VDH vs. Everybody

Late to the party, I know, especially if you regularly carouse the links of Big Hollywood or Hot Air, but Pajamas Media’s latest from Victor Davis Hanson is a treat for those abandoning pop culture pretension one step at a time. Judging by TV ratings, box office receipts and circulation numbers, VDH isn’t alone. Lets tally it up.

In today’s episode, VDH takes on:

Modern film, George Clooney, Robert Redford, Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, the music industry, Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney, Barack Obama, C-Span, NPR, academic heroism, the NFL, NFL announcers, Bob Costas, the NBA, Major League Baseball, video games, the New York Times, the New York Times columnist lineup, Toni Morison, the Nobel Prize, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, climate hysteria, Kanye West, Michael Moore, Chairman Mao, Van Jones, David Letterman, Dan Rather and Barack Obama.

And in one paragraph,Hanson shows he knows Obama better than most any writer on the right.

Obama is perfect for the age. Like Bush, he had the Ivy-League degrees; unlike Bush he had the pretension that they meant something, even though in his mind the Berlin Airlift, the German language, Auschwitz, World War II, Cordoba, the geography of the U.S., almost anything dealing with history, geography, literature, or well, knowledge in general—well all that is stuff that others less relevant than he learned in college.

And pop culture in general, including the media:

I see the trend of many ignoring the old touchstones of popular entertainment and life as a rejection of establishment culture—a disbelief in, or utter unconcern with, what  elites now offer as valuable on criteria that have nothing to do with merit or value. I was supposed to listen to Dan Rather because Murrow once worked for CBS? I am to go to the Cinema 16 because Hollywood once made Gone With the Wind or On the Waterfront?

Like Michael Crichton’s line from Jurassic Park – they stand on the shoulders and laurels of the giants. Little do they know, those giants are long since dead.

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