'Neocon' Becomes a Confusing Code Word

The Tallahassee Democrat ^ | May 2, 2003 | Suzanne Fields

[quidnunc]

Politics is all about polarities. Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. liberal, right vs. left, hard thinking vs. soft thinking. The labels are pervasive, but the ground frequently shifts, requiring a new prefix to freshen up the label.

The word neocon, for example (short for neoconservative), was born of such a shifting of the ground. Coined in the 1970s, the label stuck to Democrats who had watched the Scoop Jackson anti-Communist wing of the Democratic party evaporate before their very eyes. They saw the War on Poverty become a losing battle. On the domestic front, they observed the death of morality as it had been defined for thousands of years in the Judeo-Christian tradition. These Democrats finally concluded that liberalism, as they had known it, was dead.

Irving Kristol, father of the neocons, defined his band of brothers and sisters as "liberals mugged by reality." That reality was the "evil empire" as defined by Ronald Reagan, the leader they championed. The reality extended to a concern for crime and education and what came to be called "family values." A subdivision of the neocons, the "cultural conservatives," were wryly defined as liberals with daughters in junior high.

Jews were prominently identified with the neocons, largely because Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, made the magazine a sounding board for neocon criticism. But Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a Baptist, and William Bennett, a Roman Catholic, were prominent neocon voices from the beginning. So were other Christians. "What are we," they might ask, "chopped liver?"

The Jewish neocons understood what the majority of Jews who vote Democratic didn't — that Jews and Evangelical Christians held many things in common, among them an admiration and affection for Israel.

Such definitions and ideological attitudes are amply documented in the political history of the second half of the 20th century, but the neocon label resurfaces today as many journalists and pundits identify the neocons as a new generation driving the foreign policy of George W. Bush.

It's a label that doesn't quite fit, since those credited with influence are hardly "neo" anything. For the most part, the label is attributed to second-generation conservatives. Some are sons of the Scoop Jackson Democrats whose fathers have the last name of Podhoretz and Kristol, but the label as accurately understood has a much more inclusive intellectual base, including, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney; his wife, Lynne; Condoleezza Rice; Don Rumsfeld; and Paul Wolfowitz, the hugely influential deputy defense secretary.

The term, however, is disingenuously bandied about at dinner tables and policy meetings in London and Paris and elsewhere, where it is colorfully coded to suggest a Jewish conspiracy working on the White House.

-snip-

[inquest]

Seconded.

[Dr. Frank fan]

I think the term is something less than what I would call terminology. It is first, of all, a coined word--

no argument there. It still, by coinage and original usage, has a definition that's more precise than "Bad People We Hate"

which has several different meanings to contemporary Americans

This may be so but that's partially due to the term being hijacked, used incorrectly, used as all-purpose label for Bad People, etc., which is what the author (and I) seeks to correct

There is first of all, the obvious one of a someone newly conservative. That is a somewhat useful one.

In fact that's what it actually means. I know a lotta people want another word which means "Bad People We Hate", but neo-conservative already has a definition, you can't just alter it at will.

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.

You misunderstood. That's not what I said.

There are "neo-cons", but lots of people being called "neo-cons" aren't even "neo-cons" in the first place. (the article mentions Jay Nordlinger..) The point is not that the group "neo-cons" is being misunderstood, the point is that people are taking the group "Those With Whom I Disagree About Iraq War" and slapping the term "neo-con" onto them, whether or not this is appropriate.

And the article in question, does not add any sanity to any issue.

To each his own.

I think it is a much-needed article because it's quite obvious to me that tons of people are using the word "neo-con" towards others and don't actually know JACK SQUAT about what it means. In their mind it means no more/less than "Bad People I Disagree With"

honestly: don't think think that's a BAD development, BAD usage of a term?

[Joe Hadenuf]

Frank, your starting to sound like a neocon........

:0

[Austin Willard Wright]

The term is used loosely but unfortunately so are a lot of other terms such as anti-war. Most conservatives have developed amenesia, for example, about their strong antiwar stance on Kosovo and have highly placed allies in the state department, chiefly Wolfowitz.

