Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
FYI
bump...
Boy do I like this guy! Such dedication!
bump
VICTOR!!!!!!...Man I love this guy...Thanks for the post
VDH describes these two conflicting views as "Gloomy, frustrated utopians and oddly upbeat optimistic pragmatists . . ." Liberals are the former, conservatives the latter.
I agree with him that these two views cannot be reconciled easily. We're just going to have to duke it out between now and November.
However, being the oddly upbeat optimistic pragmatists that we are, I think the majority of voters will want to be on our side. Clearly, it's the best choice.
When some of us see suicide bombers we do not surmise that we are up against a new unstoppable phenomenon arising out of poverty, oppression, and American exploitation, but think back to what Kitchener did with the Mahdists and our own grandfathers with the Kamikazes. When we conjure up Afghanistan and Iraq, we factor in thousands of miles in distance, 30 years of mass murder, the nature of the Middle East, and thus can easily imagine much worse might have occurred than what has transpired. We don’t conclude that 9-11 was an accident or something caused by an overweening US, but inevitable given our appeasement of a past quarter century.
Which view do most Americans embrace—the tragic or therapeutic vision? Probably neither. Instead the majority just wishes things to go well and usually sides with those who can offer them the most reassurance in the present danger. Still, this should be an interesting election, the most ideologically clear-cut choice of candidates that we have seen since 1932 or 1968. Gloomy, frustrated utopians and oddly upbeat optimistic pragmatists will each offer the American public widely different views of Iraq—and therein of ourselves as well.
There's big difference between utopian thought and optimism. It's odd and fun to see the big hearted role served by Bush and the Republicans.
see #12 and #16
"It doesn’t feel good to have so much money, education, and sophistication and still "......not have any power.
why excerpt?