Reading Victor Davis Hanson, the metaphor comes to mind of a lion in captivity proudly prowling some rich guy's fenced-in game preserve.
The women ooh and ahh, the kids point and snap photos, and the men say, "Yep, that's what a real lion looks like." Then they all drive back home, leaving that pathetic lion to rule his open-air zoo.
Hanson is a guy who takes himself way too seriouly because he doesn't realize he's just a zoo animal, a curious bare-toothed display of a bygone decade, a guy whom nobody in the real world takes seriously anymore, if they ever did at all.
Does anybody seriously believe in a "war on terror" anymore? The editors of NRO do, sure, and everybody at FOX and Clear Channel... but in the real world?
Does anybody seriously still think that we are up against a mortal enemy, our near-equal in strength, and that we may have met our match if we don't muster all our resolve and gather all our allies to defeat him?
Does anybody seriously still go for these hyperbolic WWII/Chamberlain/Churchill/Hitler analogies when discussing the dire threat from bearded loonies who hide in desert caves and communicate through messengers on donkeys about their diabolical plans for the destruction of the West?
Does anybody have a few spare acres with a nice high fence where we can let the Victor David Hansons of America roam "wild and free," under the illusion that they are proud, strong American warriors?
To be fair, Davis is right though: Obama is due all kinds of criticism for his utter hypocrisy on Iraq, G'itmo, illegal wiretapping, and renditions. But let's remember, unlike Clinton, who sought out the center because Dick Morris told him to, Obama is a guy who instinctively seeks out the middle of the road on
every issue because he believes it's the
right thing to do. Hence we have a senseless foreign policy that's somewhere on the left-right spectrum between Dubya and his favorite straw man, "
some."
President Obama has not signed up for a serious effort against radical Islam.
By Victor Davis Hanson
January 15, 2010 | National Review
No comments:
Post a Comment