Talk:Victor Davis Hanson

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Contents

[edit] Earliest talk

Could Victor Davis Hanson be described as a neoconservative, given his enthusiasm for imperialism and antipathy towards the Islamic world? GCarty 13:11, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

While the clause

and is thus often quoted on warblogs such as Little Green Footballs

has an offensive PoV ring to it, my reason for removing it that there is no reason to suppose it is anything but gratuitous. How 'bout a reason why it matters that he is quoted one particular place -- or for that matter, anywhere that agrees with him? As it says, "thus he is quoted" by those which could just as well be "as any fool can imagine w/o WP's help, he is quoted"...! --Jerzy (t) 23:46, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Many people think he's racist, which is obvious if you read the drivel he writes. Would you like references to his racist BS? Or can you do a google search? Maybe you can tell us why he isn't racist. 64.231.195.127 14:31, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

-Why don't you give some quotes which you think show that Hanson is racist? That is, if you can find any. Just to remind you, any quote which is critical of Islam is not racist as Islamics come from a variety of ethnic groups (Bosnian, Arab, African, South Asian). Criticism of any group (which Hanson has done with Islam) is not hatred, but showing the ways a group needs to improve. Also, since when are people considered racist before being proven otherwise? People are innocent until proven guilty, not vice versa. Iceberg007 20:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just for the record...

I didn't write the racist and Islamophobic parts, I just bracketed them to make links. I don't doubt that some people have probably accused Hanson of racism or Islamophobia, but it's a hard case to make, especially the racism part. He routinely extols the virtues of an integrated military, interracial and inter-ethnic marriage and the destruction of slavery -- even at the cost of destroying Southern rail and industry and burning Atlanta, all of which he regards as nessecary. Usually a racist would oppose all of the above (although a non-racist Atlantan might be understandably ticked about his city being burned). --Jpbrenna 00:20, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Just for the record: I knew you didn't write that part. Kevin Myers 03:38, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
Just for the record: I really botched the spelling of neccesary. I guess I was typing too fast. Jpbrenna 04:59, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
Just for the record: I'm usually stumped by "seige" and "sieze" and "siege" and "seize". Kevin Myers 05:28, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
Have you ever read any of his articles? They're pure hate propaganda. so what if he likes blacks or latinos? There are other forms of racism. 65.95.143.133 00:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
To the anonymous poster: have you ever thought of starting an account here? Yes, I have read his articles. Have you? Try reading some again. They aren't "pure hate propaganda." Stop making broad statements with nothing to back them up.--Jpbrenna 00:51, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Oh, really? See The Fruits of Appeasement or Abu Ghraib or Why the Muslims Misjudged Us. The guy is comparing arabs to nazis! Have you ever read these? or are you running your mouth with ignorant nonsense? And if you don't think these articles are racist, you're one sorry kid. 64.231.192.180 18:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
In the first, he's not so much comparing Arabs to Nazis, he's comparing American and Western European governments and what he regards as their ignoring of a growing terrorist threat to the English and French appeasers of Hitler and the Athenian appeasers of Philip of Macedon -- not quite the same thing as being a racist. He has many unkind things to say about the regimes in Arab and Muslim countries and what he views as serious flaws in the political culture in much of the Arab world, but he says nothing about Arabs as a people being somehow inherently inferior to any other people. Notions of race don't even enter into it. I don't see any evidence that Hanson regards Arabs as anything other than a cultural-linguistic group. Does he make any statements about Arabs as a biological "race" possessing certain characteristics that make them inferior to people of other "races?"
My only criticism of the article is not what he says about Arabs, but what he says about Wahhabism. (He should probably read Salafi#Salafi_vs._Wahabi_vs._Qutubi). I'll have to take some time to read the other articles you've linked to before I respond regarding them. Who knows, maybe Hanson has said something flagrantly racist that I haven't read yet -- but I doubt it. In any case, there is a rule here about Wikipedia:No Original Research. Is there anyone else besides you who has called Hanson a racist and made a compelling case for it? If so, please quote them -- I will welcome it. But putting in "some have said Hanson is a racist SOB and everybody knows it's true" isn't going to cut it. And this isn't Newsweek. If you have an anonymous source whose life would be endangered if he crossed VDF, then maybe we can e-mail Jimbo Wales and get a dispensation from the policy. Barring that, you need to have the Who said What, When, Where and Why they believe it to be true. If there are multiple people who have the same criticism, you don't need to list them all, but you would want to say something like "Many critics, notably John Q. Smith..." etc.
And please, think about getting an account if you're going to do this much editing here. Jpbrenna 19:23, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Last Part is Still Missing....

