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November 20, 2006
Lunatics expel least-crazy for brain malfunction: neoconservative latest
I love the political self-centeredness of this comment: "[Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn)]: 'If Rumsfeld had been out, you bet it would have made a difference . . . 'I'd still be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.' ' But that's not the importance of this Washington Post article. What is noteworthy, is the chutzpah of the neocons, that messianic war cult (I used to think I was overboard in that description but I've reverted since) of Right bolsheviks who blame Bush now for not properly executing their vision. (Specter, by the way, is not a neocon; his comment is just merely too good to miss quoting.) I mean it's like a bunch of lunatics excoriating their most recent member for being irrational. Ken "Cakewalk" Adelman dissing Bush for stupidity on Iraq??!! As they said in anti-McCarthy times, have you no shame sir?
The new neocon party line is that it all would have worked well, if it wasn't for those meddling kids, Bush and Rumsfeld. Joshua Muravchik elsewhere sets the theme:
As badly as things have gone in Iraq, the war has not disproved neoconservative ideas. Iraq is a mess, and the U.S. mission there may fail. If that happens, neocons deserve blame because we were key supporters of the war. But American woes in Iraq may be traced to the conduct of the war rather than the decision to undertake it. In fact, despite the alarming spike of anti-Americanism worldwide, the political space in many Middle Eastern countries -- such as Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and most of the Persian Gulf nations -- has widened appreciably in response to Bush's pressure and advocacy.
Ah yes, we're responsible, but not really responsible because even though we lost the war, we won it, with an alarming spike in anti-Americanism, and an increase in political space in the Middle East thanks to the actions of the guy who screwed it up. Oh, and let's not talk about Israel-Hizbullah.
Posted by Matthew Hogan at November 20, 2006 09:20 PM
Filed Under:
American Culture
Comments
Quote reminds me of a program on Blair in which Thatcher appeared, talking of her downfall. "If everyone had been as loyal to me as (some minister), I would still be in power!"
You could see the mad predatory hunger in her eyes.
The problem is: So many gross mistakes have been made in Iraq, it's hard to separate the fallibility of the idea from its flawed execution. Somehow I wish the US had managed better, but still failed, to disprove it entirely. It has to be stamped into the ground. Not that I wanted them to fail, of course. It's rather like those who say socialism works, it just hasn't been done right ever.
As in this this Hitchens book review:
It was important not just that the Hitler system be defeated, but that it be totally and unsentimentally destroyed. The Nazis had claimed to be invincible and invulnerable: Very well, then, they must be visited by utter humiliation.
Published in the Weekly Standard, ironically.
Posted by: Klaus ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://matthew.aqoul.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 21, 2006 08:26 PM
Did I just Godwin the neocons?
Posted by: Klaus at November 21, 2006 08:28 PM
Remember, Real Existing Neoconservatism has never been tried.
Posted by: Tom Scudder at November 22, 2006 07:07 AM
We're all Godwinners now.
Posted by: matthew hogan at November 22, 2006 08:07 AM
Ich bin ein Godwinner.
Posted by: Klaus at November 22, 2006 02:19 PM
Remember, Real Existing Neoconservatism has never been tried.
Ay, indeed!
The present weakness of Neocon America is, if scientifically examined, not a result of the objective conditions, but rather caused by the Old Europe-supported intrigues and intellectual venom spread by Reformist-Pacifist tendencies within Orthodox Neoconservatism.
To correct the course of American hegemony, Neocon think tanks of America need to rise up as one and strike back with an iron fist at the peace-mongering hyenas of anti-Rumsfeld deviationism, and waste no time in wiping out the cliquist hydra of the Perle-Wolfowitz tendency! Only thus can the Project for a New American Century be restored to its proper path and the permanent democratic revolution secured!
Posted by: alle at November 22, 2006 04:28 PM
They're stupid whinging Bolsheviks. Really mate, they pretend to be something else, but they're bloody Bolsheviks. Do you think I made up the term Right Bolshevik by accident.
Posted by: The Lounsbury at November 22, 2006 06:03 PM