The key problem I have with article is that Fields implies that those who use the term imply a Jewish conspiracy. This is a smear, a la Al Sharpton. Most who use the term do not and instead refer to people associated with the Weekly Standard crowd, most of whom have supported a Wilsonian approach since the end of the Cold War. There are plenty of Jews on both sides of this divide.

In contrast to most conservatives who opposed the Kosovo war, for example, neo-cons supported it. Kristol even threatened to bolt the GOP because of its "isolationism"

[friendly]

"NeoCon" is simply democrat code for the "FJB," routinely screamed by the shrill, chalk-on-the-blackboard Hillary on any and all occasions.

[Dr. Frank fan]

The term is used loosely but unfortunately so are a lot of other terms such as anti-war.

how so? "anti-war" in context of some war discussion = opposed to the war

Most conservatives have developed amenesia, for example, about their strong antiwar stance on Kosovo

hm, you seem to have gotten the idea that conservatives who opposed the Kosovo war were saying to you "not just Kosovo, I'm opposed to all wars, ever!" How strange. where did you get that idea in the first place?

Most conservatives ... have highly placed allies in the state department, chiefly Wolfowitz.

uh... how's that?

you're saying that "most conservatives" have highly placed allies in the state department (that'd be great! i want allies, highly placed ones even better..the more the merrier).

But then for some reason you mention Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of .. Defense.

You've really lost me.

The key problem I have with article is that Fields implies that those who use the term imply a Jewish conspiracy.

Some do, that's just an observable fact.

Not all who use the term "neo-con" do, I'll grant. ok?

Most who use the term do not and instead refer to people associated with the Weekly Standard crowd, most of whom have supported a Wilsonian approach since the end of the Cold War.

Ok. can you explain why "the Weekly Standard crowd" are "neo-cons"? which ones, all of them? they all used to be Trotskyites and are now conservative hawks? Or just some of them. if just some of them, why lump them together? etc.. I'm just asking for a little more precise thought here.. you did say you were opposed to "smears", right?

There are plenty of Jews on both sides of this divide.

Indeed.. which makes it weird that so many people took special note of those Jews who were on the pro side of the Iraq war, huh?

In contrast to most conservatives who opposed the Kosovo war, for example, neo-cons supported it.

uh, what's this "in contrast to" stuff? One war was not like the other. Not all wars are alike. I supported ousting Saddam Hussein militarily, but I'd oppose ousting Canada's Jean Chretien militarily. One good, other bad, that's why there's a "contrast". why do you think there's some inconsistency here?

"In contrast to" my opposition to Clinton's tax hike, I supported Bush's tax cut. DUH!!!1 they were different things and I supported one but not the other because one was GOOD and the other BAD, IMHO. what's the contradiction?

Again you seem to have gotten this weird idea that anti-Kosovo-war folks were, therefore, required to oppose all wars ever, for some reason. bizarre

Kristol even threatened to bolt the GOP because of its "isolationism"

Uh, and..? so..?

what's Bill Kristol got to do with anything? I'm not even sure he's a "neo-con", was he ever a socialist? let me know....

[quidnunc]

Ohioan wrote: I am not quite sure why anyone would post an article, such as this… I posted it because:

(a) I could and…

(b)I wanted to because I thought some here would be interested.

…which from its first paragraph is little more than a demonstration of superficiality:

If you found the article to be totally without merit why on earth are you wasting your precious time posting replies to it?

I only bother to comment, because this posting has brought out another pointless battle over newspeak terminology…

But you have posted several replies to this thread.

If it annoys you why don't you just ignore it?

You seem to be bothered by what you term 'newspeak' and 'popspeak'.

Perhaps you should confine your communications to Latin which as a dead language is ossified and unchanging.

[Criminal Number 18F]

paleocons...I point to Justin Raimondo's

Would you call Raimondo a paleocon? As I understand the word, it just means people who were always conservative, not converts. Raimondo on the other hand is a weird kind of isolationist; he's still following Lindbergh in 1940 when even Lindbergh changed his tune after Pearl harbor.

