The Fringe Fires at Bush on Iraq (Ted Kennedy and paleoconservatives – comrades-in-arms)

The Los Angeles Times ^ | March 11, 2003 | Max Boot

[quidnunc]

Ted Kennedy delivered another stemwinder last week, accusing the Bush administration of lying its way into Iraq for political gain. Ho-hum. Nothing new there. But one paragraph caught my attention.

In trying to buttress his charge that the president twisted intelligence about Saddam Hussein, Kennedy cited "Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired Air Force intelligence officer who served in the Pentagon during the buildup to the war." He quoted her as follows: "It wasn't intelligence — it was propaganda … they'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, usually by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together."

Sounds pretty damning, doesn't it? Those aren't the words of a political opponent; that's the judgment of a presumably disinterested military professional. Except that Kwiatkowski's judgment doesn't look so disinterested when you examine her views more closely.

Since her retirement in March 2003, she has become a prolific contributor to isolationist publications like the American Conservative, Pat Buchanan's magazine, and lewrockwell.com, an ultra-libertarian website. Pretty much all her work is devoted to uncovering "neoconservative warmongers" who have supposedly taken over U.S. foreign policy.

She is not subtle in denouncing "Dickie Cheney, Richie Perle and Dougie Feith" (as well as, occasionally, "my pal, Max Boot"), whose "neoconservative philosophy is hateful to humanity, anti-American, statist and anti-free trade." (Anti-free trade?) She thinks the United States is a "maturing fascist state." And she predicts a dire fate for those who led us into the Iraq war: "Some folks on the Pentagon's E-ring may be sitting beside Hussein in the war crimes tribunals."

-snip-

[Howlin]

More on Miss Karen.

[federal]

I think that is the woman I saw on John Gibson yesterday. He blew her up, he asked her if she was allowed access to every bit of intelligence that was given to the President. She said no, and he said well then how can you possibly know if he was cherry picking or not.

She went off into a typical liberal slobbering rant and I knew she had to have a agenda. She went on and on about not liking Chalibi and Rumsfield etc,etc.

[My2Cents]

With Ted Kennedy, you can be pretty much assured it's the liquor talking. I don't know what the paleos' excuse is.

[My2Cents]

More evidence that Pat Buchanan is a wack job, to have the likes of her contributing to his fishwrap.

[mountaineer]

Some on the left, citing LewRockell et al., are urging Kerry to pick Clark as a running mate, because all other possibilities - McCain, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean - are neocons. (!)

[rdb3]

I think that is the woman I saw on John Gibson yesterday. He blew her up, he asked her if she was allowed access to every bit of intelligence that was given to the President.

I saw that. It was her. Gibson filleted her, even though she attempted to fillibuster the entire interview.

Show 'em my motto!

[Mo1]

This whack job is with Pat??

I'm SHOCKED

[rdb3]

More evidence that Pat Buchanan is a wack job, to have the likes of her contributing to his fishwrap.

Buchanan is no "wack job." He knows precisely what he is doing. And he's doing it very well.

Show 'em my motto!

[adam_az]

Funny, I was just thinking that "Waffles" Kerry should pick Pat Buchanan as his running mate if he wants to pick an (R), he's much more like Kerry than McCain is.

[federal]

I saw that. It was her. Gibson filleted her, even though she attempted to fillibuster the entire interview.



I thought that was probably her. Gibson just blew her entire bogus story up and exposed her agenda. And your right as soon as she realized he wasn't about to give her a bye she just did her liberal equivalent of the old fingers in the ears and yell routine. Just filibuster non stop.

[petitfour]

The first person I ever heard of being called a paleocon was my favorite professor, Forrest McDonald. I vividly recall him describing an encounter he had with Teddy Kennedy outside a judiciary committee hearing regarding Robert Bork. McDonald was there to testify on behalf of Judge Bork. Years later, my hubby called Dr. McDonald a paleocon as a joke because he is old, and he is VERY conservative. Dr. McDonald then repeated the term on Booknotes during an interview with Brian Lamb. Since that time, the term has been hijacked by folks who do not seem to share the same ideology. They are all over the page with their conservatism.

