TODAY'S LETTER: A Michigan Reader Says Exposure Of Obama Subversives Answers Her Prayers

Steve Sailer's America's Half Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "Story of Race and Inheritance" now available in paperback - click here! Also as FREE pdf download. [Downloads since October 29 2008: 5976]

Free PDF download of Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster Now Available! [Downloads since June 1 2007: 5891]

Sign up for (austerely infrequent) email bulletins - [archived here]

VDARE.COM SHOP!

Special VDARE.COM anthology issue of The Social Contract Magazine!

01/05/09 - There's Something About Harry, by Patrick J. Buchanan

01/05/09 - Somber Thought For The New Year—Will There Be A Recovery? by Paul Craig Roberts

01/04/09 - The American Puppet State, by Paul Craig Roberts

01/03/09 - Saturday Forum: A Tennessee Lawyer Says Non-English Speaking Immigrants Get Special Treatment When Applying For Concealed Weapons Permits; etc.

01/02/09 - Happy New Year! Why There Will Be No 2009 Amnesty, by Joe Guzzardi

01/02/09 - View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: Bush Leaves San Joaquin Valley, And U.S., Devastated, by Joe Guzzardi

01/02/09 - The State of Our Borders 2008, by Michelle Malkin

Peter Brimelow at the Miller Center of Public Affairs in RealVideo: Is Immigration a Problem? Are the Minute Men the Answer? [Text version] [Text version of Q&A]

Support VDARE.com with a tax-deductible contribution.

accepted.

************

01/01/09 - Blago Raises the Stakes—Will The Senate Democrats Call Him by Patrick J. Buchanan

01/01/09 - What Became Of Western Morality? by Paul Craig Roberts

12/31/08 - The Fulford File: Happy New Year 2009!, by James Fulford

12/30/08 - Peter Brimelow Interview With Thom Hartmann, by Peter Brimelow

12/30/08 - The UAW's Money-Squandering Corruptocracy, by Michelle Malkin

12/29/08 - The Fulford File: Internet Filters—Private Sector First Amendment Workaround, or Gov't Censorship In Disguise?, by James Fulford

12/29/08 - Bush, Obama and the Gaza Blitz, by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/28/08 - Sailer’s Next Big Idea: Immigration Brings Diversity Deduction—Not A Diversity Dividend, by Steve Sailer

12/28/08 - May We No Longer Be Silent, by Paul Craig Roberts

12/27/08 - Saturday Forum: A New York Reader Says Empire State Building Is Major Foe In War Against Christmas; etc.

12/26/08 - Miriam Jordan Wins VDARE.COM 2008 Worst Immigration Reporter Award!, by Joe Guzzardi

12/26/08 - View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: The Lone Ranger’s Creed [With JoeNote for VDARE.COM Readers], by Joe Guzzardi

12/26/08 - Democrat Regretfully Predicts No Pardons for Ramos and Compean, by Donald A. Collins

12/26/08 - Tale of Two Presidential Workout Fanatics—A Study In Media Bias, by Michelle Malkin

VDARE is a coalition. Some of us have distinguished oeuvres; some have deviant views (categories not necessarily exclusive). The satellite pages (click on name) represent our individual archives.

************

12/25/08 - George Bush, Protectionist, by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/24/08 - No Matter How You Say It: Happy Holidays (Or Merry Christmas For Everyone But Americans)!, by Peter Brimelow

12/24/08 - The Birth Of Christ And The Birth Of America Are Linked, by Chuck Baldwin

12/23/08­ - War Against Christmas 2008: A Christmas Eve Report, by Patrick Cleburne

12/23/08 - The Greatest Gift For All, by Paul Craig Roberts

12/23/08 - God's Gifts, by Michelle Malkin

12/22/08 - War Against Christmas 2008: Christopher Hitchens’ War Against Christmas, by Tom Piatak

12/22/08 - On the Death of Deep Throat, by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/21/08 - Malcolm in a Muddle: Or, How Gladwell Gladhands The Cultural Establishment, by Steve Sailer

12/20/08 - As America Goes Into Depression, Hispanics Start To Leave—While A Visiting Sudanese Women Has Quintuplets!, by Donald A. Collins

12/19/08 - Joe To Caroline Kennedy: Stick To The Cocktail Circuit!, by Joe Guzzardi

12/19/08 - View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: Political Correctness Not Withstanding, It’s Still Titled “A Christmas Carol”! by Joe Guzzardi

12/18/08 - Obama's War, by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/17/08 - Immigration And The Pro-Life Movement, by Marcus Epstein

12/16/08 - Media Snoozes While Jihadi Terrorists Infest America, by Brenda Walker

