Posted on 03/11/2005 7:38:03 AM PST by jinkagrl
Times are very good for America's least-loved foreign-policy makers. But their apotheosis may not last
BILL KRISTOL tells a nice story about a chance encounter in a shopping mall. Mr Kristol is a neo-conservative prince, the son of one of the movement's founders, and a ubiquitous talking head on Fox News. But even neo-conservative princes have to go shopping. One weekend found him wandering the glitzy corridors of Tyson's Corner, in northern Virginia. A young man accosted him and confessed that he, too, was a neo-conservative. He then paused for a moment before adding that he wasn't quite sure what neo-conservatism was.
This is not an isolated example of enthusiasm for the creed. The neo-conservatives are back in their pomp after a dismal year. The essence of neo-conservative foreign policy (to clear up the young man's confusion) is a mixture of hawkishness and idealism: hawkishness on projecting American power abroad, but idealism when it comes to using that power to spread good things like freedom and democracy. The neo-cons have no doubt that their vision has been vindicated by recent events in the Middle East. Would democracy be stirring in the region if Mr Bush hadn't chosen to topple the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? “Three cheers for the Bush doctrine”, says Charles Krauthammer, a leading neo-con journalist, in Time magazine; “Neo-cons may get the last laugh”, says Max Boot in the Los Angeles Times; “Let us now praise Paul Wolfowitz”, adds David Brooks in the New York Times.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Now, do neo-conservatives say we should stroll all around the globe, stomping with military force every single tyrant. Of course not. But freedom should be a goal, whether a steady movement toward or through fits and starts.
Neo-conservatism, by whatever other name people call it, seems to be a good balance between the Isolationism of old Republicans and the Liberal "Human Rights is the Only Issue" Emphasis focused on by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
The funniest thing about this article is that Bill Kristol was "wandering around glitzy Tysons Corner Mall" - I go to that mall all the time and would love to run into someone other than a gangbanger!
I still think they need to print Neo-Con baseball cards or something. I have an extremely hard time trying to figure out who is and who is not a "neo-con" at any given moment.
I find it fascinating that right-wingers can be pegged as "neo-cons", "cons", "paleo-cons", "vulcans", "realists", "isolationists", "rinos", "the religious right", and dozens of other narrowly defined categories by the same press that REFUSES to ever call John Kerry a "liberal".
LOL Wonder if many people would recognize him. Better not say neocon to loud. At least where I live or you will get a crazy lib to explode in your face. Kristol seems to be an intelligent man but I wish they hadn't piled on Rumsfeld during Abu G.
I think a bunch of us should start calling ourselves "NeoLiberal" just to confuse the media.
The liberals don't have these type of groups becasue they don't welcome differing opinions inside the party like the republicans. I don't have a problem with the sub groups, I do have a problem with the media not calling a liberal a liberal. That is what they are, and they know most people don't like liberals.
My brother-in-law accidently spilled coffee on Kristol in a Stabucks in DC about a year ago - of course he apologized. Kristol is pretty short though, which you can't tell from TV.
I agree - piling on Rummy was silly and the Church report exonerates him, but I don't think you will hear anyone (neo con or not) back pedal on their criticisms.
Kristol, the Bush back stabber, his card.
Hey, gangbangers just luuuuuuv glitz. That's why there are so many of them hanging around at Martha's Vineyard~!
To me, it seems only logical that if you are going to topple an evil government, that you replace it with something more moral and humane than what was there before.
The idea that we are going to stride the globe toppling dictators has always been specious. But where we must act in our national interest, we should leave the situation better than we found it, or the intervention has no sense. We've seen what happened in Afghanistan in the nineties, where for a variety of reasons we weren't able to shape the post-Soviet Afghan government. You leave a vacuum, in a land crawling with violent men, and you will not like what follows.
I don't think Truman was a neo-con when he rebuilt Germany after the second world war, and resisted the return of the Nazis. Nor was he a neo-con when he rebuilt Japan. Anyone who objects to the establishment of at least relatively humane government in the aftermath of a war must explain how it serves anyone's interest to let the head-choppers and throat-slitters shoot their way back into power. We went to a lot of trouble to push these psychopaths out of power, you don't have to be a "neo-con" to stick around for a few months to make sure your enemies aren't coming back as soon as you turn your back.
With the moniker "VisualizeSmallerGovernment", I doubt you are a NeoCon. I am not a neocon, but a conservatarian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_%28United_States%29
The gangbangers really love to break in the cars outside the glitzy malls - better quality stuff than Walmart.
Thanks for the definition link. There seems to be lots of confusion as to what a neo-con is!
Critics of the term argue that the word is overused and lacks coherent definition.
My point exactly. "NeoCon" lacks the descriptive power of terms like "limosine liberal" or "peacenik".
We must never forget that little Billy on Fox-News--- echoing John Kerry--- called for ousting Sec Rummy. That says a lot about Billy's (gag) "conservatism."
It did not escape conservatives' notice that Kristol's gleeful public attack on Sec Rumsfield was a carefully constructed attack on Mr Bush, and on conservative thought. Billy's backstabbing Mr Bush and his administration was unconscionable.
Such undermining of a sitting president did not exist even in the flawed Clinton administration and certainly not to the degree approaching that visited on the current administration by Kristol, and the group that purports to be in its corner-----the neocon types.
It's always difficult to determine what motivation drives neocons' elliptical, convoluted thinking. Although Mummy and Daddy might have threatened to take away the magazine if Billy didn't Hurry Up and Do Something.
If you want to run into Billy, you have to look down-----he's very short. If you look straight ahead, you'll miss him.
Kristol has been back stabbing GW during the election year of 2000, and he has continued.
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