The long diatribe that ended with accusations about "...the Jews running Wikipedia..." isn't here --- the anonymous coward has succeeded in erasing his tracks.--Jpbrenna 07:20, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

It's still in the history, if anyone wants to retrieve it. The rant does have an interesting connection to this article: Hanson has written (as have others) that antipathy towards neo-conservatives is often rooted in anti-Semitism. I've thought that Hanson has sometimes overstated this, but the aforementioned diatribe certainly supports Hanson's point. --Kevin Myers 04:55, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
He practically calls all Middle Easterners as "terrorists" and "parasites on western civilization". He claims that bin Laden is "often canonized" in the Arab world. How does he know? Has he even been there? FYI, I'm from "there" and bin Laden is not "canonized" or "glorified". He says that Arabs "so far expressed less collective outrage in its media when the charred corpses of four Americans were poked and dismembered by cheering crowds in Fallujah. The taped murder of Daniel Pearl or a video of the hooded Italian who had his brains blown out -- this is the daily fare that emanates now from the television studios of the Middle East." i.e. he's using a few incidents to label all Middle Easterners as blood thirsty savages. Never mind that americans are guilty of atrocities millions of times worse than a couple of beheadings or one lynching incident. Or how about this: "The papers that now allege war crimes are the same state-controlled and censored media that print gleeful accounts of death and desecration of Westerners and promulgate an institutionalized anti-Semitism not seen since the Third Reich." No, bubba, the Arab media does not "glorify" and "cheer" the death of westerners, and it's despicable that he compares Arab media with Nazi propaganda. However, many americans, and many american media and even politicians and military leaders gloat over the killing of so-called "terrorists", labelling carpet bombing of civilians as a "great success". Or this "terrorist cabals that could not exist without at least the tacit support of thousands in the Arab street." So "thousands" of Arabs are "terrorist supporters"? How does he know that? I don't assume he did a poll. You think he never implied Arab/Muslim inferiority to "the west"? So, what is this: "Two striking themes—one overt, one implied—characterize most Arab invective: first, there is some sort of equivalence—political, cultural, and military—between the West and the Muslim world; and second, America has been exceptionally unkind toward the Middle East. Both premises are false and reveal that the temple of anti-Americanism is supported by pillars of utter ignorance." How about "Muslim intellectuals have railed these past few months about the creation of Israel half a century ago, and they have sat either silent or amused while the mob in their streets chants in praise of a mass murderer". What "mass murderer"? He and his american buddies regularly chant in praise of Bush. Are americans also, by his own definition, "medieval barbarians"? He gloats that "Out of politeness, we needn’t crow over the relative military capability of 1 billion Muslims and 300 million Americans". Great, so now america's "evil" enemies are the entire muslim population of the planet. Not sure if that includes Muslim US citizens, or if they are "civilized" in his view. He says that "we remember the Palestinians cheering in Nablus hours after thousands of our innocents were incinerated in New York". But that never happened. It's a myth, designed to inflame hatred and bigotry. But, there were celebrations in america when your army invaded afghanistan and iraq, carpet bombing their way in, slaughtering thousands of civilians. "Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti Westernized elites find psychological comfort in their people’s anti-American rhetoric, not out of real grievance but perhaps as reassurance that their own appetite for all things Western doesn’t constitute rejection of their medieval religion or their thirteenth-century caliphate." So their religion is "medieval" and they have a "caliphate"? Actually, the last "caliphate" was the ottoman empire during WWI. And this is my favourite: "For all the frothing, it seems that millions of our purported enemies wish to visit, study, or (better yet) live in the United States—and this is true not just of Westernized professors or globe-trotting tycoons but of hijackers, terrorists, the children of the Taliban, the offspring of Iranian mullahs, and the spoiled teenage brats of our Gulf critics. The terrorists visited lap dancers, took out frequent-flier miles, spent hours on the Internet, had cell phones strapped to their hips, and hobnobbed in Las Vegas—parasitic on a culture not their own, fascinated with toys they could not make, and always ashamed that their lusts grew more than they could be satisfied. Until September 11, their ilk had been like fleas on a lazy, plump dog, gnashing their tiny proboscises to gain bloody nourishment or inflict small welts on a distracted host who found them not worth the scratch." And the last bit: "we have long shown patience with those who hate us, and more curiosity than real anger. But that was then, and this is now. A two-kiloton explosion that incinerated thousands of our citizens—planned by Middle Easterners with the indirect financial support of purportedly allied governments, the applause of millions, and the snickering and smiles of millions more—has had an effect that grows not wanes." So millions of muslims were snickering and smiling on 9/11? How does he know? Did he see them? Or did they tell him? I think not. Last but not least: "America has been a friend more often than not to you. But now you are on the verge of turning its people—who create, not follow, government—into an enemy: a very angry and powerful enemy that may be yours for a long, long time to come." Wow, a direct threat of mass genocide and slaughter of muslims if they do not support america.
So, then, sunshine, care to explain how this is not hate propaganda? If he said the 1/100 of that stuff about jews or americans, you'd be screaming "anti semitism" or "anti americanism". As for linking to other criticism, I would have hoped you'd be smart enough to realize that the internet (especially in english), like most media, including this so-called "encyclopedia", is dominated by either jews or rich white americans. Would you expect any even handed information from these sources? Do a search, about Hanson or any other topic, and you'd find all sorts of US/Israeli propaganda, but hardly any POV of the "evil other" side, be it arab, muslim, socialist, pro-chavez, pro-mugabe, or pro-castro. 65.95.156.181 17:24, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Here it is in all of it's dreadfulness. Please note that I'm appalled by blatant Anti-Semitism that being expressed here, but I thought I spare any future vistors the trouble of having to dig it out and to let who ever it was who wrote stand by his words. He erased it, which is a tacit admission that he said was in the wrong.

