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Bush Awards Historian Who Downplayed Abu Ghraib, Said We Need To Bomb ‘Paper Tiger’ Iran

Think Progress
Friday November 16, 2007

In an East Room ceremony this morning, President Bush awarded “the recipients of this year’s National Medals of Arts and National Humanities Medals.” Among the scholars and artists recognized by the President was military historian and author Victor Davis Hanson, who received the National Humanities Medal.

The National Humanities Medal is designed to honor those who “deepen” and “broaden” the humanities in America:

The National Humanities Medal, inaugurated in 1997, honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.

In his presentation of the award, Bush complimented Hanson on his “scholarship” and “wisdom”:

Victor Davis Hanson for his scholarship on civilizations past and present. He has cultivated the fields of history and brought forth an abundant harvest of wisdom for our times.

Hanson, who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a regular contributor to National Review Online, clearly has a long and distinguished career in the humanities as he’s written or edited 16 books and has received various awards.

But, with Bush’s contention that Hanson deserves the award due to the “wisdom for our times” he has offered, it’s important to look at exactly what some of that “wisdom” has been:

- After Donald Rumsfeld was forced to resign last year, Hanson rushed to his defense, saying the resignation doesn’t “help” the “country” because he “was on the right track” at the Pentagon.

- This summer, Hanson wrote that the “real problem” at Abu Ghraib wasn’t the “American mistreatment” — which he said was the work of a “single rogue jailer” — but the “serial release” of Iraqis, whom he calls “Islamic murderers.”

- On the Hugh Hewitt show, he claimed America needs to get “beyond talking” with “paper tiger” Iran and consider “starting to forget where the border is and taking out some of these training camps.”

- He has repeatedly and wrongly predicted that Iraq will be “won or lost” in “the next six months.”

With “wisdom” such as that, it’s surprising that Bush didn’t give the award to Bill Kristol as well.

UPDATE: National Review Online’s Kathryn-Jean Lopez has written three separate posts congratulating Hanson for the award.

UPDATE II: Another National Review contributor, Stephen Balch, also received a National Humanities Medal today.

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