Where Have All the Neocons Gone? (who cares---just get 'em out of OUR party)

The American Conservative ^ | January 12, 2009 | Jacob Heilbrunn

[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--

[bill1952]

?I’d highlight the deciding difference that GWB was going after islamist terrorists, while Clinton was not.

Yes. Seems strange how that distinction seems to blur in many minds... Thanks.

[Petronski]

Perhaps a Venn diagram could be helpful.

[Designer]

"Everyone who uses the word “neocon” is an anti-Semite."

Except me, of course.

Probably not the inventor of the term, either.

[SnakeDoctor]

>> Some folks here think definitions can change. How say you?

Sure. But, it is encumbent on the writer to be absolutely clear as to which definition he ascribes — particularly when there are multiple definitions of the same term or when the definition is a moving target (as it seems to be in the case of the term “neocon”).

My assertion was not that definitions are static — it was to question which definition we were using.

SnakeDoc

[Mase]

My dictionary does not "change" while resting on the shelf.

But yet, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the meanings of words continue to change. Be sure and tell the person, the next time you're asked, that you had a gay time at the event.

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

In the future I'll be sure not to use the word logic and Designer in the same sentence.

You and the socialists have a lot in common. Did you get that job that you applied for in the Obommer administration?

Do you only stop shooting yourself in the foot to reload? Do you only stop talking long enough to change feet? Your profound superiority complex must be a difficult burden for you to bear.

[Mase]

I gave "my" definition, now will you do likewise, and post "your" definition of neocon for us?

Why bother, you've already provided us with the last word on the subject. You schooled us well so there is no need to carry the debate any further you paleo dinosaur.

[Captain Kirk]

In other words, if they use the term “neo-con” and agree with you they are not anti-semite.....but if they disagree with you they are anti-semite. Right.....

[AppyPappy]

You need to turn off the Inane Argument. It’s boring.

[PapaBear3625]

I still have yet to find a cogent, clear, and unified answer as to what a neocon is.

That's because different people have different definitions, often contradictory.

To some old-style conservatives, a "neocon" is somebody who wants a party which is essentially Democrat but also energetic in protecting Israel's interests.

[Liz]

ALL MEMORABLE COMMENTS---NICE SUMMATION "Neocons are self-serving scum. They should be shunned like lepers and told to go back to the democratic party, whence they came. A Neocon's loyalty is only to themselves and their bank account."

Obaman's sex life is about to improve greatly---as Kristol, Frum and the RINO-eos line up for a turn under Obama's desk.

Pukeneos giving the Nation just what it needs---another Democrat Party. They have given RNC's Steele his marching orders----"weaken the party's pro-life principles........or else." The pukeneos have a lot at stake---they are getting $paid handsomely to $squat in the Repub Party......pocketing $big bonuses to religiously cleanse the party of the so/cons the pukes despise.

Puke 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.

================================================

And now------The Winner of the 2008 Best Election Night Performance Award in the category of:
"Neos Know Nothing About this Republican Disaster."

Billy Kristol (McC campaign mastermind)

"Thank you very much. But I could not have done it without the help of all the
punkeos--David Frum, Michael Gerson, David Brooks, Richard Perle.....and
my Dearest Daddy."

"Sniffle---my Dearest Daddy (who was Giuliani's foreign policy advisor) said,
"The historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism is.....to convert the
Republican Party and American conservatism in general, against their
respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to
governing a modern democracy."

"Sob."

"I especially want to thank punkneo Douglas Feith for faking documents on his
home computer so we punkneos could dupe the president."

"Without Doug we would not have been able to transfer trillions of US dollars
into the Mideast, into the pockets of war profiteers, which enabled Richard Perle
to startup an oil business in Iraq with his cut."

Kristol smirked: "Making Iraq safe for Perle's oil business with US tax dollars was truly a noble punkneo effort."

[Bull Market]

The failed Neo-Con experiment to elect a Liberal Republican for President had nothing to do with Jews as far as I can tell. If anything, McCain had weak policies on fighting terrorism.

Dismissing Neo-Cons as meaning Jews is the kind of garbage twits like Head McCain Cheeleader Michael Medved use to feel superior. It’s spineless straw man garbage.

[Captain Kirk]

I agree that your argument is inane. I’ll be more than happy to turn it off.

[PapaBear3625]

If support for the New American Century is a test for being a neocon, I guess I can be painted as a neocon. The New American Century project was about who was going to lead in the 21st century and to take steps to see that it was going to be America.

Some people have a vision of American "leadership" as meaning that the US gets to spend its wealth being the world's policeman and social worker, operating without any thought of compensation, while the rest of the world gets a free ride to enjoy the benefits of what American soldiers and taxpayers provide.

[AppyPappy]

But you won’t because you need it too much

[MEGoody]

Social conservatism is not all there is to traditional GOP values - strong foreign and defense policies, espousal of free markets and capitalism, and skepticism and opposition to big government are also pillars of GOP values.

I absolutely agree. Unfortunately, there are those within the GOP who would like to silence those holding socially conservative positions. They don't tend to argue about those other positions - for the most part they agree with them (except, of course the truthers and the like). But they want the so-con issues shut down.

[listenhillary]

Some people would have no problem with China being the driving force for the direction of the world in the 21st century.

[lormand]

"Ron is on nearly every talk show. That must really burn you up."

Yes, I envy "my candidate" not frequenting America's #1 Truther, Alex Jones.

Who has been on Alex Jones more, Ron Paul, or Cindy Sheehan?

[PapaBear3625]

Some people would have no problem with China being the driving force for the direction of the world in the 21st century.

I would not like China being in charge, precisely because China would be very good at looking out for China. When China does something on the world stage, they tend to perform actions that create a political or economic return to China.

Meanwhile, the US does actions that cost the US loads of money and lives, but which do not provide any return to the US economy. The problem with selfless altruism is that, if carried too far, you eventually run out of funds. Visualize a woman who spends all her days running a charity for Africa but neglects her own home and children.

I would have been happier if, after we eliminated Saddam, we decided to make Iraq pay the cost of the operation in oil.

[Petronski]

Who has been on Alex Jones more, Ron Paul, or Cindy Sheehan?

What is the difference?

[widdle_wabbit]

Crim, you ought to be lashed to an outbound freighter, sent to the middle of the Atlantic and have your Grand Old Party papers permanently pulled, for bringing such an abrupt halt to an otherwise useless thread.

On the other hand , I’m a neocon (new conservative), former liberal mugged by reality, and am hoping to be left alone by those who would do the lashing.