12/16/08 - The Real Housewives of Obama’s Crook County, by Michelle Malkin

12/16/08 - Will Threat Of New Constitutional Convention Provoke New Thirteen Colonies To Declare Independence? by Chuck Baldwin

12/16/08 - The U.S. Criminal Justice System Is Collapsing, by Paul Craig Roberts

12/15/08 - Memo From Mexico: Back In The U.S.A!, by Allan Wall

12/15/08 - The Toyota Republicans, by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/14/08 - Blagojevich, Obama, And The Diversity–Fueled Chicago Way, by Steve Sailer

12/13/08 - Saturday Forum: ResistingDefamation.Org’s Bo Sears Insists VDARE.COM Stop Slurring White Americans; Peter Brimelow Wonders If He’s A Mole; etc.

12/12/08 - View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: To My Atheist, Agnostic, Jewish and Muslim Friends—Merry Christmas! by Joe Guzzardi

12/12/08 - Bush On The Bible: Where Are James Dobson And The Religious Right Now? by Chuck Baldwin

12/11/08 - War Against Christmas 2008: A Report, by Tom Piatak

12/11/08 - Help VDARE.COM Defend Christmas! Max Blumenthal Kicks Off Our 2008 War Against Christmas Competition!

12/11/08 - Wallowing Again In Illinois, by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/11/08 - The Trouble with Obama's Energy Czar, by Michelle Malkin

12/10/08 - My Two Mexicos, by Chilton Williamson Jr.

12/09/08 - The Democratic Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin

12/09/08 - Selective Constitutionalism, by Chuck Baldwin

12/08/08 - National Data: Illegals Start Self-Deporting, But American Worker Displacement Still Massive In Bush Era, by Edwin S. Rubenstein

12/08/08 - In Earmarks Lies Salvation? by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/08/08 - Bush Lawyer John Yoo—The Best Case Against Immigration, by Paul Craig Roberts

12/07/08 - Obama Rumors Untrue—And Less Interesting Than The Truth, by Steve Sailer

12/07/08 - Obama Democrat Scolds Washington Post for Its Obstinacy On Amnesty, by Donald A. Collins

12/06/08 - Saturday Forum: A Former INS Official Says Forget About Obama’s Citizenship—What About His Aiding and Abetting Illegal Alien Aunt?; etc.

12/05/08 - Marriage Visa Fraud: More Evidence—But It Was All In A Nicole Kidman Movie!, by Joe Guzzardi

12/05/08 - View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: As Bush Eyes His Legacy, He Should Consider Nixon, by Joe Guzzardi

12/05/08 - What Change? by Chuck Baldwin

12/04/08 - Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…A Really Weird Visa Program That’s Nuts No Matter How You Look It, by Brenda Walker

12/04/08 - Truthers to the Left of Me, Truthers to the Right, by Michelle Malkin

12/04/08 - Can This Marriage Last? by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/04/08 - Washington Arrogance has Fomented a Muslim Revolution, by Paul Craig Roberts

12/03/08 - National Data: Infrastructure to the Rescue? Not Without Immigration Reform, by Edwin S. Rubenstein

12/03/08 - Say No to Newspaper Bailouts, by Michelle Malkin

12/01/08 - Readers Weigh In On President-Elect Obama’s Natural-Born Status; Peter Brimelow Comments.

12/01/08 - India-Pakistan War Would Be Victory For Terrorism—Like The Iraq-Afghanistan Quagmire, by Patrick J. Buchanan

12/01/08 - The Cost of U.S. Hegemony is Beyond Reach, by Paul Craig Roberts

Prior 2008 Articles...

WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS COMPETITION 2008: [blog] [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII] [IX] [X] [XI] [XII]
See also: War Against Christmas 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999

Report all attempts to abolish Christmas to christmas@vdare.com. A copy of Steve Sailer's AMERICA’S HALF-BLOOD PRINCE to the most outrageous!

01/04/09 - Black Swans Or Black Albinos? Why Bell Curves Still Rule, by Steve Sailer

VDARE.COM Readers Have Victor Davis Hanson’s Number

By Patrick Cleburne

Israel’s Gaza operation gets progressively more gruesome (and proportionately less newsworthy in the eyes of the US MSM). On Sunday, the IDF reported its first fatality; on Monday, three deaths in a friendly fire incident were announced.  This absurd hundreds-to-one kill ratio obviously suggests we are watching a massacre, not a battle.

Which means classicist and National Review star Victor Davis Hanson will be scurrying out of the servants’ quarters with the apologia tray very soon.

However, judging by the response to my blog posted on Sunday, a lot of well-informed readers have VDH’s number.

