Fixin' for a Fight - neocons v. conservatives

[realFedUp]

If you didn't catch the interview with
Richard Viguerie on PBS's NOW last night,
read the transcript when it's on the site.
Very enlightening for someone on the left.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/041025/usnews/25neocons.htm

Fixin' for a fight
In the GOP, the long knives are out for the neoconservatives
By Thomas Omestad

There's no question whom Richard Viguerie wants to see in the White House for the next four years. A founding father of the modern conservative movement, he is foursquare behind President Bush despite what he regards as undue influence from one wing of the GOP, the neoconservatives. In this, Viguerie reflects a hallowed Republican Party tradition: Mute policy differences and unite at election time.

But for Viguerie and other conservative leaders, maintaining that discipline this year is harder than usual. The Republicans' united front masks a growing struggle sparked by the president's hawkish and ambitious foreign policy--one that may burst into the open soon after the polls close, whoever wins. "Most conservatives are not comfortable with the neocons," Viguerie says. He decries the neocons as "overbearing" and "immensely influential. . . . They want to be the world's policeman. We don't feel our role is to be Don Quixote, righting all the wrongs in the world."

Viguerie's disquiet is widely shared by veteran conservative activists, who are increasingly blaming neoconservatives for placing Iraq at the center of the war on terrorism. "I'm hearing more discussion about foreign policy and the direction of the country than I have heard probably in the last 35 years," says Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

Some conservatives feel Bush acted hastily on Iraq and needlessly shed allies who had stood with the United States on Afghanistan, mushrooming the costs borne by Washington. Some question his switch on nation building: As a candidate in 2000 taking a traditional conservative view, he rejected it; as president, he has plunged into it in Afghanistan (which last week held its first presidential elections) and Iraq. Others are dismayed by "mistakes," such as assertions based on faulty or misused intelligence on Iraqi weapons. "If Bush loses, the pragmatists will blame it on Iraq," says John Pitney, an expert on GOP politics at California's Claremont McKenna College.

continued

[napi21]

1. Yes, I watched it. Good show!

I think it was on that show I heard them say that the war would begin on 11/3 no matter who won!

[realFedUp]

2. I think Dems should have exploited this fissure

In Pat Buchanan's book Where the Right Went Wrong,
in the chapter titled Conservative Impersonators:

Neocons don't mind spending til their
sides bust open and Rove promised pork
to everyone involved. Conservatives think of themselves
as fiscally prudent. Neocons want hegemony, conservatives
aren't into nation-building. Conservatives want
to make government smaller, neocons will do anything
it takes to take over the government.

Bush is the anathema to true conservatives.

Maybe 16 more years of Democratic presidents
will be plenty of time for neocons and conservatives
to work out their differences or die trying.

[green_fiend]

4. Neocons, Schmeocons

They will all hate Kerry if he wins.

[Anakin Skywalker]

3. Great read. Thanks.

[leftofthedial]

5. maybe they'll split with each other

and piss off the religious wackos while their at it


of course, we've been saying that for nearly 30 years now.

[sduncang]

6. Interesting....thanks!

Just a thought, but with Bush losing, wonder what the neo-cons will do in 2008? Could we see another splinter group running a third party, similar to Perot in '92? And then, there's the Bushies...

[yellowcanine]

7. I love the smell of Republican infighting in the (Wednesday) morning.

[Hand]

8. Good!

Viguerie and Perle in a cage match--Now THAT's entertainment!

:evilgrin: