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In a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, journalist Peter Beinart reassesses the legacy of Ronald Reagan by first restating the most common assumption about our 40th president, that “Ronald Reagan was the Ultimate Hawk.” Is this true? “Not so much,” writes Beinart: “Today’s conservatives have conjured a mythic Reagan who never compromised with America’s enemies and never shrank from a fight. But the real Reagan did both those things, often. In fact, they were a big part of his success… Sure, Reagan spent boatloads — some $2.8 trillion all told — on the military. And yes, he funneled money...

After Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are the two most popular rightwing talk hosts in America, defining for millions the definition of the term “conservative.” Lately, Beck has focused on attacking “progressivism,” often stressing that the progressive foreign policy of President Woodrow Wilson, who wanted to “make the world safe for democracy,” was identical to that of George W. Bush. Hannity takes a very different view, stating, “You can’t deny that George Bush was conservative on national security issues.” Yet, Beck does deny this, quite regularly. Who’s right? Better yet, who’s “conservative?” That depends on your definition. The...

During her speech to the first ever National Tea Party Convention in Nashville on Saturday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin discouraged the very idea of a national organization, urging the movement to stay leaderless and decentralized. This was the most important and valuable part of Palin’s speech. As for the rest of it–Sarah sounded pretty much like the same old Republican Party. Despite the many independents that make up the movement, the tea parties in large part represent a long overdue reexamination of conservative principles. A big-spending Democratic president seems to have awakened grassroots conservatives enough to finally lament the...

How does a bigot like Pat Buchanan Stay on TV? The Racist, Holocaust revisionst anti-Semite made is claim on Morning Joe today, implying that Bibi Netanyahu and the neocons were helping the protests on Iran. (see Video) This isn't a new thing for MSNBC's resident Jew hater Buchanan after all he has a long history of anti-semitic and other bigoted statements. What is surprising is that MSNBC continues to ignore calls for some action against their commentator. As Menachem Rosensaft wrote Huffington Post, MSNBC's silence is deafening:

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,...

I experienced a moment of clarity: The Republican coalition can not stand the dominance of the neocons. 1) Communism possessed a powerful military force with numerous nuclear weapons. Radical Islam does not threaten us in the same way. 2) Businessmen do not feel as threatened by Islam. 3) Some in the Republican coalition will worry that Israel is using us. 4) Converting Moslems into our friends is made harder by our Middle Eastern conquests. The Communists were easier to convert by conquest, they rarely held any real love for Communism. Neoconservatives can be a part of the coalition, but they...

Recall that second night of the Republican Convention when you were told to blow off a reception in your honor hosted by Phyllis Schlafly so Joe Lieberman could chaperone your debut before the directors of AIPAC. Neoconservatives pay lip service to life, but, as their enthusiasm for Lieberman shows, they have higher priorities. Now they plan to make them yours. You’ll find the new friends conducting your foreign-policy crash course pleasant enough, if a little dogmatic and a lot condescending. They call you “Project Sarah.” .... They tell you that the U.S. is fighting “World War IV,” a struggle against...

The American Right has just died and gone to heaven. Last night's convention address by Sarah Palin here in St. Paul has confirmed the bold decision of John McCain to choose the Alaska governor as his co-pilot and united the Republican Party as it has not been since the second term of Ronald Reagan. A wild enthusiasm for Sarah Palin has brought conservatives home to John McCain, and GOP leaders of all hues — from Fred Thompson to Mitt Romney to Mike Huckabee to Rudy Giuliani — to the rostrum to lacerate the liberal media for their five days of...

The risk John McCain took last Friday is comparable to the 72-year-old ex-fighter pilot knocking back two shots and flying his F-16 under the Golden Gate Bridge. McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his co-pilot was the biggest gamble in presidential history. As of now, it is paying off, big-time. The sensational selection in Dayton, Ohio, stepped all over the big story from Denver – Barack Obama's powerful address to 85,000 cheering folks in Mile High Stadium, and 35 million nationally, a speech that vaulted him from a 2-point deficit early in the week to an 8-point...

Who is Randy Scheunemann? He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States. But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role. He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man. From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 -- pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in...

