Victor Davis Hanson: Response to Readership, October 2004, complete log

victorhanson.com ^ | October 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

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A sample of questions:

• Since there are strong waves of anti-Semitism in both France and Germany, a “global test” for support of Israel would compromise any support the US currently gives Israel. Would John Kerry use the ruse of a “global test,” to sacrifice our relationship with Israel in order to achieve Kerry's goals of immediate peace, prosperity, and UN ascendancy in the Muslim world?
• What is your take on the ammo dump left unguarded by the U.S. military?
• Has the American Left come out from behind the disguise of liberalism and now made it obvious that they are really socialists and support world?
• If John Kerry is elected do you believe his foreign policy will actually be fairly close to that of the current administration despite what he and his followers may believe because circumstances will demand that he follow the current template?
• Has the women's movement changed today's liberal man to "new" more "feminine" man, who is very unlike the men of the 30's, 40's and 50's?

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More Q&As from this month (November, 2004) http://victorhanson.com/articles/Private%20Papers/Question%20Log/November.html:

Do you think that a Bush/Cheney victory that is anything less than a landslide will result in some sort of civil unrest or riots?

Hanson: No, although everyone from Ms. Edwards to activists in Florida keep saying that. As a student I watched a little unrest on the California campuses as our classes were sometimes charged and disrupted.  I was always struck how, like the Seattle vandalism, most of the violence was committed by white, middle-class, affluent kids—whose names I often now find years later in alumni newsletters doing pretty well in computers, Hollywood, and suing people in big law firms. If farm workers in my hometown or the 101^st Airborne were talking of riots, well, I would pause, but what a millionaire trial lawyer’s spouse, a lawyer herself, says doesn’t mean much. Don’t confuse a few storming the RNC headquarters in Miami or Columbus with a real riot. What we want to avoid is a popular vote/electoral college/Supreme Court fiasco, and I think the odds are that it won’t happen again. The Left has staked its all on this election, in a manner that I have never before witnessed, so its disappointment could be monumental, but I don’t think expressed in real insurrection or riots.

Opponents of President Bush and the war in Iraq frequently point to Iran and Korea as the real threats. What is your response to the voices that say our resources and attentions would have been better spent combating nuclear proliferation?

Hanson: Kerry talks about such things, but in fact we are doing precisely that. The entire region is involved in Korea. We are giving no more fuel and food to prop up a dictatorship. Two points: (1) Iran’s nuclear program, as well as North Korea’s, started under Clinton; (2) Those on the Left, for political purposes, are criticizing Bush from the Right. But should we really do something—blockade North Korea or hit Iran’s nuclear facilities—then those same critics would blast him again from the Left. Iran and North Korea are real problems, but mostly in this election they are used as ways of saying Iraq was a mistake. When Iraq calms down, no one other than Bush will really wish to deal with Iran and North Korea. Just watch.