It is quite good... and the questions he asks seem to be of a kind with the ones being asked by Tom Junod some weeks ago.

He makes excellent points. I guess childhood is as good a term as any to describe what many have entered. Me, I view those people as having entered some type of Bizarro land.

It's gotten to the point when I read about an event or a statement someone has made, that I'm not sure if I'm reading 'The Onion' or 'The NY Times'.

I particularly liked:

"And who would have thought that Vietnam would become the source for Democratic nostalgia, rather than the usual recrimination?"

This has to be one of THE most bizarre turn of events I've witnessed in a long time. I half expected Jane Fonda to join Kerry on stage and speak positively about the Vietnam War. Kerry has wrapped himself in his medals and the honor of fighting in Vietnam. Of course, this is a war he denounced when he returned home.

I'm not sure when Vietnam became, for Kerry, something to be proud of.

What an infuriating column!

While on the one hand I agree that we have become soft, and so easily distractable, and need to stay the difficult course on the fight against terrorism.... on the other hand, there is so much nonsense in his article!

Take this bit:
"The modern Left was created on the premise that Vietnam was both a strategic mistake and a moral catastrophe — and now has come full circle in praising men like John Kerry, Max Cleland, and Wesley Clark for their combat service. Are they heroes of a noble cause that to win deserved more support at home? Are they tragic fighters whose bravery was not properly appreciated? Or are they participants in what John Kerry once assured the American people was an illegal war in which soldiers routinely committed war atrocities? All or none?"

The answers are no, yes, and yes. Not all or none. (Why would it be?) One of the biggest tragedies of the Vietnam War was what happened to the soldiers returning home. America had never been through an unpopular war, and too many anti-war people vented their anger at the administration on the soldiers returning home. (Note that I say "anti-war people" and not the Left - it is a canard that everybody who was against the war was on the left!! Plenty of centrists and even people on the right thought it was a bad war.)

But America has learned its lesson from that terrible time, and people opposed to recent military actions - be it Gulf Storm, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, or Iraq - have been careful to support the troops even as they opposed what the troops were being ordered to do. So it is by no means schizophrenic for the Democrats to celebrate Kerry's bravery even while they still think the Vietnam War itself was bad.

It makes me angry that people can be so stupid as to think that if our president leads us into a war, America should become essentially a dictatorship and no one should dissent or criticize the fact of the war or its handling. That attitude is frightening and VERY unamerican. Bringing us into a war does not make a president god-like and infalliable.

And then there is this bit:
"THE WAR MADE IT WORSE FOR US?
This is a favorite canard of New York Times and Washington Post columnists who resent the inconvenience of security measures in their digs, and the attention such vigilance diverts from Mr. Kerry's message. This story I think runs something like this. After 9/11, instead of pursuing the culprits through the proper domain of law enforcement, Mr. Bush embarked on two wars. Thus, we are now plagued with a series of terror alerts in a manner that did not follow the first World Trade Center bombing of 1993. Then rightly we indicted the culprits, arrested them, put them on trial — and went back to our afternoon nap."

Again, this if full of canards. Reasonable critics on the left (RCL) did not criticize the administration about taking out the Taliban. RCL have criticized the way the war in Afghanistan has been handled, saying we relied far too much on local Afghani and Pakistani troops, and that our follow-up has been lousy. RCL have been saying that we cannot afford a failed Afghanistan, and we are heading directly for that. RCL have been saying exactly that Bush has NOT stayed the course there, and instead has become distracted with that Iraq business instead of finishing what it started in the home of al-Qaida.

RCL have criticized Bush not only for leading us to war against Iraq, but also about the manner in which he led us into the war, and the way he has conducted the war. RCL have made the point that Iraq is now a breeding ground for terrorists and a magnet for the mujahadeen in a way it never was under Saddam.

RCL have not said that because we have fought terrorism, we have brought more terrorism upon ourselves. RCL have not been whiney about measures to protect our subways, buildings, cities and towns from terrorist attack.

For this bonehead to say that RCL think: "Then rightly we indicted the culprits, arrested them, put them on trial — and went back to our afternoon nap" Well this is like asking someone who is not having an affair: "Does your wife know you are having an affair?"

America did not "go back to sleep" after the 1993 attacks, but, as we heard over and over during the 9/11 commission hearings, the Clinton and then the Bush administration did what they could to track and shut down al Qaida, within the boundaries of what was politically possible. And no RCL would say that we should have "gone to back to sleep" after 9/11 anyway.

Oh this column made me so angry! What a bunch of canards mixed up with truth! I could go on and on even more than I have, but that would get boring for you.

Bill, why do you praise this kind of mischaracterization and sloppy thinking? I thought much more highly of you!!

Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease.

Twisted. We have far more to fear when we no longer question our leaders than when we decide to simply accept their agendas carte blanche. I question the honesty of both parties at this juncture...both are saying (i.e. lying/misleading) whatever it takes in order to win at the polls. I would prefer a good dose of honesty and a lot less crap. Please find balanced commentary to share instead of this fairy tale crap. Hanson's commentary is so filled with half-truths and revisionist history that one could spend hours sifting through the BS.

Odd. It is quite coincidental that those he characterizes as immature do not share his political persuasion.

On the matter of the illegal Mexicans sending $12 billion back home, how much would Mexico benefit if they were not exploited, but paid more than starvation wages?