Obama: The Dream and the Reality

by Hanson, Victor Davis

• ISBN13: 9780984765003
• ISBN10: 098476500X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-11-01
• Publisher: Natl Review

Summary

Obama: The Dream and the Realitycollects the National Reviewwritings of one of today's most provocative political commentators: Victor Davis Hanson. In pungent prose, Hanson skewers modern pieties with the eye of a realist who is deeply grounded in wide knowledge of human history-and human nature.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. v
"Hope and Change"-the 2008 Campaign and Its Aftermath
Voting the War	p. 3
The Queen Is Dead	p. 5
The Crying Game	p. 7
Absurd on the Left	p. 8
Living History	p. 10
Who Exactly Is Running for President?	p. 11
Not Over Yet	p. 12
The End of Journalism	p. 17
Win One for the Messiah!	p. 23
What Went Wrong?	p. 27
Parallel Lives	p. 33
Why Did Republicans Lose Their Appeal?	p. 39
The Strange Summer of 2008	p. 45
When Things Don't Make Sense
Hardly the Best and Brightest	p. 51
The Obsolescence of a Slur	p. 53
Sun and Socialism	p. 58
Chicago Does Socialism	p. 62
Next Battle: Immigration	p. 66
The Technocrats' New Clothes	p. 71
Death of the Postmodernist Drama	p. 74
The Law? How Quaint!	p. 77
Not Obama Is Not Enough	p. 81
The Cynical Brilliance of Imam Rauf	p. 85
Wikileaks Selective Morality	p. 89
The Obama Fabulists	p. 91
Voting Present Beats Losing	p. 95
Two Californias	p. 98
The Obamaites About Face	p. 104
The "Good" War in Afghanistan, the "Bad" One in Iraq
Iraq Is Not the Worry	p. 111
Mirror, Mirror	p. 115
Iraq in Review	p. 119
More Iraq Ironies	p. 124
What Happened to Iraq?	p. 127
Afghanistan Agonistes	p. 132
October Surprises	p. 137
On Hating Israel
Nonviolence Nonsense	p. 143
A Modest Proposal for Middle East Peace	p. 146
The Gaza Rules	p. 149
The Age of Middle East Atonement	p. 152
Helen Thomas, Turkey, and the Liberation of Israel	p. 154
The Sorta War on Terror
Beating the Dead Terrorist Horse	p. 163
Victory-How Quaint an Idea!	p. 171
The Tragic Truth of War	p. 176
Politically Correct Killings?	p. 180
The World Can Be a Scary Place
Yippee Ti Yi Yo, Europe!	p. 187
When Success Is the Orphan	p. 190
'This Is the Moment'	p. 192
It's America, Obama	p. 194
Moscow's Sinister Brilliance	p. 196
The Other 9/11 Story	p. 200
Fossilized Foreign Policy	p. 204
Europeanizing Europe	p. 209
President of the World	p. 213
A Thug's Primer	p. 218
From Preparedness to Appeasement	p. 222
The 'I Am Not George Bush' Policy	p. 226
Resetting Our Reset Foreign Policy	p. 230
Obama's Nuclear Naivety	p. 232
The Art of Seaborne Humiliation	p. 236
The Great Anglo-American Spat	p. 239
In Defense of Defense	p. 243
Obama & Co., Growing Up Fast	p. 248
Julian Assange's EgoLeaks	p. 252
The Bush and Palin Derangement Syndromes
Sarah Palin and Her Discontents	p. 257
Sarah Biden	p. 259
An Instructive Candidacy	p. 262
Bush Considered	p. 266
Bush Did it	p. 271
Damnation of Memory	p. 275
President Palin's First Hundred Days	p. 279
Bush Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder	p. 283
Obama, Dream and Reality
An Elegant Farce	p. 289
The Obama Crash and Burn	p. 291
An Elegant Farce	p. 294
Who Is 'They'?	p. 298
Appeasement and Its Discontents	p. 300
Gone, but Not Forgotten	p. 304
Dreams from His Grandmother	p. 306
Obama: The Great American Hope	p. 309
Time to Beam Down to Earth, President Obama	p. 313
President Hamlet	p. 315
The Audacity of Irony	p. 318
President Obama's First 70 Days	p. 323
Just Make Stuff Up	p. 327
Obama's New Liberal Realism	p. 331
Obama and the 'Noble Lie'	p. 335
Once Upon a Time	p. 339
Dr. Barack and Mr. Obama	p. 344
Barack Obama, College Administrator	p. 349
The Buck Passes Here	p. 354
Obama's Theorems	p. 357
America's Obama Obsession	p. 361
Guantanamo Laureate	p. 366
Who Are 'They'?	p. 370
Obama's Prissy America	p. 374
The New War Against Reason	p. 378
Resetting the Reset Button	p. 384
Obama's Wheel of Fortune	p. 388
Obama and the Malleability of History	p. 392
Our Year of Obama	p. 397
Mr. President, Words Matter	p. 402
Good and Bad Words	p. 405
Obama's New Take on Partisanship	p. 409
Obama's Real Problem	p. 413
Obama: Not the Great Stone Face	p. 416
Obama: Fightin the Yuppie Factor	p. 420
Our Waning Obama Worship	p. 424
The Great American Debt	p. 428
What Went Wrong	p. 432
Obama and 'Redistributive Change'	p. 435
Why the Great and Growing Backlash?	p. 440
Obama versus Obama	p. 444
Mr. Obama's Nowhere Discussions	p. 449
The Psychology of Recession	p. 452
The Sources of American Anger	p. 456
Obama's Washington Animal Farm	p. 461
Obama's Glass House	p. 465
Carly Fiorina: Robber Baron, Traitor-and Outsourcer!	p. 469
The Gift of Obama's Foreign Policy	p. 474
How to Turn a Recession into a Depression	p. 477
We are Going to Make It
Reflection Day	p. 483
A Year Like None Other	p. 487
A Funny Sort of Depression	p. 490
Triumph of Banality	p. 493
Our American Catharsis	p. 497
The American 21st Century	p. 502
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