Victor Davis Hanson

HANSON: A nation of promiscuous prudes

More than 500 people were killed in Chicago last year. Yet Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel still found time to berate the fast-food franchise Chick-fil-A for not sharing "Chicago values" apparently because its founder does not approve of same-sex marriage.

April 19, 2013

HANSON: The sum of dual fears

The idea of a nuclear Iran and of preventing a nuclear Iran terrifies security analysts.

April 12, 2013

HANSON: After Obama

We can imagine what lies ahead in 2017 — no matter the result of either the 2014 midterm elections or the 2016 presidential outcome.

April 5, 2013

HANSON: ‘Oddball heaven’ works for America

For all the Obama-era talk of decline, there is at least one reason why America probably won't, at least not quite yet.

March 25, 2013

HANSON: When racial preferences become payback

Sometime in the new millennium, "global warming" evolved into "climate change." Amid growing controversies over the planet's past temperatures, Al Gore and other activists understood that human-induced "climate change" could better explain almost any weather extremity -- droughts or floods, too much heat or cold, hurricanes and tornadoes.

March 18, 2013

HANSON: Recessional for a retiring power

Republicans and Democrats are blaming one another for impending cuts to the defense budget brought about by sequestration. With serial annual deficits of $1 trillion-plus, however, and an aggregate debt nearing $17 trillion, the United States -- like an insolvent Rome and exhausted Great Britain of the past -- was bound to re-examine its expensive overseas commitments and strategic profile.

March 1, 2013

HANSON: The year when dreams died

The year 2012 saw the triumph of cold reality over pie-in-the-sky dreams.

January 1, 2013

HANSON: Legality of illegal immigration

President Obama recently issued an edict exempting an estimated 800,000 to 1 million illegal aliens from the consequences of federal immigration law. Ostensibly, the blanket amnesty applies to those who arrived before the age of 16 and are younger than 30, who are in or graduated from high school or have served in the military, and who have not been convicted of a felony or multiple misdemeanors.

June 27, 2012

HANSON: From hope and change to fear and smear

Barack Obama lately has been accusing presumptive rival Mitt Romney of not waging his campaign in the nice (but losing) manner of John McCain in 2008. But a more marked difference can be seen in President Obama himself, whose style and record bear no resemblance to his glory days of four years ago.

June 8, 2012

HANSON: Let sleeping Germans lie

The newly elected French Socialist president, Francois Hollande, is warning Germany that Mediterranean ideas of "growth," not Germanic "austerity," should be the new European creed.

May 17, 2012

HANSON: Drilling is a win, win choice for U.S.

When the summer driving season starts soon, and tension heats up about Iran, gas may reach $5 a gallon. Nothing bothers voters more than paying an extra $20 or $30 every time they fill up. In times like these, they soon might prefer even an oilman in the White House to an ideologue whose opposition to new oil development seems more religious than empirically based.

March 22, 2012

HANSON: Assigning blame for California’s penury

In "March in March" protests, thousands of students in California universities recently demonstrated in outrage over spiraling tuition costs. At the California State University (CSU) and University of California multi-campus systems, tuition hikes in recent years have far exceeded the national average. Meanwhile, universities slash classes, cut key research and rely even more on exploited and poorly paid part-time lecturers and graduate-student teaching assistants.

March 15, 2012

HANSON: Sick and tired of the Middle East

Americans - left, right, Democrats and Republicans - are all sick of thankless nation-building in the Middle East. Yet democratization was not our first choice but rather a last resort after earlier failures. The United States long ago supplied Afghan insurgents, who expelled the Soviets after a decade of fighting. Then we left. The country descended into even worse medievalism under the Taliban. So, after removing the Taliban, who had hosted the perpetrators of Sept. 11, 2001, we promised in 2001 to stay on.

March 8, 2012

HANSON: Jeremy Lin: Achievement trumps race

Jeremy Lin is the New York Knicks basketball sensation whose so-far-brief but amazing performance on the court has set the world on fire in a mere month.

February 28, 2012

HANSON: A little honesty about illegal immigration

President Obama recently assured El Salvador that the United States would not deport more of the 200,000 Salvadorans residing illegally in the United States. As the election nears and the president looks to court Hispanic voters, he also created a new position of "public advocate" for illegal immigrants.

February 16, 2012

HANSON: Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0

In the manner that Jimmy Carter's reset foreign policy crashed in 1980 with the communists entering Afghanistan and Central America and American hostages taken in Iran, and was followed by a suddenly tough, new Carter Doctrine, the Obama administration likewise is forced to reset its policy.

February 10, 2012

HANSON: The un-Obama

Barack Obama's favorability in the polls falls when he is himself - overexposed, hard left in his news conferences, and boastful about legislative achievements such as Obamacare and a stimulus of more than $1 trillion.

February 1, 2012

HANSON: Civilization in reverse

In Greek mythology, the prophetess Cassandra was doomed to tell the truth and be ignored. Our modern version is a bankrupt Greece that we seem to discount.

January 19, 2012

HANSON: Heavy price of defense spending cuts

President Obama just ordered massive cutbacks in defense spending, eventually to total some $500 billion. There is plenty of fat in a Pentagon budget that grew after Sept. 11, 2001, but such slashing goes way too far.

January 11, 2012

HANSON: The new old Europe

Nearly 10 years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld provoked outrage by referring to "old Europe." How dare he, snapped the French and Germans, call us "old" when the utopian European Union was all the rage, the new euro was soaring in value, and the United States was increasingly isolated under the George W. Bush administration!

December 29, 2011