Bush's 'neocons': far from the best and the brightest

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"A significant shift in American political history occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s when a group of "Cold War intellectuals," a number of whom were Jewish, defected from the liberal mainstream of the Democratic Party.

Alienated by the anti-war movement and by what they saw as ambivalence on the Democratic left about Israel's security, they first coalesced around the presidential candidacy of centrist Democrat Henry "Scoop" Jackson in 1972.

Most eventually moved over to the Republican Party under President Richard Nixon and his foreign policy alter ego, Henry Kissinger. Among them were Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and Ben Wattenberg. Some of today's neocons, including Paul Wolfowitz, Eliot Abrams and Douglas Feith got their start with the Jackson team.

While they were small in number, their intellectual influence was substantial. Their defection from the Democrats helped stamp the post-Vietnam Democratic Party as "soft on defense" and added heft to Nixon's administration. (This came despite Nixon's known antipathy to Jews, so vividly revealed later in the White House tapes.) Nixon's highly pragmatic foreign policy led to major agreements with the Soviet Union and a historic opening to the People's Republic of China. He was supportive of Israel during the traumatic 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Cold War intellectuals felt vindicated.

Fast forward to 2007, and we see what has happened to this neoconservative movement. We find Bill Kristol, Irving Kristol's son and editor of the Weekly Standard; Paul Wolfowitz, just ousted from the World Bank and safely landed at the American Enterprise Institute; Eliot Abrams, back in government after his deep involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal; and Douglas Feith, one of the architects of the Iraq war. Scooter Libby, just released from his prison destiny by an indulgent president, is a member in good standing. They have a friend and ally in Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Today's neocons are far from the best and the brightest."

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[bemildred]

1. Today's "No shit Sherlock" award. nt

[melody]

2. That's like saying the modern breed of Chihuahua is on the small side

We need no columnist to tell us this.

[Demeter]

3. NO Great Loss for the Democratic Party

Too bad they don't all exercise a right of return and leave the US alone.

[reprobate]

4. Their only right of return is to hell, AFAIK.

[MaineYooper]

5. Tommy Franks had it right about Feith:

the dumbest f*cking guy on the planet.

Wolfowitz and and the rest can't be far behind...

[ladym55]

6. That would be WHY they are neocons