Since I'm on the subject of VDH, how about a compromise solution to the so-called racism question. Let's say that Dr. Hanson is not a racist and is opposed to racism, but he does believe in what he regards as the superiority of Western civilization in bringing the greatest happiness to the greatest numbers and in winning wars. I think that's a fair summary of Dr. Hanson believes. A.S. Brown 05:19, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Racist no, Islamophobe yes. Another point of VDH's belief system which many may find controversial is the value of humiliating the enemy in war - (for example) that it was the humiliation of Germany after World War II (and not fear of Soviet vengeance) that caused Germans to support the Western Allies post-war. GCarty 15:12, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So Islamophobia is not racism? Then neither is anti-semitism. And yeah, this VDH guy seems a despicable fascist and Islamophobe calling for an all out war of civilizations. And we all know how courageous it is to call for war from a comfortable air conditioned office in America without having to kill or be killed yourself.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.71.3.185 (talk • contribs) 14:27, 23 March 2006 UTC.
Errrrr... Islam is not a race. Jews are a race. So Islamophobia is religion-ism (new word needed), not racism; while anti-semitism (nee Judenhass, i.e., Jew-hatred) is racism. This off-topic message comes to you from your friendly neighbourhood pedant, Chris Chittleborough 15:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I saw a brief book in the classics section of my university library that was critical of some of Hanson's and Kagan's views, written by a professor of classics at Berkely - I believe. I'll try to dig it up on my next trip to the library. I didn't agree with most of what I read, but it was presented in a civil, scholarly manner, not ranting as above. --Jpbrenna 21:20, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotecting

No ongoing discussion. Unprotecting. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:51, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I hadn't even realized it was protected! I was the one who nominated it. This article does need some work. Hopefully people will provide sourced criticisms of Hanson instead of reposting the same POV stock phrases over and over.--Jpbrenna 00:36, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't find it --- not in a catalog search and not in a physical inspection of the classics section. I know I saw the book once. They are expanding the library and moving parts of the collection around, so maybe it's in a box somewhere. If anybody else can find a copy of the work, go ahead and post. I'll keep my eye out for it as well. --Jpbrenna 18:03, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Western Way of War

There is too much on this page regarding Hansons political views and his stance towards recent events. More attention should be paid to his role as a scholar, particularly the publishing of The Western Way of War which was revolutionary in the study of ancient Greek warfare. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.234.142.73 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 17 July 2005 UTC.