I didn't see Raimondo's raves that day, because I was already tuning him and antiwar.com and Lew Rockwell (any relation to George Lincoln Rockwell? Anybody know?) out long before then, and I knew that these guys aren't living in the rational world. The people I saw taking satisfaction from 9/11 were mostly liberals, the "million Mogadishus mongoloids" of academe.

I do recall that the departed (and unlamented) Michael Rivero and his tinhat chorus were trying to hang it on the CIA before the dust had settled.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Criminal Number 18F]

"May Heaven have mercy on the European intellect if the Jewish intellect were to be subtracted from it."

--- Nietzsche

It should not be surprizing to anyone that Jews are in the forefront of any intellectual, scientific, or philosophical movement -- including new developments in conservatism. You can't throw a rock at any gathering of thinking people without hitting a Jew. That hardly makes any new development "Jewish" in nature. I'd like to see what is specifically Jewish, as opposed to simply American, about, say, what Paul Wolfowitz has done at DOD, or Kristol's beliefs, etc. (I didn't have a clew that Kristol was Jewish before this flap. Did you?)

Some of the Europeans, including M Chirac, have made sniffing noises about Jews in American politics. Of course, there are fewer Jews in Franch politics because M Chirac's predecessors collaborated so systematically with the last set of "more proof" to come rolling into their miserable nation, and because of France's own history of cruelty towards these people.

I'm always deeply suspicious of people who keep their who's-a-Jew lists. (Most of the liberal pundits seem to be keeping track of this). I mean, who gives a rat's?

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Criminal Number 18F]

hundreds of thousands of Jews who were murdered in cold blood

Sounds like you are conflating the Cruades with the Inquisition. Different things. And your numbers are fishy. Hundreds of thousands? (Not that hundreds of individuals isn't tragedy enough). Even the Inquisition didn't rack up hundreds of thousands.

Christianity was responsible for over two thousand years for the most terrible acts of barbarism against the Jewish people

You're exxagerating again... unless you attribute Naziism and the current predations of the PLO to Christianity. Christianity has barely been around two thousand years. During that time there were some other pretty terrible acts of barbarism (the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD? [pagan Romans]) (Extermination of Quraiza, 625 AD? [Mohammed]) (The Blood Libel of Damascus, 1840? [Muslim Arabs])

Also, someone who calls himself Christian and says his religion requires him to persecute Jews is (to say the least) theologically unsound. Yes, some Christians have persecuted Jews. Yes, there were specific atrocities against Jewish populations during the Crusades.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[BlackElk]

I hate to break this to you but you seem to have been overdosing on some cheap rotgut called "Old Chronicles" or on PJB's new and utterly unnecessary (destined to be shortlived) rag.

The people who are labeled "neo-conservatives" by the culterati, literati and other birdbrains (paleo-ostrich division) imagining themselves wrongly to be the second coming of John Flynn or Charles Lindbergh when they are actually the second coming of Neville Chamberlain have a spot of difficulty distinguishing reality from fiction.

One-worlders are found on the Left. They suck up to the United Nations. They believe that diplomacy will save us, that Jacques Chirac is a good ally, that the leadership of Germany under Schroeder have no ties to the Bader-Meinhof gang of the 1960s and 1970s, that the US has had an "inordinate fear of communism" in the past, that Jimmuh Cahtuh deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for sucking up diplomatically to Third World dictators, that the Arkansas Antichrist was a good president, that there is too a tooth fairy AND an Easter Bunny.

Those that call themselves "paleoconservatives" are neither. What they are is a pack of unrealistic semi-nostalgics who pine for those golden and non-existent days of yore when they imagine conservatives were found in grumpy and snobby clubs, snoring under their newspapers in mid-afternoon in the easy chairs provided, waking for an occasional cognac or cigar, mouthing ill-formed lunacies as to the AFL-CIO being a hotbed of communism under George Meany because pay raises may reduce dividends, regarding the peasants not admitted to clubs of hereditary membership as "not our kind". The professorial caucus among them thrills to novels of derring-do safely performed by people other than themselves and preferably centuries ago. Such books stir their blood in life after polo.

Socially, they are far more comfortable with Franklin Roosevelt than with Ronald Reagan (an ex-Democrat and therefore a neo-conservative, right?)

