The neat thing about innuendo is that using it makes you seem like you have some "special knowledge" unavailable to the rest of us peons, so when Josh Marshall starts speculating about the neocon cabal you can rest assured he knows something, even if he doesn't tell the rest of us. Right?
But seriously folks, what's a "neoconservative" but a "new conservative?" That is, neocon is a liberal who tempers his enthusiasm for Ilusha's Stone with a reality check once in awhile. On the other hand, doesn't the following just drip with insider insight?
On a deeper level, the defense is related to a mindset we often see in their analysis of intelligence. Just as they tend to discount the idea of disinterested intelligence analysis -- i.e., analysis that is not simply a cover for ideologically-driven opinion -- they are similarly unable or unwilling to see investigations such as these as anything other than a manifestation of ideological turf wars inside the executive branch.Needless to say, I don't impute such views to all who could be classed as having 'neo-conservative' ideas or foreign policy views. But it is very much the case with this particular crew of neoconservative national security street-fighters who circulate in and out of government.
Yet there does seem to be a clash of worlds going on here. It's not simply a matter of speculation or pure conjecture that we've come from an era dominated by balance of power politics to one defined by a conflict between a single great liberal power (I'd say liberal alliance, but the fact that it doesn't include Germany or France rules that out) and a crowd of anarchic and illiberal states and groups that would worry Thomas Hobbes. You don't need to be an insider to figure that one out. Nor do you need to be an insider to see that the autocrats are about as good for the body politic as a steady diet of Pepsi, gasoline, potato chips, and Cheese Whiz is to the body physical. You don't fix things with a little extra pepper and salt.
Let's agree on something, OK? Neoconservatism is simply a common-sense approach to foreign policy that doesn't completely discount idealism. Another way of saying it is that it suggests we're facing an "us against them" struggle, and that we are the good guys, because we at least tolerate liberal institutions, while they are the bad guys, because they don't. Yeah it's "new," because it's not entirely based on cynicism, but it's not hyperbolic geometry.
Now, let's assume that maybe Josh has a point about the current neocon crop that's bending the President's ear, and that they're really naught but a bunch of paranoid greedy/idealistic bunglers. If he doesn't like the situation can't he just start his own team? Unless he disagrees with the fundamental idea, I mean. If he genuinely wants to be a player (as his frequent abstract "in the know" rhetoric suggests) then isn't it about time he fielded his own cabal of neocons so that he can at least be in the game?
The alternative, it seems to me, is to simply bite the apple of balance of power "constructive engagement" politics, which in practical terms means being in favor of the autocracies who are ramping up the toxicity of the Earthian environment (as per Darfur). Is it that he thinks the public is too stupid to distinguish good neocons from bad neocons? Or is it that the bad neocons are all Jewish?
Let's "cut the crap" shall we? I may be a rank outsider, but I can distinguish pragmatism from wishful thinking when I see them side by side. And I'm fairly sure a majority of my readers can too. And about all Josh has going for him is wishful thinking. It's a big crowd to be out in front of, but just where the heck does he think he's going?
Posted by Demosophist at September 6, 2004 05:09 PM | TrackBack