They Only Look Dead

Neoconservatives lobbied for an unnecessary war and are getting blamed. But they have made comebacks before.

by Scott McConnell
The American Conservative

Republicans may have gotten “a thumpin’,” but the neocons appear to be suffering a full-fledged rout. The intellectual faction that had its origins in City College’s storied Alcove No.1 during the 1930s (home of the “anti-Stalinist” socialists) has become a household word, and not in a good way. Apolitical grandmothers write their children e-mails deriding “the neocons and their war.” Intellectuals who have logged years on the payroll of well-funded neoconservative institutions forward little ditties through cyberspace: (to the tune of “Thanks for the Memories”)

But thanks to the neocons,
For every war a shill,
We’re driven from the Hill
But their mission was accomplished
Since our troops are dying still.
A cakewalk it was.

Thanks for the neocons
Those late-night shows on Fox
We watched while drinking shots
Sure Cheney lied and soldiers died
But ain’t Ann Coulter hot?
A kegger, it was.

If disrespecting the neoconservatives is emerging as a minor national sport, it should be enjoyed, and tempered, with realism. The last few years have been difficult for the faction, the years to come perhaps more challenging still. But they are as aware of their own vulnerabilities as anyone—much more so than the Bush-Rove Republicans with whom they have been allied. Neoconservatives have faced the political wilderness before and survived. They have other political options.

Moreover, whatever one might feel about “the neocons and their war” it is difficult not to experience some twinges of remorse over the movement’s decline. For decades, The Public Interest was a penetrating and groundbreaking journal. Commentary in the 1970s—when it turned hard against the countercultural '60s—was brave and forceful. Nathan Glazer may never have written anything void of wisdom. To see the movement that spawned this grow into something bloated, stupid, and ultimately dangerous to America is to see the terminus of a vital part of our intellectual history.

The neoconservative lines were first broken two years ago when Iraq War architects Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz were ushered out of the Pentagon—a virtual decapitation of the cadre that planned the war. Scooter Libby’s indictment and subsequent departure from Dick Cheney’s side was a further blow. By last summer, George Will, the dean of establishment conservative journalism in Washington, had turned openly against the group. Noting Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol’s call for the U.S. to use the Lebanon war as a pretext to bomb Iran, Will remarked, “The most magnificently misnamed neoconservatives are the most radical people in this town.” Kristol received more of the same medicine when he appeared on National Public Radio with Gen. William Odom, director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan: “Mr. Kristol certainly wants to make [Lebanon] our war. He’s the man with remarkable moral clarity. He tends to forget the clarity he had on getting us into the mess in Mesopotamia. I think if you look at his record, you’d wonder why anybody would allow him to speak publicly anymore.” Thus moral clarity—that robust quality the neoconservatives had long ascribed to themselves—is returned as mockery.

(The rest is here.)