Victor Davis Hanson, on the Paris riots:

Via Hugh Hewitt's Radio blogger:

We've had this nostalgia, this idea that the Europeans have transcended all of our problems. In fact, economically, militarily, politically, socially, they're in a complete mess, and I got that the last three and half weeks.

He really is so right. Blue staters like to idolize Europe as a sort of paradise on Earth. They all want a European Socialist model for everything from health care to welfare to education. It's sort of like they fondly remember their semester abroad and want to replicate that lifestyle here.

But juniors in college are not the most astute observers of what's going on and they rarely venture forth boldly from the university-type areas and the surrounding pubs / cafes. They never see the underbelly of the beast; of people waiting for hours in line for acute health care or government-built slums filled with the offspring of the unassimilated.

The Paris riots started as the direct manifestation of decades of failed socialist economic policies compounded by impaccable foes who seize every opportunity to sow the seeds of The West's destruction. With feckless and foolish leadership in France, the jihadis and their terrormasters in Tehran have found a perfect new battleground, complete with an army awaiting training already in place.

This will get worse before it gets better. If it ever gets better.