Whatever comes to pass in this election season — whatever scandals emerge, gaffes are gaffed, turns twisted, figures fudged, wars waged, etc. — what I would I most like to see, even if I don’t get to, is the Gingrich-Obama debates.

Conventional modern liberalism (leftism, Keynesian economics, etc.) is dead in our country, indeed in the world, and yet a sizable portion of the populace clings to it. Like a massive cargo cult waiting for John Frum, these people cleave to an ideology that has been useless for years and is self-destructive even to them, most of them anyway, undermining the lives of the rest of us in the process.

Newt Gingrich is the only person I can think of with the rhetorical skills to explain this in a manner in which at least some of these same people, perhaps even enough of them, would understand the situation and change. He could do so in debate with Barack Obama — those Lincoln-Douglas style debates he so assiduously seeks.

Whatever his personal faults — and there are obviously a few — Gingrich is the only public figure in memory with this ability. He is a better debater than any politician in my lifetime, which means, all things considered, that he is a clearer thinker, especially in this kind of forum.

These debates would be epochal because it would be the first time in generations that the underlying competing theories of government would really be discussed and studied for the public consumption of a national audience. All the debates I can remember — and I have seen most of them since Nixon-Kennedy — have been relatively small in their compass, focusing on the issues of the day. This time the founding philosophies of our country would also be explored by an historian and placed in a present day context for review and consideration. It’s high time we did that.

And what could Obama say? His approach to government, to the extent that he has one beyond puerile generalities of hope and change, is a form of European socialism. The current disarray of that system could not be more apparent. Socialism, in fact, has a record of catastrophe, leading not only to economic despair, but to mass murder.

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A good portion of the right-wing punditocracy, Beltway sorts especially, appears to harbor a deep dislike of Newt Gingrich. They can’t believe he is currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and are doing everything in their power to enlighten the great unwashed about the multiple inadequacies of this man and knock some sense into them (us) before it is too late.

Now I am not a Beltway person. I am something even worse — a Hollywood & Vine person — so everything I say is suspect and should be. But allow me to chime in on why Newt is attractive to some of us at this juncture.

Let’s begin here: America is in a slough of despond. In fact, it’s in close to the worst shape it’s been since the Great Depression. Negativity rules the land. Few people are happy or optimistic. Basically, this once great nation is asleep.

And we have a president who wants us to stay there, who is banal, irritating, humorless, reactionary, self-righteous, and narcissistic all at once. He hasn’t said one interesting thing or proposed one creative idea since being in office.

Unfortunately, the Republican candidates aren’t much better. Romney, Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman, even Paul, are no more than critics of a system gone moribund. They do not inspire us. Their ideas, even when worth investigating (flat tax, etc.), are no more than rehashes of proposals we have heard for decades.

Only Newt dances. Only Newt, on occasion, is original. Only Newt — and here is the important part — has the capacity to wake us up.

What attracts me about the man is the very thing that Romney criticized, the part that wants to explore the moon and stars, maybe even mine them.

Sure Gingrich has an idea a minute, many of which are bad, but at least he has ideas. At least he is thinking. And — guess what — he says what he thinks. Politicians aren’t supposed to do that.

But Gingrich reminds me more of a Steve Jobs or a Richard Branson than he does of a politician, and that is a good thing because politicians these days are the kind of people that make me want to bang my forehead against the desk.

And I would like to add — and perhaps this disqualifies me — that I don’t care who is more or less conservative, who is a RINO and who is not, or what kind of libertarian someone may or may not be. I think when your ideology has become rigid, you have checked your brains at the door. If you want proof of that, just look at today’s liberals. Their ideology has been extinct for years and they are walking around like the living dead, trying to preserve the welfare state and the vision of Lord Keynes while the whole world crumbles around them.

But, you’re saying, Gingrich has all these faults.. He’s erratic, arrogant, impatient, smart-alecky, thin- skinned, selfish, with a nasty grin like a roadshow Satan, etc., etc.

Well, yeah.

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Barack Obama and his minions — Suha-bussing Hillary Clinton who disses Israel every chance she gets and Ambassador Howard Gutman who thinks Islamic anti-Semitism began at a Tel Aviv felafel shop a week ago Thursday (he should read Andrew Bostom) — love to put pressure on our supposed ally… but on Iran’s despicable mullahs not so much.

So it should be no surprise that our president is pushing back on last week’s Senate vote for stronger sanctions on Iran. Via Reuters:

The Obama administration is urging US lawmakers to soften proposed sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank, Senator Mark Kirk said on Tuesday.

