Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers

Victor Davis Hanson: Identity politics is going to be a quagmire for the new administration. Here are some thoughts on that, the economy and the press. "Upside Down World" 11/14/08

Politics

Victor Davis Hanson: The only "change" so far is the adulation of Obama and a blind eye to his faults. "Win One for the Messiah!" 11/12/08

The Election and Race

Mark Arvanigian: Why Obama is a phenomenon and a post-racial age is not at hand. "Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and the Obama Phenomenon" 11/11/08

Government

Victor Davis Hanson: Obama's new administration should proceed with care on energy, the economy and diplomacy. "Make Haste Slowly, President Obama?" 11/10/08

Week November 4-10, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson:"The Day After" 11/08/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Be Careful What You Wish For" 11/07/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Blank Slate" 11/04/08

Karen Lugo: "Obama Will Use the Courts to Spread the Wealth" 11/04/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "America Compared to What" 11/04/08

Week October 27-November 2, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "The End of Journalism" 11/01/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Al Qaeda and the Election" 10/31/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Campaign Takes a Very Strange Turn" 10/31/08

Linda Halderman: "Obamacare: A Case of Medical Misdiagnosis" 10/29/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Obama Enigma" 10/28/08

Week October 20-26, 2008

Raymond Ibrahim: "The Coptic Conundrum" 10/26/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "An Instructive Candidacy" 10/25/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama and Friends" 10/23/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "It's the Debt, Stupid" 10/20/08

Week October 13-19, 2008

Raymond Ibrahim: "Islam and Innocence" 10/19/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Jumping Ship" 10/17/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "The Hammer" 10/16/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Hope and Despair" 10/15/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Wall Street 101" 10/13/08

Week October 6-12, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Not Over Yet" 10/11/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "What Is Wisdom?" 10/10/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Osama bin Laden: Man of Love?" 10/08/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Iraq, Round Three" 10/07/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "America's Nervous Breakdown - and The World's" 10/06/08

Week September 29-October 5

Victor Davis Hanson: "Imagine That" 10/04/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Debate Impressions" 10/04/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Sarah Biden: A Parody" 10/02/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Time Is Running Out" 10/02/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Financial Crisis" 9/30/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Dr. Frankenstein's Wall Street" 9/29/08

Week September 22-28, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Elitism" 9/28/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Why We Fight" 9/27/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Limits of Obamamania in Europe" 9/26/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Fossilized Foreign Policy" 09/24/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "What Al Qaeda Wants" 9/22/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama Proves All Too Human" 9/22/08

Week September 15-21, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: What really counts for wisdom when we look for leadership? "Palin and Obama: What Really Is Wisdom" 9/19/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Campaign Obama Frayed" 9/18/08

Bruce S. Thornton: "No We Can't" 9/17/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "What Was Feminism?" 9/15/08

Week September 8-14, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obamania - As in Craziness, Not Craze" 9/14/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "More Journalistic Malpractice" 9/14/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Other 9/11 Story" 9/11/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Race Tightens Up" 9/10/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "What Real Change?" 9/08/08

Week September 1-7, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Sarah Palin and her Discontents" 9/6/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Target Palin" 9/05/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Railin' on Palin" 9/04/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Palin and the Great Liberal Crack-up" 9/03/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Farewell NATO" 9/01/08

Week: August 25-31, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Maverick Choice" 8/30/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Conventional Convention" 8/29/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Blame Everyone but Russia!" 8/25/08

Week: August 18-24, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Through the Looking-Glass" 8/24/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Angry Reader: Germany is better, VDH" 8/22/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Tragedy Continues" 8/21/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Today in History" 8/19/07

Victor Davis Hanson: "Brave Old World" 8/19/08

Week August 11-17, 2008

Joseph Tartakovsky: "Man of a Thousand Faces" 8/17/08

Sen. Sam Aanestad: "More Uninsured, Please" 8/17/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Human Nature Being What It Is" 8/15/08

Bruce Thornton: "Islam Without Apologetics" 8/14/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama the Racialist" 8/14/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Russia's Sinister Brilliance" 8/12/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Hillary's Long Shadow" 8/11/08

Week August 4-10, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Affirmative Action in the News" 8/10/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Summer of Reflection" 8/09/08

Bruce Thornton: "Obama's Race Card" 8/07/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Angry Reader" 8/06/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama's Ten Commandments" 8/05/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "What If Iraq Works?" 8/05/08

Week July 28-August 3, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Harvesting Money in a Hungry World" 8/01/08

Chapter 1: 'Chapter 1" 7/30/08

Chapter 2: "Chapter 2" 7/30/08

Chapter 3: "Chapter 3" 7/30/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Summer of War and Politics" 7/30/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Model-Oh-Ya" 7/29/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The '60s Won't Go Away" 7/28/08

Week July 21-27, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "'This Is the Moment'" 7/25/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "It's America, Obama" 7/25/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Our Many Messiahs" 7/24/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Model-O" 7/23/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Al-Jazeera and History" 7/22/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Speech Given to the Bradley Foundation" 7/22/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "America Is Not a Post-Anything" 7/21/08

Week July 14-20, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson:"More Iraqi Ironies" 7/19/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Summer Madness" 7/19/08

