You do a nice job of attacking the author's "polarities" sentence, I suppose, but not the rest of it.
The remainder of the article is a coherent explanation of: what "neocons" actually are and what they are not, who is being called "neocon" nowadays, and why this is wrong. If you don't think such an account is necessary (because it's just "terminology") then presumably you haven't become as annoyed as I have by seeing about a million different people use about a billion different definitions of "neocon" in the past year or so. Good for you! The rest of us, meanwhile, enjoy it whenever a little sanity is injected back into the paranoid labels and conspiracy-mongering.
I think the term is something less than what I would call terminology. It is first, of all, a coined word--a bit of newspeak or popspeak, if you will--which has several different meanings to contemporary Americans. There is first of all, the obvious one of a someone newly conservative. That is a somewhat useful one. Beyond that, it has become a term of identification for people who identify themselves with one or another particular sets of beliefs, some of which are conservative and some of which definitely are not. In this latter case--and it is from these latter usages that all this silly rant emerges--it is no more useful to understanding than a term such as the "log cabin republicans" or "yellow dog democrats." The terms have meanings, to be sure, to those that use them. But those usages are purely subjective. They certainly do not involve any precision of language.
As for the implied notion that "neo-cons" are some sort of misunderstood minority within the American political spectrum, that seems pretty paranoid to me. Most of us, who simply call ourselves Conservatives, certainly welcome the support and cooperation of others, regardless of labels. On the other hand, we will oppose others, regardless of labels, when we disagree with them. The labels really do not add anything at all to the debate on any particular issue. And the article in question, does not add any sanity to any issue.
I jumped on the silly first paragraph to make a point. There is really nothing in the article that suggested any profundity or clarity. And that was the point I sought to make.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site