Victor Davis Hanson. Victor Davis Hanson. There are times when I read Victor Davis Hanson, sigh, and think, "Why do I bother writing, when guys like this are out there?"

September 11 in so many ways has turned the world upside down. Domestic politics and ideology are no exception. Mr. Bush and his conservatives now have a rare opportunity to seize the day and capture the admiration of all those who aspire for freedom and security. Liberal Jews are increasingly bewildered by the academy's venom against Israel and the Left's apparent tolerance of outright murder of Israeli women and children. The multiculturalists have already proven themselves ethically bankrupt — unsure whether it is abjectly wrong or just "different" to conduct female mutilation in the Sudan, chop off arms in Saudi Arabia, teach hatred in Pakistan madrassas, or reprint Mein Kampf on the West Bank. Our own Arabists in the universities and governments seem more intent on protecting the status quo in the Middle East than showing any concern for the millions of unfree citizens of the Arab world. On cue they apologize for Egyptian strongmen or Saudi royals — seemingly oblivious that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are not necessarily nice places precisely because of the way they treat their own Arabs. Ask any Arabist about gender apartheid or polygamy in the Islamic world and he will be likely to retort with a contorted exegesis about our inability to understand Islamic feminism.

Mr. Bush — uniquely, so it seems — believes that freedom, democracy, and an open society are not culturally specific values, but are the aspirations, perhaps even the birthright, of everyone born into this world. Our war against the terrorists and the fascist in Iraq, and the increasing irritation with our bankrupt allies in the Middle East need to be couched in precisely those terms of hope — that America is not a bully but the only power in the world that has proven willing and able to end the nightmare of a Noriega or a Milosevic.

Americans have no belly for a moral crusade to change the world; but when murderers come over here to butcher our own, and when a nut stockpiles nightmarish weapons to further his past agenda of death, they are quite willing to defend their culture and values to the bitter end. But they need to be told first that it is not power, nor revenge, nor ego, nor bellicosity that prompts American action, but a unique sense of justice amid a world that talks just, but in self-interested inaction proves itself to be precisely the opposite.

Read the rest of his article; it's all just as thoughtful. I take mild exception to the bit about Bush needing to speak out against corporate misdeeds, since I've heard the President do that a dozen times at least in the last month. But putting it all together in a framework like Hanson does? Yes. Yes, that would be a very good thing indeed.