[edit] Hanson edits

Valid opposing viewpoints of Hanson based on facts should not be censored and deleted. This censorship is a gross perversion of the spirit of Wikipedia! Valid cites have been made. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.248.123.78 (talk • contribs) 04:28, 25 August 2005 UTC.

No they haven't. Which C-SPAN interview? Not the one linked to below, which aired in 2005. And who did the "accusing" in the 2003 interview (which you cite, but don't give in the sources section below). Was it Brian Lamb, or was it an anonymous caller on a call-in show? As for the La Raza article, which one? What publication? Was it from the National Council of La Raza, or an affiliated local group or community center with its own newsletter? Single author or corporately authored? Is it available online at http://www.nclr.org/? We need the info, including page numbers if applicable. It's easiest if you select the appropriate template, copy/paste it, and then fill in the info. --Jpbrenna 05:12, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] SPAM for folks who like VDH

Just a note, for people concerned with the recent influx of apologetics and idiotarian POV into wikipedia. May I present User:Klonimus/AINB which is notice board dedicated to NPOV and encyclopedic Wikipedia. Klonimus 06:27, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

The image was removed and deleted at the request of Craig M. Eisenberg, who owns the copyright and did not give permission for its use. Please don't upload images you don't personally own. --Tony SidawayTalk 16:50, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of Military Service

Deleting line about criticism of VDH's lack of military service. This appears to be based on an ad hominem attack. Only substantive criticism of VDH's scholarly work (or political opinions) is appropriate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.212.153.241 (talk • contribs) 18:00, 7 November 2005 UTC.

It is not an ad hominem attack. It is the accurate statement of a fact which may or may not reflect hypocrisy in his support of the Iraq War —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.187.229.205 (talk • contribs) 03:39, 28 December 2005 UTC.

I believe the following makes inclusion of this factoid unnecessary:
  1. His or his family's military service or lack thereof does not allow or disallow him from forming opinions.
  2. His lack of military service is evident from his biographical information.
  3. He's 56. He's hasn't been eligible for military service for two decades. (Sorry, he appears to be 52. Mike Wilson 04:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC))
  4. The statement reeks of political slant.
-- Mike Wilson 04:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
His namesake was killed at Okinawa. Maybe he himself never served, but his family obviously knows the human cost of war very well.--Jpbrenna 19:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

To you the statement reeks of political slant because you are embarrassed by it and want to sweep it under the rug. Many of us with family nmembers on the ground in Iraq find it significant. He is free to express his view of the Iraq War and we are free to decide what weight to give that opinion in light of his family staying out of that war. The fact that World War II was obviously an essential and well fought war is exactly what distinguishes it from the current war, along with the fact that it was waged against nations who had already declared war on us. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.171.224.83 (talk • contribs) 01:31 29 December 2005 UTC.

You seem sincere in finding it significant. I sincerely find it irrelevant. Since you seem like someone with boundless zeal, I'd like to hope for a compromise, although I can't speak for anyone else. First of all, you will need to find a solid reference confirming your assertion as per WP:CITE and WP:V. Then maybe some sort of line at the end of the paragraph can acknowledge the tenacity of his critics and their view of his credibility? I tried to think of an example, but they all sounded lame to me. Or maybe others have an alternative? -- Mike Wilson 04:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nice rebuttal

[1] in response to [2]

"...extreme rhetoric of the antiwar Left... antiwar = anti-Semitism... "lunatic Left"... "fundamentalists and censors"... "half-truths, spin, and conspiracy theories"..."

It's just hillarious -- he's like that the whole way through, with hate speech in every word. But the reason I mention it here was that he didn't rebut "Gary Brecher", he merely launched a bad (ad-hominem we call it?) counterattack, drawing peoples' attention to all the things about Brecher that he thinks are bad (e.g cheering for 9/11)

  • There was no rebuttal to the argument about Hanson's farm being welfare state socialism while publically claiming to support private enterprise
  • There was no rebuttal to the claim that Hanson's analysis of the first gulf war was uninformed
  • There was no rebuttal to the claims of inaccuracy in Hanson's coverage of the second gulf war, (eg. "no attack on the Sunni Triangle")
  • There was no rebuttal to the claim that Hanson's comparison of Iraq and Malaya was misleading
  • There's not even a rebuttal to "what Hanson and morons like him won't admit is that short of genocide, there is no military solution to urban guerrilla warfare" -- presumably as a pro-war military expert who's keen to take the US into Iraq, Hanson is claiming that he does have a solution to urban guerrilla warfare?