Kirk, a Republican, is the co-author along with Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of a proposal to penalize foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran’s central bank, the main conduit for its oil revenues.

The Senate approved the proposal last week 100-0 despite lobbying against it by Obama administration officials, who argued that threatening US allies might not be the best way to get cooperation in action against Iran. [bold mine]

A similar measure is pending in the House of Representatives; both chambers must agree on the same version before it can become law.

Kirk said on Tuesday that the administration had written to some lawmakers’ offices and “proposed what they describe as technical fixes” to the Kirk-Menendez amendment.

What’s behind this? The mind drifts back to two key events of recent years:

First, and most obviously, the extraordinary silence of Barack Obama during the Iranian democracy demonstrations — one of the more emotionally-disconnected displays of any modern president. Every decent person in the Western world was rooting for the demonstrators to rid themselves of the mullahs, except for our president, who didn’t even give them moral support, preferring to do his own absurd and self-centered negotiation with Ahmadinejad.

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Okay, it wasn’t a Sunday. It was a Wednesday. And it wasn’t a park. It was a farm, Victor’s farm near Fresno, California. But I somehow thought Victor Davis Hanson merited a title on a par with George Seurat (from the musical Sunday in the Park with George), because Victor is — and I know the humble Hanson would reject this — one of the great artists in his field: punditry.

Well, not exactly punditry, something more like historo-punditry, because VDH, more than anyone I can think of, has the background and intellect to interpret the events of our time against the wider perspective of history, classical and otherwise. That’s when punditry becomes, well, if not art, something close to it.

So this post is to mark the release of some short videos we did with VDH a few weeks back. They are excerpts from a considerably longer, slightly over thirty minutes, interview I did with Victor, which will be available to members only shortly.

You can subscribe here and get the longer Hanson interview along with Scott Ott’s terrific series on the Constitution. You’ll also be helping support our battle against the mainstream media.

But before I put up YouTubes of the new excerpts, I’d like to make an observation regarding the first video we released, during which Victor discussed the coming election. From the comments, I gathered some viewers may have misinterpreted what Hanson meant when he said conservatives might have to swallow “castor oil” and vote for Mitt Romney. This was not a ringing endorsement of Romney. Far from it. It was an acknowledgement that our country had come to such a pass historically that any of the Republican candidates would be vastly better than Obama. Indeed, it was our duty to vote for whoever emerges. (Well, perhaps not for Ron Paul, who, unfortunately, makes Neville Chamberlain seem like Douglas MacArthur.) And remember, this was recorded before the current rise of Newt Gingrich.

Whatever the case, that first video was deliberately more immediately “topical” than the others. The subject matter of the longer “members only” interview, and therefore the excerpts, was intended to be more evergreen or historical in nature. The first excerpt we chose concerns the subject of immigration, which, readers of VDH’s superb Mexifornia know, is one of his great areas of interest. It’s an issue that, as a Central California farmer, he has lived.

Another topic I discussed with Victor was Europe. As a classicist, he has spent much time there, especially in the highly-precarious Greece. Not surprisingly, he predicts the decline of Europe. But surprisingly, he has good things to say about what this means for the US.

Okay, that’s it for now, but there’s a lot more on the full-length video. If you haven’t, please subscribe and see it. And if you’re already a member, please let us know what you think, especially if there are other areas you would like us to cover with Victor Davis Hanson.

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Here’s a question it doesn’t take a Zen Master to figure out: If Herman Cain was willing to hide a thirteen-year relationship, “friendship,” call it what you will, to a woman (to whom he made “repeated” financial payments!) from his own wife, as he has now admitted, should he be trusted to be candid with the American public?

Well, duh. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is not one of the hoariest of legal principles for nothing. Do you want to see a liar — or, more politely, a prevaricator — as president of the United States? We’ve had enough of that already.

And, no, I don’t know whether the allegations of sexual harassment are true, nor do I even know if Cain actually had an affair with Ginger White, although, if he didn’t, that would put him among the roughly .003% of males who gave money to another woman for years without telling their wives, indeed not disclosing the “friendship” to them at all, and didn’t.

One of the more disturbing sidelights of Cain’s devastating interview with the Manchester Union Leader was his refusal to tell the exact amount he paid to White, “on advice of counsel.” Why was that, if he is so innocent? Beats me, but it could have something to do with possible divorce proceedings. Wouldn’t his wife be entitled to a quid pro quo for the money given White that she was never informed about? Or maybe the number was just so big it would look really strange. Needless to say there are other possibilities, few of them positive for Cain, however.