Defining "chickenhawk" which the "paleoconservatives" have borrowed, like so much else, from the craven left, we may fairly conclude that the reference is to those who believe that American foreign policy may well be properly implemented by the use of military force where appropriate and desireable and that the military (which is designed to kill offending people and break their things) is as honorable profession now as it has always been which is very honorable indeed. Just as one need not write novels to criticize them, one need not have served in the military to support it.

Since the primary targets du jour of the term "chickenhawk" as used by the "paleo-ostriches" are Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan and other Jews who are actual conservative leaders, you may draw your own conclusions as to the knee-jerk prejudices of the "Paleo-cons".

There is no such thing as a conservative among the so-called "paleocons". If you doubt that, review the website of the Rockford Institute which may be found at chronicles.com which slaps some cheap rouge, garish lipstick and an overdose of face powder over the old prostitute that was Neville Chamberlain, rehashes the pacifistic bilge that died on December 7, 1941, and, if some meager remnant of that pacifistic bilge was ever revived, it died again on September 11, 2001, claims deep insight into the constitution having not a clue as to the document, and thinks America exists to favor charming, eccentric little tyrannies like Serbia and Iraq or jaded old European cowardly charlatans like France, ChIraq, Germany, Schroeder and Fischer, their mutual Belgian poodle and the usual gang of socialist Scandanavians like Hans Blix while taking lavender Raimondo (antiwar.com) seriously as a foreign policy guru when he is nothing more than warmed-over McGovern in drag.

Real conservatives believe in the use of military force, in social morality, law enforcement, babies, Ann Coulter, and would never publish idiocy like that of the Rockford Institute which is selling Ditzy Chicks albums on its website, and has called France a nation that is, always has been and always will be superior to the United States. Real conservatives DESPISE the United Nations and all of its works and all of its pomps and will not be satisfied with anything less than its elimination.

Those who are mislabeled as "neo-conservatives" ARE conservative. The "paleo-conservatives", to the extent that they claim to be conservative, are frauds.

As recently outlined in David Frum's April article in National Review Online, the "paleo-conservatives" were a group of socially eccentric losers who were in a snit over not being hired into the Reagan administration and so, in 1986, decided to re-create themselves in the fraudulent conceit that they and not those who had elected Reagan were the "conservatives" and they claimed to belatedly discover, horrors, Jewish influence among those who had been hired.

I happen to be Catholic but, hey, this is America and those Jewish conservative intellectuals, formerly associated with Ronald Reagan, now associated with Dubya, have done much good for America and for the conservative movement.

[BlackElk]

Ummmm, one of the self-defining positions of "paleo-cons" is that they despise National Review and Bill Buckley, Bill Rusher, and many early editors of National Review who were not only Jewish by ancestry or Faith but also, in numerous cases, ex-communists such as Frank and Elsie Meyer, Max Eastman and others. Reagan never had an allergy to Jewish allies. Goldwater was the grandson of a Jewish department store owner and of three Christian grandparents.

Don't believe me. Review for yourself the websites of the Rockford Institute (chronicles.com) and "paleocon" foreign policy guru Justin Raimondo (antiwar.com, no less!) and judge for yourself. These people are NOT conservative. They are simply social eccentrics, the kind you used to have fun teasing in high school, who hide behind a bizarre agenda and sully the good name of conservatism.

[inquest]

Socially, they are far more comfortable with Franklin Roosevelt than with Ronald Reagan

Of all the clueless statements in your last couple of posts, this one stands out the most. The paleos, pretty much by definition, were FDR's arch enemy when it came to foreign policy. It was they who obstructed his highly ill-advised attempts to get us involved in WWII prior to Pearl Harbor.

[BlackElk]

If "paleocons" don't want the reputation of anti-Semitism, they ought not to earn it. Deal with the real issues:

Is cowardice in foreign poicy a hallmark of ANY kind of conservatism, however defined?

This Jane Fonda, would she be a paleoconservative, then?

Will the Dixie Chicks be the songbirds of the paleo-curmudgeon movement?