So it's a bit oddd to list that article as a reply or rebuttal, when it' just a load of personal attacks. "yeah, well anyone who criticizes me is a loony, nyeh!!!" Ojw 13:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the text about VDH's 26Aug2005 NRO essay from the Brecher link, and inserted a mention of Brecher in the description of that NRO essay. Now the essay is only mentioned once; much better. For more detail, see my talk page. —Chris Chittleborough 15:56, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes made 25-Mar-2006

I've edited the Iraq War section:

  • I say VDH is not "pro-war" re the Middle-East, just hawkish.
  • He sees bad Arab and Iranian autocracies (not the Arabs and Iranians themselves!) as the main cause of (1) fundamentalist Islamic terrorism and (2) the "backwardness" (my word) of Iran and most Arab nations
I phrased (2) as "retarded economic, technological and cultural progress" only because I can't think of a good way to express it. Edits welcome!
  • I've added no less that 5 {{citeneeded}} tags, asking for
1. link(s) to someone calling him neoconservative
(Update: it took a lot of googling but I found one and added it in. Chris Chittleborough 15:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC))
2. link(s) to him discussing whether he is neoconservative
3. link(s) to him blaming autocratic Middle East governments for "backwardness"
4. link(s) to him blaming autocratic Middle East governments for terrorism
5. link(s) to critics calling him racist and islamophobic
#1 and #2 here should probably be moved somewhere else in the article.
I'll look for citations for #3 and #4.
I'll let someone else look for citation(s) for #5. I'll delete this sentence in a month or so if no good citations for it have been added. (Every public figure who supports the defeat of Saddam and the terrorists in Iraq has been called racist and Islamaphobic. Accusations like this only deserve inclusion in articles if made by notable people or in notable circumstances or as part of a notable public debate or in a notable manner or if notable for some other reason.)

I've also edited the intro para to say what kind of grapes he grows. We farm kids care about such details ;-)

As always, feel free to WP:BOLDly improve my work!

—Chris Chittleborough 04:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Those external links

We seem to be having an "edit kerfuffle" over two external links. (It does not rise to the level of an edit war, IMO.) I thought I'd try to start a discussion of them here. Cheers, CWC(talk) 03:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

http://www.taemag.org/issues/articleID.17004/article_detail.asp

Two essays about George Washington, one by Richard Brookhiser, the other by Bruce S. Thornton and VDH, from 1999.

I don't see why this link belongs in an article about Prof. Hanson. CWC(talk) 03:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/1/hanson.htm

"Military Technology and American Culture", an essay for the first issue of The New Altantis, published Spring 2003.

Strikes me as a useful summary of many of VDH's works. (Parts are quite prophetic.) If someone asked me for one essay to see what VDH says about modern military affairs, I'd send them to this one. (This is not the conclusion I expected to reach. Darn.) CWC(talk) 03:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The article from The New Atlantis can't go here as User:CNicol is affiliated with the magazine, making her addition linkspam. As for the other, I don't think we need to link to VDH's individual articles. Wikipedia is not a link directory. CRCulver 10:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The lede

I've just edited the lede to say that VDH is a former classics professor, as explained just a few paragraphs below.

Here's the resulting lede, with added color:

Victor Davis Hanson (born 1953 in Fowler, California of Swedish descent) is a military historian, political essayist and former Classics professor, best known as a scholar of ancient warfare as well as a commentator on modern warfare. He is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism.

I think the text in red are superfluous and should be deleted. What do other editors think? Cheers, CWC(talk) 01:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Environmental factors

He also disagrees with environmental explanations, as put forth by authors such as Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel.

I don't want to step into 'Original Research' territory, but I wonder where this has come from? Did VDH himself explicitly criticise Diamond's idea? Or is it an assumption by whoever wrote that?

