By far the best column on the theme I tried to explore in my Standard piece is Victor Davis Hanson's in the Washington Post this past Sunday: "Why we must stay in Iraq."
Posted by Scott at 06:02 AM
From James Wolcott:
Sorry Scott, advantage Wolcott and Werther. Of course, these guys are probably not burdened with an expensive law school education that wrung every ounce of energy out of their writing. WHEREAS, you are.Victor Davis Hanson is the Marlboro Man of war apologists, a sun-bronzed rider of the purple sage whose stentorian words and battlefield vision have made many a chickenhawk less ashamed of himself as he shuffles around in his fuzzy slippers. The aria Hanson sings in article after article pays Wagnerian tribute to the Western Way of War, or why democracies are so admirably advanced when it comes to committing mass slaughter.
. . .
As Werther [a nom de plume for an anonymous inside the Beltway type] observes, the terrible thing about Victor Davis Hanson and his lyrical serenades to war is that there's no escaping them. "The concrete-like slab of The Washington Post Sunday edition thunked on our doorstep only a few hours ago, and with it the latest effluent from the Sage of Fresno himself as a featured op-ed: 'Why We Need to Stay in Iraq.' Note the sheer chickenhawk effrontery of that 'we,' and the almost ghoulish tastelessness of whooping it up for endless foreign deployments as the dead of New Orleans remain uncounted."
Scott also waxes in the "it's all Jane Fonda's fault" mode by claiming the Vietnam war was lost on the home front. No, silly boy, it was lost in Vietnam, long before the Tet Offensive that you bemoan as a military victory but a public relations defeat. Spotty is too tired to look through his archives right now, but there is a post back awhile now that refers to and quotes extensively a long interview given by Robert McNamara where he acknowledges the war was lost by 1967. But then Scott probably doesn't remember Robert McNamara.
Tags: Powerline James Wolcott Werther Tet Offensive Victor Davis Hanson
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