Guantanamo is very bad; killing suspected ones by drone assassinations — and anyone unlucky enough to be in their general vicinity — is exceptionally good. Tribunals, renditions, preventative detention, and all that were bad ideas under Bush-Cheney, but could become good ideas under Barack Obama, the law professor who often sees no need to follow the law when an immigration or marriage statute is deemed regressive.

[Strategerist]

Long, but probably the best anti-Obama article I've ever seen.

[doc11355]

The writings of Victor Davis Hanson should be classified as a national treasure.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Brilliant piece by VDH. Some of his best writing and logic on display here.

We’ve all known about these contradictions in the man, but nobody can lay it out like VDH can.

Thanks for posting.

[neverdem]

Long, but probably the best anti-Obama article I've ever seen.

Unless there was massive editing, I counted only 7 paragraphs.

[livius]

You see in the imaginarium of Barack Obama you can be whatever you wish to be. Just wishing and saying something can wonderfully make it so.

Brilliant article! Thanks for posting!

[reasonisfaith]

The fruit of relativism—accepting an idea as true today is as permissible as rejecting the same idea and calling it false tomorrow.

It’s anti-reason, and it defines leftist ideology.

[lentulusgracchus]

It’s anti-reason, and it defines leftist ideology.

More like, Leftists' tactical flexibility and mental flexuousness (doublethink).

[stayathomemom]

The writings of Victor Davis Hanson should be classified as a national treasure.

One of the reasons I cringed when, a couple of weeks ago, Rush criticized the wisdom of a degree in Classical Studies without really knowing what it was.

[Sans-Culotte]

VDH bump for later. I’m reading two of VDH’s books now.

[loveliberty2]

This "imaginarium" should have been apparent to all thinking Americans when, in July 2008, on a stage at the foot of Berlin's Victory Column, he chose to stand and deliver these remarks:

"“I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before.” -- “Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.”
And,

“I know my country has not perfected itself. . . . At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people.”

[loveliberty2]

"Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." -- See "Letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785," in Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), pp. 814-815.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I have not yet read any of VDH’s books. Which ones are you reading? What is your opinion so far?

[Sans-Culotte]

I have not yet read any of VDH’s books. Which ones are you reading? What is your opinion so far?

I have already read the depressing Mexifornia: A State of Becoming. Currently reading Carnage and Culture:Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power. This one explains why, in several key battles, the West was triumphant over its non-Western opponents. I am currently reading about the battle of Lepanto in that book.

Concurrently, I started A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. This one draws parallels between the second Peloponnesian War and our own time.

Waiting in the wings, I have The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny . VDH is quite unapologetic in his admiration for Western culture.

[GlaucusRising]

Ripples of Battle wasn't bad, either. It focused on the battles of Okinawa, Shiloh, and Delium, as well as their aftereffects--your typical, compelling Hanson read.

[Sans-Culotte]

I finished the ones I referenced above. After I finished The Soul of Battle, I decided to read more on George S. Patton, and read Patton: A Genius for War by Carlo D'Este. Can't remember what else I've read since, aside from New Deal or Raw Deal? by Burton Folsom, which explained what an unconstitutional nightmare the New Deal really was.

I am currently (finally) reading Atlas Shrugged. I'm not quite halfway through. After that long slog, I'll definitely go for Ripples of Battle. VDH is unique among historians in that he actually sees the lessons to be learned from the past.