The reason I mention it is that - if my understanding is correct - Diamond's view is not necessarily in conflict with VDH. In Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamond acknowledges that cultural differences can have an impact on the relative development of different societies. But he argues that this doesn't explain how different peoples came to have different cultures in the first place. So he's talking about influences further back than VDH. You could reconcile the two views, I think, unless VDH has actually said somewhere that he doesn't agree with Diamond. I didn't see a reference for that. --DudeGalea 21:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

VDH reviewed Diamond's book "Collapse" (and also mentions "Guns, Germs and Steel") here. He definitely does not agree with Diamond. Nathanm mn 02:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I just came here to add a note that VDH's latest post contains a long argument against Diamond. And then I saw that you'd added yours a few days ago. I agree, that settles it. --DudeGalea 09:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry about resurrecting this, but in Carnage and Culture, Hanson does address Diamond's work, however, I don't have my copy near.--Mtnerd 22:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why delete this important stuff?

"Since VD Hanson is a well paid college professor and smooth talking Neo-conservative mouthpiece, he does not mind having other American families' children fight and die in Iraq for his Imperialist ambitions."

The guy reads a few books on Ancient Greece and has delusions of pedantry. He thinks his the next Plato from Star Trek or something. Give me a friggin break. He should get his behind to Iraq and stay there for a while (ie 5-10 years in Ramadi) if he wants to make a difference. Same with all those other Neocons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.111.119.60 (talk • contribs) 06:35, 20 November 2006 UTC.

[edit] names in prose

Unless this person usually goes by or is referred to as "Victor Davis Hanson" or "VDH", it seems inappropriate to continually use all three names in reference to him in the article. Consider somebody like Lisa Marie Presley, who is frequently referred to by all three names, somebody like Michael Jackson, who is frequently referred to with the surname and first name, and Madonna, who is commonly referred to by only her first name. We don't refer to LMP as "Lisa Marie" or "presley,' nor Lisa Presley. Continuing, we don't refer to Michael Jackson as "Jackson" or "Michael", and certainly not "Michael Joseph Jackson". Lastly, we don't refer to Madonna as "Madonna Ciccone" or "Madonna Louise." I don't think I need to give additional examples (don't get me started on Alexander Siddig). Anyways, I have removed a couple instances where people had used the term "VDH" to refer to him. In American English, it is common to use somebody's last name to refer to them when it is obvious who one is referring to. So in the article, "Hanson" should be fine. I think our readers are smart enough to figure out who the name references. ... aa:talk 22:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It's clear from Victor Hansons blog entry regarding himself and Mark Steyn, that he is saying that they are the only two left, as in pundits. Mark Steyn is clearly not a NeoConservative and Hanson who had objected to the 1998 letter from the NeoConservatives to president is not one either, as he's said here and elsewhere. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.97.41.12 (talk • contribs) 07:47, 17 December 2006 UTC.


[edit] Neoconservative revisited

I added Hanson's own reference to himself as a neoconservative. Its been a while since I've used my wiki account and cannot remember my account name. In any case, here is the relevant part of the reference that I cited:

"But it is not just Leftists who are getting what they wished for, but a lot of the neoconservatives as well. It may be that true, as one pundit wrote, that Mark Steyn and myself are about the only two left that both support the war—despite the mistakes—and Rumsfeld in general."

His easy use of the term neoconservative contradicts the previous citation that he considered it a slur, and his applying it to himself (not contradicting the "pundit" he cites) makes it look like he is actually rather proud of the designation, or at the very least comfortable with it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.97.41.12 (talk • contribs) 07:47, 17 December 2006 UTC.

[edit] Hack

The guy's basically a hack: his recent work on the Pelaponnesian Wars was rambling at best, a masterpiece of cognitive dissonance at worst. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.222.67.237 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

On the other hand, you are obviously an absolute genius. As can clearly been seen how you spell "Peloponnesian"
And brave too. The way you dare post anonymously slander. Rune X2 20:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV template

The NPOV template strongly suggested there were POV problems with this article, but none were apparent when I read it, so I looked into the article history to see what I could discover about who added it and why.

{{POV|November 2006}} was added over two months ago (11:19, 20 November 2006 UTC) by 71.111.119.60 (talk) (contribs), who was blocked the next day for vandalism, and blocked again two days after that for evading the block as 71.111.115.155 (talk) (contribs).

Judging the encyclopedic health of the article to be good, and the source of the tag to be spurious (in the extreme ;-D), I have removed it. — Athænara ✉ 00:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

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