Honora Howell Chapman: "Sensible Solutions" 7/17/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "McCain, Where Art Thou?" 7/16/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Bitter Pills" 7/15/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Barack W. Bush" 7/15/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Excusing Taqiyya?" 7/14/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Tony Snow, R.I.P." 7/14/08

Week July 7-13, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Neocon Slur" 7/12/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "It Doesn't Always Compute" 7/11/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Model-Obama" (7/10/08)

Raymond Ibrahim: "Land Dispute or Jihad?" (7/10/08)

Honora Howell Chapman: "Who Killed Homer? Ten Years Later" (7/8/08)

Bruce S. Thornton: "Religion and the Age" (7/8/08)

June 24, 2008
The Politics of Predicting
The left has authored more atrocities than the right.
by Terry Scambray
Private Papers

A version of this essay was published in The Fresno Bee, May 31, 2008.

Phillip Jenkins, respected historian at Penn State University, writes in The Los Angeles Times that there “is a sound basis in American political history” for predicting that the election of a Democratic president will cause “assassinations and bombings” by right wingers.

More "The Politics of Predicting"

June 20, 2008
Would a Jihadi by Any Other Name Smell as Foul?
by Raymond Ibrahim
The American Thinker

The terminology we use to describe our enemy in the war on terror matters a lot. A spirited debate is underway among specialists and in the press.

An op-ed published in the New York Times entitled "What do you call a Terror(Jihad)ist?", by P.W. Singer and Elina Noor, attempts to defend the recent State Department memo advising government personnel to refrain from using theologically-laden terms — "jihadi," "mujahidin," "caliphate," "Islamo-fascism," "salafi," "wahhabi," "ummah" — when describing Islamic radicals and their motives. Instead, generics — "terrorists," "extremists" — should suffice.

More "Would a Jihadi by Any Other Name Smell as Foul?"

Books & Things

July 2, 2008
Gathering Storm
by Bruce S. Thornton
National Review Magazine

A review of Andrew C. McCarthy, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, Encounter Books, 2008.

Eight years before the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Islamic jihadists sent America a wake-up call that most of us slept through.

More "Gathering Storm"

June 26, 2008
Islam's History of Anti-Semitism
by Raymond Ibrahim
Washington Times

Is there such a thing as Islamic anti-Semitism? That is the implicit question that Andrew Bostom's new book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, tackles.

More "Islam's History of Antisemitism"

June 12, 2008
Clarity, Courage and Culture
Few defend the West like Somali-born Hirsi Ali.
by Bruce S. Thornton
The New Individualist

A review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (The Free Press, 2007, pp. 353).

Our most dangerous weakness in the war against Islamic terror is the failure of cultural nerve afflicting many Westerners.

More "Clarity, Courage and Culture"

June 3, 2008
Plan for a Century
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Magazine

Review of Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century, by Philip Bobbitt (Knopf, 2008, 688 pp.)

Anyone who finished Philip Bobbitt’s massive, 900-page-plus The Shield of Achilles (2002) might not be surprised about the size and organization of its sequel, Terror and Consent — a 600-page-plus volume replete with book parts, chapters within chapters, Roman-numeraled subsections, bullet-marked sub-subsections, a conclusion, and a coda, all fortified with lengthy indented quotations, footnotes, and italicized passages.

More "Plan for a Century"

May 3, 2008
Darwin & Co., Ltd.
Just how limited?
by Terry Scambray
Private Papers

A review of Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. (The Free Press, 2007) which appeared in the Fall 2007 edition of Faith & Reason.

“Buy low and sell high,” is the proverbial path to wealth. But have you ever thought of an opposite pathway? “Buy high; sell low — Make it up on volume!”

More "Darwin & Co., Ltd."

April 26, 2008
The Will to Reason
Can we expect rational man from tribal society?
by Bruce Thornton
The New Individualist

A review of Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason. Radical Islam’s Threat to the West (New York: Basic Books, 2007)

Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

More "The Will to Reason"

March 27, 2008
Radical Thoughts
Dr. Tawfik Hamid reveals life as an Islamicist.
by Raymond R. Ibrahim
Private Papers

This review of Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam by Dr. Tawfik Hamid (Top Executive Media, 2006) was originally published at ASMEA as “An Insider’s Thoughts on Radical Islam.”

Several singular reasons make Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam by Dr. Tawfik Hamid a welcome contribution to the otherwise growing lore on radical Islam.

More "Radical Thoughts"

February 21, 2008
The Alchemist
Brother Tariq can’t turn his Muslim to Western.
by Bruce S. Thornton
Private Papers

A review of Brother Tariq. The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, by Caroline Fourest, trans. by Joana Wieder and John Atherton (Encounter Books, 2008)

The moderate Muslim leader is the theologico-political philosopher’s stone that many in the West believe can reconcile Islam with modernity and thus transmute disaffected Muslims, ripe for jihadist recruitment, into tolerant liberal democrats.

More "The Alchemist"

January 29, 2008
Twilight of the Nation-State
European transnationalism is a utopian dream, Pierre Manent warns.
Bruce S. Thornton
City Journal

A review of Democracy Without Nations? The Fate of Self-Government in Europe by Pierre Manent, translated by Paul Seaton (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 130 pp.)

The European Union’s grand project rests on the belief that nationalism is passé, indeed pernicious.

More "Twilight of the Nation-State"