Cheenee's Guru, Victor Davis HANSON, on C-SPAN 1:30 ET

It's been going on for over a half hour. This dude is a Classics professor, who provided the window dressing of historical examples for doing what the PNACer NeoCons wanted to do anyway. Most of the callers have been wingnuts, and he's giving them fuel on all fronts, everything from accusing the Left of a new anti-Semitism, to "reforming" academia's tenure system (see a thread here about the decimation of Southern Mississippi University), and now to "tough border control".

Am just finishing PHILLIPS's American Dynasty, which is conclusive about the criminal deceptiveness of the BUSHes in their illegal wars. Haven't heard HANSON backtrack on the Iraq attack.

********QUOTE*******

Full HANSON archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

Nat'l Cathedral: (History or Hysteria?) http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson032803.asp
.... In disgust at the hysteria, I took a drive to Washington to the National Cathedral on Sunday. Big mistake. All except one of the entrances were closed due to security concerns. I walked in under the wonderful sculptures of Frederick Hart, an authentic American genius who almost single-handedly restored classical realism to American sculpture. A small statue of a kneeling Lincoln, who sent thousands into battle to eradicate slavery, was in the corner. A plaque of quotations from Churchill, about the need for sacrifice in war, was on the wall. So I was feeling somewhat good again — until I heard the pious sermon on “shock and awe.” In pompous tones the minister was deprecating the war effort, calling down calumnies upon the administration, and alleging the immoral nature of our nation at war.

Such a strange man at such a strange time, I thought. His entire congregation, by its own admission, is in danger from foreign terrorists (why else bar the gates?). His church is itself a monument to the utility of force for moral purposes. His own existence as a free-speaking, freely worshiping man of God is possible only thanks to the United States military — whose present mission he was openly deriding at the country’s national shrine. ....
*************UNQUOTE********

A caller asked whether he had ever "taken part in a war". This in the context of HANSON's extensive glorification of noble war in his writings. He appeared to be taken aback, said something about his age in 1971, then slipped up into saying that he sometimes thinks of FARMING as war (he owns grapevines), then recovered himself to say his father was a distinguished WW II vet and that his grandfather had been gassed in WW I with lifelong resulting disabilities. They showed pics of his house and workspace, where there's a HELMET and pics of people in uniforms (father)-----but one where HANSON is shown in his civilian clothes in the middle of a gaggle of uniformed Midshipmen. It was taken on the day the Iraq attack started, where he was scheduled to give a pep talk lecture to top Pentagon brass, but he also had a class to give at the Naval Academy and he asked permission to bring his class with him. What a circus. He said it was fun.

how glorious Hanson viewed pre-emptive war nothwithstanding the lack of either a seeming imminent threat or UN sanction. Seems like all the dead, maimed, homeless, andjobless Iraqis are so much better off under the protection and control of their benevolent occupiers.

Professor HANSON's intellectual integrity appears to give nefarious help to reactionary supporters: For example, he's certainly not a racist, but his "Mexifornia" gives sustenance to racists who don't understand his writings but seize on the surface connotations, like this (below), and the same goes for his support for the war and in other areas like his advocating "reform" for "Liberal" academia in matters of tenure:

from this website: http://www.bustamanteno.com/Lawlessness.html comes this:

1. Jesus
2. Socrates
3. Jefferson
4. Churchill
5. (Lincoln?)

Watching now -

and writes columns for the National Review (see link above). He was POUNDINLY for the Iraq attack, and a few weeks before the dirty deal, CHEENEE invited him to lunch VERY PUBLICALLY and called him his "guru". HANSON gave the Shrubbites historical examples for preemtive war and for toppling regimes, with a surface reason of WILSONian "idealism", spreading democracy (supposedly). But he cuts right across the whole spectrum, domestic politics, too.

I am hoping that this would be the appropriate place to post this message. This is a discussion that was started elsewhere in regards to an article by Hanson. I am curious as to how you feel about Andrew's views at this point in the discussion.

(Andrew)
God, but I do love to read this guy. He's probably 1/2 the reason I'm on the Bush side of foreign policy. He's the main reason why I'm scared of a Kerry presidency, from the side of national/world security. I don't think Bush is doing everything he can to advance this policy, so it may not mean as much as it should. If Kerry at least spoke this way, he'd have all my enthusiastic support.

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200403050842.asp

(John)
Ahh no, sorry I don't buy this at all, seeing that this guy all but outright dictates Bushite Foreign policy. I would be very upset if Kerry spoke this way. I am not one to jump up with enthusiasm because we have a war hero running for president. The enthusiasm I feel about Kerry having served in Vietnam as well as Clark when he was running was that they have both seen the face of war, they had both fought, and both have their scars. For this they have my respect and admiration and I trust them more than Bush and Mr. Hanson over here to ensure our security.
Hanson and Bush have never taken apart in any war. Of course I don't believe this should be a requirement for someone running for president, but for people like Hanson and Bush it might give them a little bit more perspective before they start sending other peoples children to die for their theories on spreading democracy. This guy is garbage, but of course if he empowers you with his views on foreign policy maybe you and him should pack your bags and head to Iraq, I guarantee you that you will have no trouble finding someone who would be more than happy to let the two of you relieve them.

(Andrew)
By what metric do you, personally, judge success in the War On Terror? (More specifically, the war against government-sponsored Islamofacism that seeks to destroy us and has tried/is trying to do so.) Of course if you think the whole concept of a war against such a thing is undoable and made on false assumptions, I'd like to hear about that, too.