These revelations are of course very sad and our hearts should all go out to Gloria Cain. But the real mystery of Herman Cain is why he ran for president in the first place.

Forget the putative affair with White and what that says, or doesn’t, of his “family values.” (At the very least his vision of how to treat a spouse is reprehensible.) When someone running for president of the United States has been involved in sexual harassment cases that have had legal settlements, whether fair or not, there is no way that will not come out.

Cain tried to blame the Perry campaign, David Axelrod or whatever unnamed person or persons he could think of, Democratic and Republican, but sexual harassment charges are serious business, especially when they are on the books. And these were on the books. Cain showed no judgement at all not getting out in front of these charges at the very outset of his campaign. He acted like someone who was either clueless or guilty. Either one disqualifies him as president of the United States.

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Only a complete fool would argue with Thomas Sowell, so I must be a certified fourth member of the Three Stooges, because I am going to take issue with his Human Events piece, “Gingrich and Immigration.”

In the article, Sowell disputes Newt Gingrich’s proposal that — after our borders are duly sealed, not the sieve they are now — long term illegal aliens, who have been law abiding citizens, be granted the ability to stay in our country, though not to become citizens.

Gingrich’s reasoning is that it would be inhumane to split up families with mass deportations, particularly of older people. Sowell responds:


Let’s go back to square one. The purpose of American immigration laws and policies is not to be either humane or inhumane to illegal immigrants. The purpose of immigration laws and policies is to serve the national interest of this country.

There is no inherent right to come live in the United States, in disregard of whether the American people want you here.

Sowell lost me right there. What “American people” is he talking about? As a forty-year resident of Southern California, I can attest… indeed would even swear on the proverbial dead grandmother… that the vast majority of the middle and upper middle classes of my state — Democrat, Republican, or independent — have been knowingly employing illegal aliens for decades. They may have felt guilty or ambivalent about it, but they voluntarily used illegal aliens to build their houses, pick their fruit, mow their lawns, wash their laundry, babysit their kids, etc., etc.

Until relatively recently, when the economy went sour, everyone I knew employed illegal aliens one time or another, except for those who planned on running for office. (And many of them, as it has turned out, did too.)

So Sowell is asking us to believe in some mythological “American people.” In the real world it was something else again. There was an entente cordiale between the illegal aliens and those that employed them. It was all a big wink.

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I got further confirmation of the decline of Hollywood the other day from my Fedex delivery man. He showed up at my door on the eve of Thanksgiving with yet another pile of Academy screeners I was required to sign for fear, if they were not delivered to me personally, they could end up being whisked over the Internet to waiting DVD pirates in Hong Kong. (They should be so lucky.)

As I dutifully signed, the Fedex guy asked me what I thought of the movies that were arriving. He had evidently been getting feedback from others. (Don’t shoot me, but I live in a neighborhood dotted with Academy members who vote in the Oscars). Before I could answer — maybe he was reading my blasé expression, or did I let out a weary sigh — he said that’s what everyone on his route was saying. It was a lousy year.

Lousy, indeed. Of the thirty or so screeners that had already arrived at my house, there was hardly a one I wanted to see — even for free. Voting in the Oscars, once a thrill, was getting to be a chore.

In fact, it had been a chore for a number of years now. Movies were on a steep decline and everyone knew it. The films of today — from the puerile eco-babble of Avatar on the one hand to you pick the solemn indy of the year on the other — were a far cry from Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia, almost not the same art form, certainly a lesser one.

It set me to wondering, once again, why this was happening. Sure, there was the well-known excessive liberalism of Hollywood, but that was there back in the seventies when they made The Godfather and Chinatown.

No, it was something else and I have to think the very technology we love plays a great role in it. The medium has outrun the message (the message in this case being the art of film… as well as other art forms, I’m afraid.)

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Please do not link to this article or pass it around to your friends, unless you really must. And please, no Twitter or Facebook. It’s all quite embarrassing.

Nevertheless, I no longer in good conscience can withhold this information. In the grand tradition of the father of our country, I cannot tell a lie.

I have been — and still am, on occasion, alas — a flip-flopper.

Indeed, if I were to be under subpoena by a House committee and asked the eternal question: “Are you now or have you ever been a flip-flopper?” I would — under penalty of perjury — have no recourse but to answer, “Yes. Yes, Congresswoman Pelosi [or whoever], I have. I have done it many times. Sometimes I just…. change my mind.”

