Victor Davis Hanson is a fourth-generation California rancher has long been concerned about the poor prospects that face the flood of Mexican illegal immigrants even if – or when – they attain legal status. In his book “Mexifornia,” which we discussed with him way back in 2003, he made some worried predictions about the poor life prospects for under-educated young Mexicans who were crossing the border in vast numbers. Those predictions are apparently coming true some 12 years after he voiced them in this conversation.

The “then”  is represented by this program from 2007 with three Chicago-based counter-terrorism agents, one of them from the FBI. The “now” is represented by the recent news from France, Nigeria and, of course, from Iraq where the terrorist “Islamic State” is now engaged in killing non-orthodox Sunnis and any Shiites they can get their hands on while their leader announces that Jihadis should target all Americans. From this discussion we see how great the threat was a few years ago and from the present news we see….WHAT?

The travelers on this excursion are a former U.S. Assistant Attorney General (Joe Morris), a lawyer and broadcaster focused on “strategic” issues (Mary Hartigan) and the co-founder and Political Editor of The American Thinker (Richard Baehr).

Liberal versus Conservative is the way you classify this sort of discussion but it never – well, hardly ever – describes or predicts the way the discourse will go. These three discussants take on such problems as: the emergence and deep threat of ISIS, white cops and black victims,  the legalization of the illegal, the loss of American international “credibility,” the uses of soft and hard power, the future of Obamacare, how the presence of a black President has affected the rage and despair of “ghetto” youth.

Never was Murphy’s Law more applicable than in the ravaging storm called Katrina which came close to destroying New Orleans and environs. A year later the country was still reeling and struggling with accusations of “racist indifference” and governmental incompetence. In 2006 we were joined by
four excellent discussants, both scientific and journalistic, discussing the what, why and who of the disaster.

That title is prompted by a great quotation that I only recently encountered: “Liberalism is the politics of kindness.” The source is Garrison Keiller, the sage of Lake Woebegone, and I found it in William Voegeli’s new book, “The Pity Party” by which he means  to convey his summary judgement of the Democrats.

His argument, most colorfully and baldly stated in the book, is that  the modern Democrats have been running a sort of extended con-game in which both their rhetoric and some of their vaunted legislation promise to relieve the disappointment, deprivation, suffering and humiliation of the “disadvantaged.” But, as he argues, in reality, things often get worse for those who supposedly benefit. Still, the counter-argument runs that conservatives don’t care about the burdens placed on working-class people – that being the operative meaning of “middle class” these days – or on minorities and the truly indigent. Conservatives, whether of the established party, Tea Party or Libertarian party, are seen as rather cold-hearted, lacking in empathy and blindly loyal to the near-religion of the free market.

This is one side of the politics  of mutual defamation. Voegeli has done half of the job and done it very well. Here he is in a conversation in which the proprietor required himself to take the role of the defender of the works and ways of liberalism.

Does Voegeli, a senior editor at the Claremont Review of Books, in fact hit the mark?