Posted on 03/16/2009 7:48:46 AM PDT by Liz
EXCERPT Though neocons formed a kind of Praetorian Guard around John McCain during his campaign, their truculent approach to foreign affairs sabotaged rather than strengthened McCain’s appeal. The best that Sarah Palin, a foreign-policy neocon on training wheels, could do was to offer platitudes about standing by Israel. It seems safe to say, then, that the neocon credo is ready to be put out to pasture.
Or is it? One problem with this line of argument is that it’s been heard before—sometimes from the neoconservatives themselves. In 1988, after George H.W. Bush replaced Ronald Reagan, neocon lioness Midge Decter fretted, “are we a long, sour marriage held together for the kids and now facing an empty nest?”
Then in the late 1990s, Norman Podhoretz delivered a valedictory for neoconservatism at the American Enterprise Institute. Neoconservatism, he announced, was a victim of its success. It no longer represented anything unique because the GOP had so thoroughly assimilated its doctrines.
In 2004, a variety of commentators scrambled to pronounce a fresh obituary for neoconservatism. The disastrous course of the Iraq War, Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím said, showed that the neoconservative dream had expired in the sands of Araby.
Yet the neocons show few signs of going away. The Iraq surge was devised by Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and spearheaded by William Luti, a protégé of Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney who is currently at the National Security Council.
Its success has prompted some neocons to claim vindication for the Iraq War overall. Nor has the network of institutions that the neocons rely upon melted away, from the Hudson Institute, where Scooter Libby and Douglas J. Feith are now ensconced, to the Weekly Standard and Fox News.
It’s also the case that the realists inside the GOP feel more embattled than ever. Sen. Chuck Hagel has pretty much resigned from the GOP itself as well as from his Senate seat, denouncing Rush Limbaugh and others as retrograde conservatives.
They have undeniably suffered a number of setbacks. The sun has set on the flagship neocon newspaper, the New York Sun, a victim of the financial crash.
The citadel of neoconservatism, AEI, has ousted Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, and Reuel Marc Gerecht. Meanwhile, Robert Kagan has incorporated realist tenets into his writings, while David Frum, who co-wrote with Richard Perle the standard neocon foreign-policy text, An End to Evil, and who previously demanded the expulsion of allegedly unpatriotic conservatives from the conservative pantheon (a move Russell Baker called reminiscent of the Moscow purges), now seems to be hinting at, among other things, a reassessment of neocon foreign policy. “I cannot be blind,” he conceded in a farewell address to National Review Online last month, “to the evidence … that the foreign policy I supported has not yielded the success I would have wished to see.”
Looking ahead, the neocons do not have an obvious horse. In the past they have glommed on to everyone from Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson to Colin Powell, whom William Kristol briefly touted for president. Another problem is that George W. Bush himself has increasingly deviated from neoconservatism.
With the fall of Donald Rumsfeld, on whom the neocons tried to blame the mismanaged Iraq War, Vice President Dick Cheney has lost out to the combination of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Even Kristol seems to have shed some of his habitual fervor, musing about the shortcomings of capitalism in his New York Times column and expressing the hope that Obama will put aright what has gone wrong.
The result has been something of an identity crisis in the ranks of the neocons. Like not a few revolutionary movements that have fallen on hard times, neoconservatism is experiencing a schism. Two camps are starting to face off over the question of the true faith, with the first embracing orthodoxy and the second heresy. The question they face is simple: Should the neocons continue to move right, serving as the advance guard of an embattled GOP? Or should neoconservatism become true to itself by returning to the center?
Will the movement, in fact, morph back into what it was at its inception in the late 1960s when it belonged firmly to the Democratic Party—moderate on domestic issues and mildly hawkish on foreign policy? --SNIP--
I wasn’t going to chip in much more, but this statement demands a response:
“Taking that “logic” to its natural conclusion, our Constitution is hopelessly out of date, and the meaning of it has utterly changed, so we might as well ignore it completely.”