Is "paleo-con" Sam Francis regularly featured in "paleo-con" rags, as the editor of the newspaper of the "Conservative Citizens' Councils" whose organizational maiden name was the White Citizen's Councils (the blow-dried Klan) a conservative? Is he a racist? Is he anti-Semitic, having addressed the neo-Nazi American Renaissance Movement convention and entertaining those present on the topic of what Francis called "kosher conservatism?"

Would you say that you have set an example for others by refraining from name-calling?

[BlackElk]

Is that a racial crack? America wants to know!

[BlackElk]

Is there something wrong with Joe McCarthy? That is also a delusion of Tom Fleming at Chronicles. Sniff, sniff, McCarthy was just TERRIBLY UNFAIR to some of his dad's probably communist friends. Ohhhhh, it was sooooooo terrible! And furthermore, McCarthy had that old "inordinate fear of communism." What used steer food! You might adjust your atttude by reviewing The Verona Papers and other published KGB documents which essentially confirm Fighting Joe's truths.

Raimondo and George McGovern and Llewellyn Rockwell et al., qualify as surrender monkeys, as anyone could see in the late unpleasantness necessitated by Saddam Hussein. Poland participated on our side. To whom and why did these Poles surrender and how do they qualify as "surrender monkeys?" compared to say, the anti-war crowd of neo-Americong with whom you wish to associate like International ANSWER, Ramsay Clark, Jane Fonda, Janeanne Garofalo, Sean Penn, the Ditsy Chicks, Tim Robbins, Susan Saranwrap, et al.? I guess actually that Fonda and Ramsay Clark were paleo-Americong.

[Polybius]

The Crusades weren't "perpetrated", they were Europe's reaction to Islamic expansionism. Don't forget, until it was overrun by the Muslims the Holy Land was in large part Christian. Furthermore, Europe itself was in danger of being overrun. When it comes to the Crusades, the West has no need to apologize.

Agreed.

In Spain, the Muslims never apologized for invading the 900 year old Hispano-Roman (with some uncouth Visogothic barbarians thrown in) civilization of my ancestors in 711 A.D.

In turn, my ancestors never apologized for waging the 781 year long Reconquista that finally expelled the Muslims from Spain in 1492.

[RAT Patrol]

Who needs liberals when conservatives are so adept at destroying themselves.

[dix]

One of the favorite canards of DU, and the rest of the lefties is all of us on FR are of one mind, agree on everything, and there are no debates like this.

Differences of opinion are fine, but I agree with you this one is not proving useful, is fraught with wrong information, and is getting silly. Let’s save our energy for the hard left that is trying to destroy this country.

[BlackElk]

Nor are you likely to be a member of any political effort that will see success and a good thing too. I have been a member of the conservative movement for nearly forty years. I have been a leader of its youth groups years ago.

The conservative movement, traces its roots as George Nash's book so well explained, to the formation of National Review by Bill Buckley and a group of editors (many of them ex-communists) which included Will Herberg, Frank and Elsie Meyer, Max Eastman, James Burnham, Willmoore Kendall, Whittaker Chambers and others. Conservatism pre-existed the movement. It was the movement that translated the ideas into reality.

The conservative movement is far better exemplified by Ronald Reagan, Rick Santorum, Jim Bunning, Bill Buckley, Bill Rusher, Tom Delay, Dick Armey, and, yes, Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and others like them than it ever will be by the group of social eccentrics and malcontents who call themselves "paleo-conservatives" in the apparent delusion that they are somehow successors of John Flynn and Charles Lindbergh who folded the isolationist movement as soon as Pearl Harbor was attacked. Lindbergh even sought and obtained a commission from his enemy FDR to personally fight.

If Justine Raimondo is your idea of a conservative leader and foreign policy sage, you have nothing in common with Lindbergh or Flynn and I can think of a number of descriptions for your brand of thinking but NONE of them include the honorable word "conservative." "Paleo-conservative" is a lie. It is neither.

"Paleoconservatives" are like Canada or Belgium, conscientious objectors to personal participation in the fight to save Western Civilization but perfectly willing to spend their time criticizing the gladiators in the arena on style, smug in the knowledge that they will be defended by those gladiators who are braver and better folk than they are.