(VDARE.COM fairness caveat: VDH does deserve credit for his unique achievement in managing to get the Wall Street Journal to run, not just a review [There, But Only Halfway, By Roger Clegg, June 19, 2003], but a polite review, of his moderately critical book on immigration, Mexifornia).

Thanks, RH, for producing, as I blegged for in my item last night, the vanished link to Gary [“The War Nerd”] Brecher’s superb polemic Victor Hanson: Portrait of an American Traitor, The Exile, July 28 2005.

There is a great deal of intelligent military analysis in this essay—Brecher is a true scholar—but he is also a first-class polemical writer:

On Hanson’s academic record, Brecher wrote:

“According to his official online bio, Hanson graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1975. I don't know if you non-Californians understand what that means. UC Santa Cruz is the official sex-and-drugs campus of the whole UC system. It's so hippie-cool and mellow it doesn't even give grades, which are just too bourgeois… graduating from there is like telling your future employers you were stoned for four straight years.

“And Hanson graduated from there in 1975. I can only dream about what it must've been like to be a student at Santa Cruz back then, at the climax of the hippie days. I seriously doubt if anybody on that campus was un-stoned from enrollment to graduation, or un-laid for more than a week.”

More seriously, Brecher’s conclusion about Hanson:

“I don't really think he's insane - just a traitor, a liar willing to keep shoving American troops and money into a meatgrinder just so he doesn't have to admit he was wrong. Sooner or later we're going to have to face it: these NeoCons don't care about America any more than Stalin cared about Russia. They're not just wrong. They're traitors.”

And thanks, GM, for drawing my attention to a later Brecher essay on Hanson: It's All Greek to Victor Davis Hanson, The American Conservative, December 19 2005.

This essay is more focused on Hanson’s historical work. Which does have some value, unlike (most of) VDH’s public affairs commentary. But Brecher has a devastating comment:

“Hanson ends with the most ridiculous claim of all: America and Athens are ‘proud of our arts and letters even as we are more adept at war.’ Well, uh, no. I can’t believe a classics professor actually wrote that. For one thing, Athenian infantry wasn’t very good. The Thebans and Spartans were better, as Hanson himself says several times in this book. But more important, here’s a little list of ancient Athenians who are generally considered pretty darn good at ‘arts and letters’—Plato, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides, Demosthenes, Lysias, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristotle … I admit I had to look some of those names up, and I’m not saying I read them—just know their names and a little about their reps. But then I don’t put on airs about being an expert on ancient Greece. The fact that Hanson gets away with saying this is as clear an argument as any against the tenure system in our universities.”

(Courtesy RH, it appears the whole War Nerd archive is here.)

The full version of The Case of Victor Davis Hanson: Farmer, Scholar, WarMonger, by F. Roger Devlin, The Occidental Quarterly, Winter 2003 tells a sad story of a decline from scholarly grace in what is probably the definitive version from the point of view of Classicism.

“Victor Davis Hanson is a fine military historian of classical Greece.  He knows so little of political theory that he cannot distinguish imperial aggression from its opposite…Hanson…conceives the September 11 attacks as a tactical blunder in a conventional war….This very lack of imagination makes Hanson useful to vested interests…He has ignorant bureaucrats at the Pentagon imagining they enjoy the authority of history for picturing themselves as ‘vanquishers of tyranny.’  Our country may be no safer, but Hanson’s own reputation has soared among men unable to appreciate his standing as a scholar.  Should his own understanding of terrorism improve, his usefulness to his new friends will vanish precipitously.

 “Prof. Hanson has remained busy producing at least one article per week for National Review Online.  He seems oddly out of place among the professional libelers and callow minds now posing as heirs to that once respectable journal, but …the actual material he now grinds out…contains little argument or analysis of any sort.  Indeed, most of it is mere cheerleading—intended to stir the reader’s enthusiasm for whatever line the Bush administration is pushing at the moment.”  

Our old friend  from Scotland, Martin Kelly, was also in the field with The Decline and Fall of Victor Hanson, originally on the old Washington Dispatch web site.

“Being a fundamentally fascist philosophy, neoconservatism needs to name scapegoats and make enemies…the worst of all neocons are those who provide it with intellectual legitimacy. For the succor and encouragement he has given the philosophy, Victor Davis Hanson, the smartest neo of them all, is the worst of the worst.”

Even earlier, LewRockwell.com carried a powerful essay by Clyde Wilson (The War Lover,  February 17 2003) dealing with a symposium issue of The American Enterprise magazine on the occasion of the release of Robert Maxwell’s film Gods and Generals.