That is in fact the strategy and view on the left. They try to control the evolution of language in order to gut the original meaning of the Constitution. Now, the meaning of words does evolve, devolve, and just plain change. The term “gay” is a prime example. That’s why the counter to the left’s attack on the Constitution is not to deny that the meaning of language changes, but rather to have “originalist” or “Constitutionalist” judges who try to determine the original intent of the words used in the Constitution. See the Keller gun control case for a prime example.
The quoted part of your comment simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
I agree that we need people that value strategy and policy over throwing money at any problem thinking it will make it all better. This applies at all levels.
Where is the balance point that will allow maximum effect with minimum expenditure of energy or money?
Things don’t always work out after making a move. We also need leaders that are not afraid to make moves.
The terrorist flypaper we made in Iraq, dropping a freedom based government in the middle of a bunch of repressive Oligarchies and theocracies was brilliant IMO. Staying too long and fighting a war with politically correct rules of engagement, not so brilliant.
Yup, why not take everything completely out of context, that way you can say anything you want to, and it can mean anything you wish it to mean.
I realize you probably haven't read the entire thread, and I certainly don't expect you to do so simply on my suggestion, but had you in fact read it, you would see that it was not I who wants to trash the Constitution, but rather the leftists who are posting POSING on this thread.
I agree with your statement that changing the meaning of our language is a tactic of the left, but seeing as how there are many FReepers who do exactly the same thing, I leave it to you do decide for yourself who is writing the truth, and who is writing from out in left field.
NeoCons are working for Obama right now.
So you say Dick Cheney is working for Obama.
I knew the anti war, 9/11 Truthers were loons but you take it right over the ledge.
Obama does not want to win the war, one reason he is pulling out troops earlier out of Iraq.
You still don’t get it. I am (and some others) are confused by the the EDITORIAL because it used the term incorrectly...which in turns should indicate to you that we DO understand the term.
He is also gonna have 60k troops in Afghanistan.
He continues the OBL policy. More banker bailouts.
He's not change, he's CFR Neo-Con as there can be.
Who stated Kristol declared “conservatism is dead?
I googled;
Kristol conservatism is dead
I have not learned search tips well but all I got we’re two articles by a writer at New Republic;
Both of them have something of, the meat of which you attribute to Kristol. Was there some search term which would pull his quote?
addressed to wrong poster
You Wish O was a NeoCon.
HE is a Marxist and the people who helped facilitate Obama’s win are the Paleocons who like all of Obama’s
supporters are against the war.
I think I have a better idea about the troops, living
in San Diego with the largest concentration of mlitary in the world.
I have several relatives doing tours in Iraq and Afgh.
Saying Neocons support Obama is like saying Jews supported Hitler.
You can wish all you want but it doesn’t make it a fact.
???
Care to elaborate how Pal's helped elect Obama?
When I read it, I did not conclude that the writer was using the term incorrectly. In fact, he seems to understand the neocons very well, having also identified a rift between two factions:
The result has been something of an identity crisis in the ranks of the neocons. Like not a few revolutionary movements that have fallen on hard times, neoconservatism is experiencing a schism. Two camps are starting to face off over the question of the true faith, with the first embracing orthodoxy and the second heresy. The question they face is simple: Should the neocons continue to move right, serving as the advance guard of an embattled GOP? Or should neoconservatism become true to itself by returning to the center? Will the movement, in fact, morph back into what it was at its inception in the late 1960s when it belonged firmly to the Democratic Party—moderate on domestic issues and mildly hawkish on foreign policy?
I continue to sit out here in the cheap seats doing my level best at educating my fellow citizens.
“WISHFUL THINKING Kristol recently announced “conservatisn is dead.” Citing an extremist like Kristol as if he speaks for conservatives is silly and will not be tolerated. Course, it’s always difficult to determine which country Bill Kristol is defending, and what motivation drives his elliptical thinking, and convoluted thoughts.”
____________________________
Who wrote conservatism is dead? Was it not Sam Tanenhaus, a writer for The New Republic?
Do you have a link?
