I’d be thrilled with either Mitt Romney or Rudolph Giuliani as the next president.
I’ve always admired the classicist Victor Davis Hanson (a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute) but his thinking showed up flabby and shallow on Dennis Prager’s show Wednesday.
Dr. Hanson is a big booster of John McCain.
Dennis began: "I don’t know if you got to see my piece on Giuliani and McCain…"
I can’t think of any major thinker who so routinely interrupts his interviews to inquire if the guest had read or been acquainted with Prager’s positions.
Victor: "My gut sense is that McCain is more likely to capture independent voters…"
"We’re applying a standard to all these candidates that Reagen would not meet. One of the most shameful episodes in our history was selling arms to Iran…"
Dennis: "Why do you feel that was shameful?"
Victor: "Because Iran was a terorrist-sponsoring state and we were giving defacto legitimacy to it by even dealing with it…while they were torturing Americans through their surrogates in Lebanon."
Dennis: "I’ve always defended it in that it provided the opportunity for two loathsome regimes to continue to fight [Iran and Iraq]."
Victor: "In theory it was but if that had been true, then we might’ve been more overt with… That time was closer to the Iran hostage fiasco, we were publicly condemning Iran and flagging ships in the Gulf while we were simultaneously selling them some of the most sophisticated arms in our arsenal."
And what about our support for Joe Stalin in WWII? Reality is difficult and sometimes you have to do things in a sneaky way.
Dennis says that on domestic issues, McCain is not a Republican. Hanson agrees that McCain is weak on illegal immigration and that he opposed Bush’s tax cuts.
Hanson: "I’m worried about who will be a strong leader in the war against terror."
There’s no war against terror. Terror is just a technique. We’re in a war with those parts of Islam that want to murder us.
Dennis: "A strong foreign policy while your country continues to erode internally…"
Hanson admits that McCain is no lock to appoint conservative justices.
Dennis says about Obama: "His changing accents depending on location is troubling."
Strike "location" and replace with "race of his audience."
Dennis is no fan of Tom Brokaw. I’ve heard him say that "Tom Brokaw is not a particularly bright man."
Prager plays a clip of Brokaw on Joe Scarborough’s show on MSNBC: "This election is about ending polarization. This election is about moving on with solutions… This election is about the end of dogma."
Dennis: "I hate insulting people. This has nothing to do with Tom Brokaw, only about his words. They are not real."
"This is the new way of getting you to vote against the Republicans and anybody who thinks like George W. Bush. We have to have unity. Of course the unity folks are all left of center. They’re saying that all division in this country is caused by the Right. But if you all come to the Left, we’ll have unity and no more polarization."
"Do you know how vapid this all this? I can’t handle such colossal superficiality. Solutions to what? What election in the history of democracy was not about solutions?
"The end of dogma. What about the dogma that the races are equal? That’s dogma. There’s good dogma and bad dogma. Calling for an end to dogma and polarization? What does that mean? Who do you not want to be polarized against? Are we polarized against racists? I would hope so."
