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June 7, 2009
Victor Davis Hanson on a 'Reckoning" for Obama
Rick Moran
Dr. Hanson is one of the more perceptive writers on politics today due in no small part to his immense knowledge of history that he draws on to illuminate the folly of President Obama on a regular basis.
In his latest piece at Pajamas Media , Hanson outdoes himself. In 2000 devastating words, he indicts, tries, and convicts the President of incredible naivete and drawing the wrong lessons from recent history to craft a policy that has enormous consequences for our security.
He relates a personal story about how his own high falutin view of the world came up against the jungle when he journeyed home after his ivy league education to run his family farm. There, he came up against a neighbor who played the game of war and peace cutthroat style. It seems his grandfather treated this neighbor badly and Hansen got an earful from the neighbor right after he took over the farm:
I was shocked to hear that, and assured him that there would be no such incitements on my part on the new age of the Davis farm. No more ‘me first', no more disdain for newcomers and upstarts. And then after about 3 months of sizing me up (at 26, I confess looking back I was not 1/8th the man my grandfather was at 86) he began stealing water in insidious ways: taking an extra day on his turn, cutting in a day early on mine, siphoning off water at night, destroying my pressure settings, watering his vineyards on days that were on my allotment. Stealing no less! And in 1980!
Here's how I rushed into action. First, I gave a great Obama speech on communal sharing and why the ditch would not work if everyone did what he did. Farmers simply would perish if they did not come together, and see their common shared interests. He nodded and smiled-and stole more the next week.
The Enlightenment To the Rescue
Then I appealed to his minority status, and remarked how wonderful it was that he came from dire poverty abroad and now farmed over 500 acres. He growled-and stole even more.
Eventually, Hanson figured out that he needed to go to war to save his farm:
Then in a trance-like fashion, I went out to restore deterrence. I got a massive chain and lock, and simply shut down his communal lateral. Locked the gate so tight, he couldn't even get a quarter-turn. He'd be lucky if he got a 100 gallons in a week. Then I got a veritable arsenal of protective weaponry, got in my pickup, drove back over to the gate, and waited with ammo, clubs, shovels, etc.
In an hour he drove up in a dust cloud. He was going to smash me, get his football playing son to strangle me, sue me, bankrupt me, hunt me down, etc. He swore and yelled-I was a disgrace to my family, a racist, a psycho, worse than my grandfather. He was going to lock my gates, steal all my water, and indeed he leveled all sorts of threats (remember the scene in Unforgiven when Eastwood walks out and screams threats to the terrified town?-that was my neighbor). I got out with large vine stake and said something to the effect (forgive me if I don't have the verbatim transcript-it has been 29 years since then), "It's locked until you follow the rules. Anytime you don't, it's locked again. Do it one more time and I weld it shut. Not a drop. So sue me."
After all of that bluster, Hanson writes, "For the next ten years until his death, he was the model neighbor." VDH believes that like himself, Obama will eventually come to his senses and the scales will fall from his eyes. Thus, a day of "reckoning" for Obama is in the future.
I wish I could be that optimistic. People with egos the size of Obama generally never admit to mistakes and would rather continue a disasterous policy than take responsibility and change course. But perhaps VDH is right. If the disaster is big enough, and if the outcry against him is large enough, perhaps he will be forced to change course after all.
But I'm not holding my breath.
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