I was a liberal at one point in my life, but left after Carter. It didn't take long after believing all the media lies and spin (it wasn't called that back then) for me to realize that Carter and I had ABSOLUTELY nothing in common. I'm with the Gipper, through and through, and have been since voting for him in 1980.
Thanks again to both of you, and others, for clarifying the term, "neocon."
Well, I will admit to not having read the entire thread. I don’t think I took that text out of context, but maybe I thought you meant something that you didn’t. I can tell we’re on the same page on the point from this: “I agree with your statement that changing the meaning of our language is a tactic of the left.” OK, I’m out...
Excellent points-----all of it underlines the pukeneos obsessive push for religious cleansing of American culture.
Moral relativity is the name of their game----fuzzing-up the demarcation between right and wrong.
These termites chipped away at the national's moral foundations so as not to have "judgemental" so/con Republicans criticizing their nefarious activities.
Pukeneos lack the distinctly American character that makes the USA standout among Nations as a Superpower.
“Politics is MATH, it is not a system designed to support our egos.”
Scant evidence to be found here.
What I meant in my original statement is that “neocon” seems to be one of those terms that all the 9/11 troofers and “Bush’s fake war” types like to throw at people like it’s supposed to be the worst insult that could ever be laid on someone.
I’m not so sure if these people even know what it means. They are kind of like little kids who repeat swear words when they don’t even know what those words mean.
Everyone I ever heard use that term was always a rabid 9/11 troofer who blamed everything on “Bush and the neocons who lied to get us into that war and make contractor buddies rich”, yadda, yadda, yadda.
So when someone uses that word, I have a tendency to roll my eyes, ignore them and get on with life.
=================================
........modern-day neocons come from the far left, a group historically identified as former Trotskyites---who left the Reds when Stalin executed their hero.
Associated with these views are Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Eliot Abrams, Robert Kagan and William Kristol..........Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute; former CIA Director James Woolsey; Bill Bennett of Book of Virtues fame; Frank Gaffney; Dick Cheney; and Donald Rumsfeld. All are key players in designing the unprecedented US strategy of preemptive war (invasions without provocation).
A general understanding of neocon idealogy:
1. They agree with Trotsky on permanent revolution, violent as well as intellectual.
2. They are for redrawing the map of the Middle East and are willing to use force to do so.
3. They believe in preemptive war to achieve desired ends.
4. They believe that the ends justify the means (a discredited utilitarian idealogy).
5. They express no opposition to the welfare state.
6. They promote America as empire, strongly endorsing establishing democracies all over the world, using force, if necessary.
7. They believe lying is necessary for the state to survive.
8. They believe a powerful federal government is beneficial.
9. They believe government's role in society should be held by the elite-----withheld from "lesser citizens" who do not have "the courage" to deal with it.
10. They believe neutrality in foreign affairs is ill-advised.
11. They hold Leo Strauss in high esteem.
12. They believe imperialism, if progressive in nature, is appropriate.
13. Using American might to force American ideals on others is acceptable. Force should not be limited to the defense of our country.
14. 9-11 resulted from the lack of foreign entanglements, not from too many.
15. They dislike and despise libertarians (that applies to all dedicated constitutionalists.)
16. They endorse attacks on civil liberties (found in the Patriot Act), as a necessity.
17. They unconditionally support Israel and are allied with the Likud Party which serves as the touchstone for US foreign policy.
18. They believe that hard-ball politics is a "moral necessity" (probably the only instance when "morals" enters their virulent anti-religion vocabulary).
Remember what Richard Perle just told the world last month at the Nixon Center:
"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy" ...So, I guess we shouldn't try to connect Perle's foreign policy positions to his self-interest in Kazakhstan oil deals or consider it anything more than the "selfless altruism" of the United States."I see a number of people here who believe and have expressed themselves abundantly that there is a neoconservative foreign policy and it was the policy that dominated the Bush administration, and they ascribe to it responsibility for the deplorable state of the world. None of that is true, of course."
They are rewriting history every day.
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