Tea at Trianon: Victor Davis Hanson Debunks Tucker Carlson’s Claims About Israel

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Victor Davis Hanson Debunks Tucker Carlson’s Claims About Israel

From The Daily Signal:

I would like to say it pains me to say this, but the Tucker that is talking is not the one that I had a seven-to-eight-year relationship every Monday after the monologue. But to be frank, everything he just said is demonstrably untrue. It’s not an insignificant country. Let me not just say platitudes but let me be precise and offer examples and data.

First of all, Israel is the home of half of the Judeo-Christian, and you can argue the whole home of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It’s the protector of Jerusalem. Does Tucker really believe that Jerusalem in the hands of the Jordanians was better than under the Israelis? Does he really believe that prior to the existence of Israel, the Middle East was a better place? So, it’s got historical and cultural value.
He’s talking about Qatar, which is an autocracy. And I have always said that there was no strategic point in demonizing Saudi Arabia in the way that Joe Biden did. Said it was a rogue nation, then he turned around and begged it to pump oil.

Tucker, there’s not one constitutional government there. When you say they have three million people in Qatar, there’s only about 20 % are citizens. The rest are helots. That is, they are laborers with no civil rights. (Read more.)