Wilson concentrates on VDH’s contribution: “A Class War”. It presented Sherman’s March through Georgia 1864-5 as a glorious procession of valiant freedom-loving democrats, sweeping away wicked and corrupt aristocrats and lovingly liberating delighted slaves. The problem for VDH’s account: both sides were extremely literate and left huge quantities of first-hand accounts. As Professor Wilson says,

“You do not have to pay heed to a single Southern testimony to understand what happened on Sherman's March and why. It is all in the letters and diaries of the participants. I urge anyone who lives above the Ohio and Potomac to go to your local historical society or state library and read some of those letters and diaries for yourself.”

Sherman’s March to the Sea is probably the greatest single stain on the military honor of the U.S. Army. The obvious parallel is the Red Army’s move west 1944-5. Except there, the German Army was present to defend its people—in contrast, the Confederate Armies were making a last effort to cut off Sherman’s communications in Tennessee. And, come to think of it, Communist accounts of the event no doubt ran along similar lines to Hanson’s.

Hanson’s account, in short, is, in Clyde Wilson’s genteel words

“…a fantasy of righteous virtue and intention that badly distorts the weight of the evidence.”

Or, in my non-academic translation, a lie.

Professor Wilson wonders

“…why do so many Americans, or at least American ‘spokespersons,’ feel compelled to force our history into a pattern of collective self-glorification? All peoples tend to mythologize their important experiences, but it would be hard to find one more self-righteous and uncritical and so much in need of cosmetology as triumphal American exceptionalism”

This is a deep question. (Wilson offers a hypothesis.) I prefer to ask: why does a man who clearly had some intellectual capability and presumably some integrity allow himself to be found mixing and serving the drinks in these neoconservative policy brothels?

Sadly, the answer seems to be: because it pays.

“Victor Davis Hanson emerged from the relative obscurity of his academic post at Fresno State University on September 11, 2001, to become something akin to America’s ‘Historian-in-Chief’. Spurred by a legion of eager editors, Hanson has translated his expertise in classical military history to the ‘War on Terror’.” [America’s Historian in Chief, by Alan W. Dowd, American Legion Magazine, August 28, 2005]

VDARE.com emphasis.

(Favorite VDH quote from this preening interview session:

“So when we ran such risks, when we obliterated the Taliban in seven weeks and Saddam in three, suddenly there was this spark in the Muslim world and a sense that the autocrats and mass killers were on the wrong side of history.”

Hanson is clearly well aware of the fruits of agreeing with City Hall. His Wikipedia entry [January 5, 2009] represents him complaining (in Who Killed Homer)

“Hanson blames the academic classicists themselves for the decline [in classical studies], accusing them of becoming so infected with political correctness and postmodern thinking, not to mention egoism and money-grubbing (grants, visiting professorships, conference-hopping, promotion based on unreadable publications), that they have lost sight of what he feels the classics truly represent.”

(Thanks, RC)

Every writer will understand all too well the temptation to jump at the prospect of easy, reliable and effective publication. It hurts to be exiled.

The key reason why VDARE.com decided to publish Steve Sailer’s Obama book, The Half Blood Prince, was because we knew orthodox publishers would be highly unlikely to publish such a radical and dissenting work. Not because it wouldn’t sell—but because of political prejudice. Hanson’s frailties are understandable.

And of course as a hired hand, he could still do good work. The problem is, Hanson does not—at least in the sense of accurate and well-grounded scholarship. What he does provide is slipshod, inaccurate, dishonest, but highly convenient intellectual refreshments to his masters.

And it looks like this January they will need it.

To the Public, as a Classicist might say: Caveat Emptor!

Tell Victor Davis Hanson to improve his act.

(Thanks also to H.)

If you want to email or print out, format by clicking on this permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/cleburne/090105_hanson.htm

************

************

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

ListBuilder, our email bulletin tool, has a tendency to quarrel with some readers’ ISPs, especially because of the recent spam epidemic. If you do not receive your bulletin, please sign up again. If problems persist, please let us know. Bulletins are archived here.

************

We welcome correspondence and read everything (but can't always answer, alas). Please note if you would prefer us not to post it and if you want your e-mail address excluded. For publication: witan@vdare.com  Not for publication: editnp@vdare.com.

************

Donations are tax-deductible and can be made online by credit card or via mail.

************

VDARE Web Master

************

Although care has been taken in preparing the information contained in this site and in selecting links to other web sites, this information is supplied without warranty. Click here for more boring stuff our lawyers want you to read.

************

[ Prev | Next ] [Skip 1 Site] [List Sites] [ Join Now | Ring Hub | Random