The New L-Word: Neocon - NY Times op-ed

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Op-Ed Columnist
The New L-Word: Neocon
By ROGER COHEN
Published: October 4, 2007
A few years back, at the height of the jingoistic post-9/11 wave, the dirtiest word in the American political lexicon was “liberal.” Everyone from President Bush to Ann Coulter was using it to denote wimplike, Volvo-driving softies too spineless for dangerous times and too given to speaking French.

Liberals were going to hand the country’s defense to the United Nations, turn the war on terror into police work and cave to bin Laden’s Islamofascism.

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California declared in 2004: “If you believe you must be fierce and relentless and terminate terrorism — then you are a Republican.”

No matter that none of the above was true. No matter that 20th-century liberal thought, like Isaiah Berlin’s, stood in consistent opposition to totalitarianism in fascist or communist form. The nuance-free message served to get the commander in chief re-elected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/opinion/04cohen.html?th&emc=th