The dangers inherent in the foreign policy advocated by the neo-conservatives are well known. While many Americans have become increasingly aware of those dangers, far less attention has been focused on the dangers of neo-conservative economic policies. This issue is of critical importance right now, because many are mistakenly pointing their fingers at the free market as the culprit behind our current economic plight. There are only a few in elected office who have any real loyalty to free markets and limited government. The agenda of neo-conservatives in the economy calls for a very active central government. Indeed, while there...

Iran is conducting a proxy war against the United States in Iraq, declared Ambassador Ryan Crocker last week. How? Gen. David Petraeus explained. The Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah are arming, training and directing the Shia militia fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Basra and firing rockets into the Green Zone. Said Petraeus, the Quds Force is responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers. If true, these are acts of war from a privileged sanctuary. And Bush would be as justified in attacking these Iranian base camps as was Nixon in ordering U.S. forces to clean...

The neocons may yet get their war on Iran. Ever since President Nouri al-Maliki ordered the attacks in Basra on the Mahdi Army, Gen. David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for U.S. air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East. Iran, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee, has "fueled the recent violence in a particularly damaging way through its lethal support of the special groups." These "special groups" are "funded, trained, armed and directed by Iran's Quds Force with help from Lebanese Hezbollah. It was these groups that launched Iranian rockets and mortar rounds...

Ron Paul Quietly Converting GOP Believers By John Fout TheStreet.com Political Correspondent 8/9/2007 12:20 PM EDT Why haven't conservatives leaders embraced their own ideals and come out to support Ron Paul in public? I pondered this issue in an article in June. I saw Paul as the one second-tier candidate who might have a chance of a breakout from the pack. It turns out I might have got it right. He has remained the most popular GOP candidate on the Internet. This genuine outpouring of support is rivaled only by that for Barack Obama.

I have been watching with interest the candidacy of Libertarian Ron Paul. Like many, I've been wondering what the heck he is doing in this race in the first place. Let's face it, even in the GOP field of candidates he doesn't fit in well. Naturally, he is a whipping boy for the GOP establishment... well, maybe just a laughing stock, would be more accurate. But, there is real substance to Mr. Paul, a substance that is all too easy to gloss over by focusing on his quirks. And he does serve a very important purpose; he helps bring the...

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul began running television campaign ads Tuesday in Iowa. The spots for the Texas congressman began just days before a straw poll in the first presidential nominating state. The 30-second ads will be in rotation in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Sioux City. Campaign spokesman Jesse Benton declined to reveal the cost. The ad features Paul speaking to a crowd of supporters while an announcer repeats the Texan's fiscally conservative campaign themes. Various statements flash across the screen, including "Stop the national I.D. Card." Benton said the ad, the first of two for TV, will be...

Neocons aiding '08 Republicans By Ralph Z. Hallow August 6, 2007 Most Americans disapprove of the Iraq war and of exporting democracy by force, yet neoconservative proponents of those policies advise the leading Republican presidential hopefuls. "There is an overwhelming presence of neoconservatives and absence of traditional conservatives that I don't know what to make of," said Richard V. Allen, former Reagan White House national security adviser.

For the past few days, movement "conservatives" and GOP cheerleaders have been ecstatic that Fred Thompson, former senator from Tennessee, may form an exploratory committee to seek the GOP nomination for president. "Now we'll have a conservative in there," said one person, who, I assume, has no idea what a real conservative is. There already are two fine conservative candidates seeking the nomination: Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo. And Fred Thompson does not even come close measuring up to them. Fred Thompson is a neocon globalist. First and foremost, let's look at immigration. A third-world invasion of the USA is...

Between Sept. 11, 2001, and his State of the Union Address in 2002, George W. Bush had America in the palm of his hand. But in that speech, Bush blew it. Singling out Iran, Iraq and North Korea as state sponsors of terror seeking weapons of mass destruction, Bush yoked them together in an "axis of evil" and issued this ultimatum: "I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's...

The Democrats are determined to make the election of 2006 a referendum on Bush and the war in Iraq. And, as of now, that is how history will likely record it. But beneath the surface of the national election, a different plebiscite is being held, within the conservative movement, on the ideology George Bush imposed on Ronald Reagan's party. What are the elements of Bushite neoconservatism? First, an interventionist foreign policy, using U.S. power to impose democracy and "end tyranny on this earth." Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are the laboratories and proving ground. Second, "Big Government Conservatism," as seen in...