In truth, I have been flip and flopping from a very young age. I had been gobbling M&M’s when I went to Raisinets as my candy of choice. I drifted from Howdy Doody to Captain Video as my favorite television show without so much as notifying the network. I was a highly unreliable fellow, not even faithful to Clarabel.

It went on from there. In junior high school I switched girl friends. And even worse, they switched on me. I went from basketball to tennis as my favorite sport. (Okay, I was too short for the former.)

It was a downhill slide into college where I couldn’t make up my mind between Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and then Balzac and Flaubert, as my favorite author. I even considered changing majors from English to Comp. Lit.

My senior year I flirted with a career in the CIA while, at the same time, participating in anti-bomb demonstrations on campus.

Talk about flip-flopping!

Maybe I should have changed my middle initial from L. to I. Roger Inconsistent Simon.

In my adult life I have been a disgraced muddle of thought. I waffle on everything from preferred cuisine (Japanese or Italian?) to the existence of God.

Which leads, of course, and you knew this was coming, to politics.

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“It’s the economy, stupid,” some dude named Carville once said. He was referring to what was the correct prescription for winning a presidential election — and it’s been gospel ever since.

He’s probably right. Except when it comes to actually being president, it’s something else altogether. “It’s the foreign policy, stupid” — because day one of being POTUS, you, and basically you alone, determine the foreign policy of the United States of America and much of the future and present of humanity.

And that’s not just because you wake up with an intelligence briefing that could make bald men lose their hair or because you are the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful armed forces on Earth with all the life or death decisions that entails or because some unsmiling individual follows you around with the nuclear football, putting Armageddon in your hands.

It’s because — unlike economic policy for which, be it “9-9-9” or the Ryan Plan or anything else, you must get the approval of Congress — in foreign policy the president is king. Technically, the legislature has a lot to do with foreign affairs — they have multiple oversight committees as well as the right to declare war — but by the time they go so far as to meet, the president would have reacted to a dirty nuke in a Minneapolis shopping mall or a terrorist attack on the Port of Los Angeles. Whatever the Congress does in those situations is way behind the curve. The president has already acted. Indeed, he must.

So for that reason I was relieved that foreign affairs finally arrived Saturday night as the subject in the seemingly endless series of Republican debates. I am far more worried about that than I am about the economy. That’s because just about any Republican who gets elected will do some or all of the obvious — cut way back on government spending and regulations and keep taxes to a minimum. He or she will also cancel Obamacare and open the energy spigot. In all probability, the economy will boom.

But no one can predict what will happen in the world at large. That is why I am leery of a president who is a foreign policy novice.

We have seen the results of that with the incumbent. America’s foreign policy has been between non-existent and disastrous during his administration. Our leadership in the world has diminished drastically, probably intentionally, and that is horrendous for the human race.

The examples are myriad (going after Ghaddafi while virtually ignoring the far more dangerous Assad; allowing, even encouraging, the fall of Mubarak leading to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere; playing footsie with increasingly Islamist Turkey; putting undue pressure on Israel and repeatedly disrespecting her prime minister; etc.) but I can’t recall a more despicable behavior by an American president in my lifetime than Barack Obama’s reaction — or should I say non-reaction — to the democracy movement in Iran. Who can forget the brave demonstrators in the streets shouting “Obama, Obama, are you with us or against us?”

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After what feels like the 938th Republican presidential debate, it’s a high time to do the obvious and end this tedious road show now. It only benefits one person — Barack Obama.

We already know (oh, how we know) that Newt Gingrich is the smartest student in the room, that Mitt Romney can look like a president, that Herman Cain was a business success, that Michel Bachmann adopted more kids than Cheaper by the Dozen, that Rick Santorum is a mean self-promoter, that poor Rick Perry is the worst debater since Sally-whatever-her-name-was in the third grade, that Jon Hunstman is a bore and that Ron Paul is, well, Ron Paul.

Do we have to learn this yet again? Do we want to give yet another opportunity to mainstream media hatchet men to further tarnish Republicans before the real election, while serious issues are hardly given an airing.

I think not.

Here’s my suggestion. Bag the rest of the debates.

Santorum, Bachmann, Huntsman, and, alas, Perry should all go home. They have less chance of being president than your Aunt Minnie. I would say the same for Ron Paul, but getting Ron Paul to go home is probably more difficult than colonizing Neptune.

Next, let the three remaining candidates — Romney, Gingrich, Cain — debate each other. They should do this without the media. What do we need them for? To ask questions? What could be more pointless? Why take up meaningless air time?

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