Meanwhile, I also recall Dr. McDonald speaking of his admiration for the only principled conservatives he knew in Congress. I think he limited it to two, but there may have been a few more. Dick Cheney was #1 and Dick Armey was #2. That was in 1989ish. (He was speaking of Cheney when he was a Congressman.) When Forrest McDonald praises a politician for anything, you know he must be like-minded. Therefore, I have always concluded that Dick Cheney is of the same conservative mindframe. He is a paleoconservative as defined by a master wordsmith, Forrest McDonald. Dick Cheney is not a neocon. Or he would NEVER have been picked to be the conservative to Bush's more moderate nature. btw, Dr. McDonald's definition of paleocon is "old conservative." Meaning, someone who has been a conservative for a very, very long time. That does not mean a conservative who is stuck in the 1920s or 1930s.

Anytime I read articles on the paleo/neo subject, I get the feeling that someone is trying to divide conservatives. And at times, they do a very good job. Not today.

[rdb3]

And your right as soon as she realized he wasn't about to give her a bye she just did her liberal equivalent of the old fingers in the ears and yell routine. Just filibuster non stop.

All the while having a Maxine Waters type of sneer on her face. You know the one. The one where it appears that someone is perpetually smelling flatulence.

Gibson remained professional and let her just stew in it. It was so funny.

Show 'em my motto!

[quidnunc]

The term "paleoconservative" has come to mean something very specific; those isolationist, nativist, crypto-populist radicals who call themselves conservatives in order to give themselves a fig leaf of legitimacy, but who really have more in common with the anti-globalist anarchists than they do with real conservatives.

[onyx]

Ditto both your comments, M2C.

[petitfour]

Who redefined the term? When did they redefine it? I mostly read of self-described neo-conservatives defining paleoconservatives as being right-wing extremists and Nazis and other inflamatory names. So when did the term evolve? Forrest McDonald used the term in 1994. (I think.) And Forrest McDonald is none of the things I listed above. At what point did the redefinition take effect?

As I said, the whole debate is highly divisive.

[petitfour]

This is a fascinating subject for me. I think I'll have to do my Senior Project (12hr course) on this subject, even though the profs who will oversee such will most certainly be liberals. I shall attempt to trace the term, paleoconservative, and its evolution. I'll start here at FR. :)

[Austin Willard Wright]

The Education Bill: Bush and Kennedy Comrades in Arms.

[quidnunc]

From Wikipedia

-snip-

The name "paleoconservative" was chosen to differentiate itself from "neoconservatism". Where the neos were (Latin for) new the paleos were old. The rift is often traced back to a dispute over the director of the National Endowment for the Humanitiesby the incoming Reagan Administration. The preferred candidate was professor Mel Bradford and he was replaced after an effective media and lobbying effort (focussing on his dislike of Abraham Lincoln) by the less experienced William Bennett. The paleoconservatives view the neoconservatives as interlopers. They furthermore tend to see the methods of the neo-conservatives as simply those of right wing Trotskyites and not more civilised Conservatives. Their view of the mainstream conservative movement is that of a self interested movement lacking the self confidence to defend its old ideas.

-snip-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoconservative

As far as being divisive, that a very good thing since the paleocons are constantly being used by liberals to discredit the conservative movement as a whole.

[mr.pink]

As far as being divisive, that a very good thing since the paleocons are constantly being used by liberals to discredit the conservative movement as a whole.

I see it very differently. I see the neoconservatives discrediting the "conservatism movement as a whole" via their machinations and their metropolitan disdain for social conservatives. That their errand boy McCain is openly flirting with Kerry tells which way the wind is blowing for the president they snookered.

As for Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, well I read her piece where she detailed the events that caused her to distrust the neoconservatives at the pentagon and she sold me (but i never trusted those guys in the first place anyhoo). I did not see the Gibson interview, but when I have seen her I found that she comes off quite well.

The notion that paleos are supposed to apologize for being on the same side of the Iraq war debate as the swimmer is as ridiculous as pro-war conservatives being asked to feel shabby for being on the same side as Tom Lantos, Andrew Sullivan and Mort Zuckerman.