Victor Davis Hanson

Once again, it's Friday and time for another excellent essay by Victor Davis Hanson bq. Better or Worse? Should we believe the gloom of the Democrats? bq. Thematic in the Democratic primary campaign is that the United States is worse off now than it was before the invasion of Iraq. The harangues from some of the candidates have been quite unbelievable: Saddam Hussein's capture did little to improve our security; we cannot prejudge bin Laden's guilt; we are less safe than ever before and hated to boot; and so on. bq. The proposed alternatives from those who either once voted for or supported the war are equally surreal. We should have just indicted and arrested Saddam Hussein (via the FBI or Interpol?); or withdrawn from Iraq at the end of the year (Vietnam-style with helicopters on the embassy roof?); or allowed the U.N. to take over (along the lines of its 1993-99 triumph in the Balkans?); or involved the Europeans (who announce they may send troops in the future after the U.S. has won both the war and peace � and oil concessions need to be re-allotted). bq. Elder statesmen like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore are perhaps even more strident in their calumny. They swear the Iraq campaign was "cooked up" in Texas and that it ranks among the "worst" foreign policy disasters in American history. Indeed, poor former Vice President Gore has transmogrified in just a few months from a senior statesman who once took apart Ross Perot on live television into a caricature of a hand-waving, out-of-control Perot himself. Senator Kennedy's fuming is simply more Chomskyite than Democratic. bq. And what has happened to General Clark? His once judicious observations of two years ago have become unhinged, and now make Curtis Le May seem circumspect by comparison. Democrats wanted a sober George Marshall on the campaign trail; instead Americans are beginning to witness an embittered, conspiracy-obsessed Maj. General Smedley Butler come alive � endorsed by the slander-spouting Michael Moore instead of respected peers like General Schwarzkopf.