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'Treated very badly'
In his Oct. 15 column, Victor Davis Hanson decries the use of unnamed sources by authors Tom Ricks and Bob Woodward in their recent books about Iraq. He ignores the reality that government employees who have publicly disagreed, such as Gen. Eric Shinseki, have been treated very badly.
Authors have a strong incentive to be careful with information from unnamed sources because their own credibility is at stake. I suggest Dr. Hanson write a column explaining why the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Iraq policy has not been a fiasco, and why "stay the course" is not a state of denial.
Robert E. Bergin, Fresno
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Resorted to name-calling
Typical of an uninformed liberal, Donald Slinkard [letter Dec. 8] tries to recast Victor Davis Hanson’s column Nov. 29 to fit his own agenda. Dr. Hanson did not “foretell the end of the world” as Mr. Slinkard says. He never mentioned the end of the world. But, why worry about truth when you need to trash someone?
Notice that Mr. Slinkard did not attempt to refute any of Dr. Hanson’s points. That would be too much work. He just called him names, and moved on. This is called the “You’re just a stupid head” argument. Worked great in the third grade, but looks a little silly when proffered by an adult.
Unlike Mr. Slinkard, Dr. Hanson makes his assertion:
“Why the pessimism? In short, we are doing nothing to prepare for the crises to come.”
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Limited scope
Columnist and compulsive writer Victor Davis Hanson deserves caution before revisiting his columns of June 25, "Why Those Democrats Cannot Win," and Sept. 24, "Tortoise, Hare Spin New Tale," since he will likely discover how wrong he was in struggling to make a case for Republican victory on Nov. 7.
His June 25 column closed with, "When Americans get inside the voting booth, they probably will think the envisioned Democratic remedy is worse than the current perceived Republican disease."
His Sept. 24 column closed with, "The result is that Bush, tucked into his shell, keeps lumbering forward, grim faced -- resisting withdrawal from Iraq and warning against Islamic fascism. And the more the Democratic hares yawn and snore -- the more this unfazed turtle keeps moving toward the November elections."
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Hanson rewrites history
Victor Davis Hanson’s column Dec. 20 is a disgrace! It is a blatant attempt to rewrite the sad historical facts of one of the reasons we went to war in Iraq. Dr. Hanson knows the truth but chooses to ignore it and continues to perpetrate the lies of the Bush administration.
The Bush/Cheney administration planned to invade Iraq in the Spring of 2001, (pre 9/11), and privatize its oil fields, thereby eliminating foreign oil companies that were already positioned to develop Iraqi oil.
Had Bush/Cheney allowed the U.N. sanctions to work, the U.S. oil industry would have been totally out of business in Iraq! In an unprecedented move, the National Security Council’s war plans for Iraq were clearly melded with the Cheney Energy Task Force objective of capturing existing and potential oil fields.
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Sanctimonious rhetoric
In his Oct. 22 column, Victor Davis Hanson asks "What sends liberal criticism [of President Bush] over the edge into pathological hysteria?" Without agreeing to the "pathological hysteria" part of the question, I'll offer an answer: What disturbs us about President Bush is that he is never in doubt but frequently wrong. The same is true of Dr. Hanson himself.
Moreover, Dr. Hanson, who professes to be a classicist, violates all the rules of classical rhetoric, the purpose of which is not to insult one's opponents, nor even to "win" the argument, but to discover the truth or to find a reasonable solution to a problem.
Hyperbolic, loaded and insulting terms like "pathological hysteria," "unhinged billionaire leftist philanthropists," "left-wing savagery," and "feral Democrats" hardly further civil discourse. Characterizing Rep. John Murtha as "crotchety" does not demonstrate that Rep. Murtha's opinions are less worthy of consideration than Dr. Hanson's. Name-calling, ad hominem slurs, begging the question
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