Commentator of Note: Victor Davis Hanson

Authors & Editors

Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.

Commentaries
Commentaries

He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 and the Bradley Prize in 2008.

To read his full biography, click on on the photo.

We draw from him very selectively, but often enough to merit his own explicatory page here.

Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up

04 Education, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Analysis, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Military

Major Hasan Analysis by Webster Tarpley (16 Pages)
Major Hasan Analysis by Webster Tarpley (16 Pages)

NIDAL MALIK HASAN OF VIRGINIA TECH, BETHESDA, AND FORT HOOD: A MAJOR PATSY IN A DRILL GONE LIVE? By Webster G. Tarpley 14 November 2009

What Hollywood Can Teach Us About the Fort Hood Massacre Christina News Service, Friday, November 13, 2009 By Chuck Muth

Most Americans have this whole Fort Hood massacre all wrong. Maj. Nidal M. Hassan was not a terrorist.  And he wasn’t a mass murderer.  And he may not even have been a coward.  Maj. Hassan was an enemy combatant.

A Man in a Hundred By ALEXANDER COCKBURN CounterPunch Weekend Edition November 13-15, 2009

The general obviously doesn’t have Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on his bedside table. Gibbon wrote flatly that the introduction of foreigners “into Roman armies became every day more universal, more necessary and more fatal.”

Is Fort Hood Really a “Tragedy?” Pajamas Media by Victor Davis Hanson November 14, 2009

Something has gone terribly wrong in the entire reaction to the Ft. Hood massacres, as evidenced by the media, the administration, the military authorities, and perhaps the public at large.

Continue reading “Journal: Fort Hood Cognitive Dissonance Round-Up”

Journal: State of the Administration

Government

Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Some Signs of the Times

by Victor Davis Hanson

Pajamas Media,October 1, 2009

How to distill the news? After watching it far too much the past nine months, I offer five random conclusions from what I think is going on in the age of Obama.

1. Disconnect
2. Abroad
3. Top and bottom
4. Getting Along
5. The Mother Polis

This is a “must read” that also includes an “Ironies Corner” worthy of reflection.

Journal: American Awakening

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Reform
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama

The backlash is sharp as voters learn that Obama is not the man they thought he was.

By Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online, September 18, 2009

No one imagined that Barack Obama, during his first nine months in office, would be falling in the polls even faster than George W. Bush did prior to 9/11. We all knew what Obama’s weaknesses were as he came into office — a lack of experience in foreign affairs, little knowledge of how private business works, and poor judgment concerning the extremist company he had kept in the past.

Instead, the real anger from independents arises over disappointment, false merchandising, and hypocrisy. It is real and deep — as is true of any animosity that arises from a sense of betrayal of former trust.

Continue reading “Journal: American Awakening”

Journal: Chuck Spinney Flags 8-14 the “foreclosure wave” – now, a tsunami of sorts

03 Economy, Commerce, Government
Full Story Online
Full Story Online

The Foreclosure Wave” — Now a Tsunami of Sorts

Over the past two days, the popular foreclosure reporting firms released their monthly numbers and the takeaway was that the foreclosure crisis is getting worse. Indeed, the foreclosure crisis is worsening, but July’s actual foreclosure numbers do not pose much additional risk to the housing market because most of the worsening was seen in the pre-foreclosure pipeline (notice-of-default & notice-of-trustee sale). Based upon July’s results, the players that will feel most of the additional reported foreclosure pressure are the banks, mbs holders, insurers, and servicers.
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It is important to always remember that when one person gets a ‘good deal’ on a house, orders of magnitude more are thrown into a negative-equity (or deeper negative equity) position exponentially increasing their likelihood of loan default. Loan default leads to foreclosure and another ‘good deal’ on a house and so on and so on.

Journal: Our Road to Oceania By Victor Davis Hanson

Civil Society, Ethics, Government
Real Clear Politics
Original Source Online

In George Orwell's allegorical novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the picture of “Big Brother” appears constantly in the adoring media.

Perceived enemies are everywhere – supposedly plotting to undo the benevolent egalitarianism of Big Brother. Citizens assemble each morning to scream hatred for two minutes at pictures of the supposed public traitor Emmanuel Goldstein. The “Ministry of Truth” swears that the former official Goldstein is responsible for everything that goes wrong in Oceania.

Author's Archive
Author's Archive

In Orwell's Oceania, there is a compliant media that offers “Newspeak” – recycled government bulletins from the Ministry of Truth. “Doublethink”means you can believe at the same time in two opposite beliefs.

America is not Oceania, but some of this is beginning to sound a little too familiar.

Continue reading “Journal: Our Road to Oceania By Victor Davis Hanson”