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--
Pukeneo Billy Kristol blows whichever way the Beltway Winds are blowing. Kristol went from Moynihan's staff to Quayle's, from The Weekly Standard to the NYT, from Bush to Giuliani to McCain. And the crumbum is still as secretive as ever....spewing blue-blood beltway Republicanism, and smirkingly kicking conservatives to the curb.The Pukeneos KNOW just what the Nation needs---another Democrat Party (/s).
NEOS IMPROVE OBAMA'S SEX LIFE Obaman's sex life is about to improve greatly---as Kristol, Frum and the RINO-pukeneos line up for a turn under Obama's desk.
THE FACTS ARE THESE As Dims takeover three branches of the federal government and state and local legislatures all over the land, we can safely conclude the "powerhouse punk-neo political strategy" (/sarc) is a rank loser. The punks diabolical "foot in each camp" strategy destroys the sacrosanct two-party system. The punks pursue their own interests.......to the detriment of our country. Repubs were appalled to see Joe Lieberman shadowing McC, making sure he read from the punkneo script, while writing $100,000 checks to the Dims.....as LIEb pulled off his "bi-partisan scam." RINO Rooty Ghouliani was another disaster, forced on the party by the stupid punkneos. Rooty made political history with his losing punkneo-managed prez campaign----spending $60M and getting one delegate (that he shared). It would come as no surprise to find that abortion-worshipping, ACLU-fellating crook Madoff financed the punks' activities with sub rosa financial dealings. This needs to be looked into.
MEMO TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FROM ITS DONORS
1. Our liberty is from God, not Government.
2. Our sovereignty is in our souls, not the soil.
3. Our security is through strength, not surrender.
4. Our prosperity is from the private sector, not the public sector.
5. Our truths are self-evident, not relative.
SOURCE Congressman Thad McCotter’s five GOP fundamental principles http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2204561/posts
If Steele still does not “get it” he should GTH out of our party.
Sarah Palin, a foreign-policy neocon on training wheels
Barf.
The corner this drivel is coming from are the Buchanan and Ron Paul kooks who seriously suggests that Mullah Iran, Russia and their array of proxy rogues are harmless, tiny countries with which we can peacefully trade whike staying out of world affairs.
We need to get rid of the RINOs on the left and the isolationist Kook corner.
If I liked Sarah Palin, am I a neo-con? If I favored the surge and winning in Iraq, am I a neo-con? If I favor America and American sovereignty, am I a neo-con? If I dislike everything Michael Steele has done/said so far, am I a neo-con?
Would someone please explain this gobbledy-gook to me?!
Kick the RINOs out too!
Whenever I hear someone say neocon, I’m always reminded of 9/11 troofers.
The word “neocon” is tossed on virtually everyone.
I still have yet to find a cogent, clear, and unified answer as to what a neocon is.
LOL. The NeoCons are working for Obama right now.
No, what you need to do is get rid of the Big Government wackos, including the RINOs and neo-cons.
I can't see how Rumsfeld, Cheney or Palin are "Neo" anything. Were they liberals in the past? Nope. They are deliberately being dilluted with those that do originate from the left and the RINOs. In essence the Joe Lieberman, Ed Koch types... socially liberal but forein policy hawks.
read
A neocon is anything bad and/or Joooooooish.
Congress and our government caused the financial mess.
Our government forced banks to make risky loans. This was done through laws that made it easy for Obama’s friends, at ACORN, to take banks to court, this was done through protests, at the banks, by ACORN. This was done by Obama’s friends at Freddie and Fannie, Government CREATED companies, forcing bad loans on the system.
Define Neocon. If you mean getting rid of the Frums, Perles and Giulianis I’m on board. But too often the “neocon” brush is used to include everyone favoring strong foreign policy.
Reagan was a charismatic aberration who built his own groundswell with the people through his radio talks, so even the GOP couldn't ignore him. He was so successful that even old-school GOP moderates and beltway boys have found it prudent to hide their true beliefs by wearing the "conservative" label. And there's very good a reason Bush I was pushed to be the VP under Reagan, and Dole, Bush II, and McCain were our last 3 POTUS candidates: THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PARTY IS "MODERATE".
Conseratives should stop beating that deceased equine and have nothing to do with the GOP. WE are the real RINOs.
We are all neo cons unless we can prove otherwise....Lets get ourselves out of our party!
Agreed!
Also, we need to attack each other in the primaries, but then we need to come together in the general elections, and after the elections we need to attack the Marxists.
There are many out there who simply stake out a position that will never have majority appeal -— and thereby guarantee themselves that they will always have a soapbox to stand on and complain!
My neo cons are better than your neo cons
Do that in the PRIMARY.
We don’t want to kick anyone out of the Party, we want to win in the Primary, with OUR candidates, and then get them to vote for our winners.
Politics is MATH, it is not a system designed to support our egos.
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