Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Comment Du Jour

46 Comments

Over at John Boot’s review of the latest hairball to be hacked up by George Clooney and Hollywood, check out comment #25:

This web site has delved into sickness. How can anyone with any compassion attack George Clooney? He is a great man who works tirelessly to help the less fortunate. I read this article and was so blown away by the author’s ignorance that I felt compelled to call my Life Coach. I needed some immediate advice and direction. Sasha told me to channel my feelings toward the source of my anger, but to do so in a creative way that, hopefully, will penetrate the thick ignorant armor of my instigators. So here is my attempt to reach all of you through that ancient poetic art form of Haiku:

Crazy neocons
destructive and hateful
gay killers
never bi-curious
haters of life
snuffers of hope
negro president?
destroy!
mocha cappucino?
HATE!

Please take the time to digest this. I’m really hoping that it will reach some of you before your hate engulfs us all.

I can’t decide if it’s serious or a gag.

Which reminds me. A commenter at Space Politics named Grondine keeps talking about how the “neocons” have screwed up NASA. I repeatedly ask him what he thinks a “neocon” is, and to provide some examples, but he never does so.

46 thoughts on “Comment Du Jour”

  1. I agree. If it’s satire, bravo!!! If not, well thanks for the laugh anyway. Some of the responses are pretty good too.

  4. “I repeatedly ask him what he thinks a ‘neocon’ is, and to provide some examples, but he never does so.”

    Although originally intended to describe a “liberal” who developed some common sense–the so-called “mugged liberal”–the term “neocon” has become (to use a phrase coined by Tom Wolfe) a “vacuum phrase:” i.e., devoid of intrinsic meaning, and therefore used to mean whatever the user wants it to mean.

    Like “trickle-down economics,” “Neocon” is also (as I’ve written before, if not here then elsewhere) a kind of verbal red flag that the user is intellectually shallow. It’s like a sign atop the user’s head; a sign bearing a downward pointing arrow and the words “WARNING: NO REAL THINKING GOING ON IN HERE.”

  5. I was never sure if a Democrat like me could also be a neo-con. But perhaps my Jewish background complicates the question.

    Is Francis Fukuyama a neo-con these days? Presumably he is not Jewish. I liked The End of History, I agreed with him in 1999-2001 when he called for the invasion of Iraq, and I was more pro-intervention-in-support-of-democracy than him in 2006 when he wrote this:
    http://zfacts.com/p/236.html
    and President Obama today is well to the right of the Fukuyama-of-2006 too.

    I bring up Fukuyama because he seems more non-partisan than a guy like Bill Kristol, not just because he seems more non-Jewish than Kristol 🙂 I wonder what Fukuyama thinks of Obama’s intervention in Libya. I wonder if any “neo-con” is against the intervention in Libya….

  6. I suspect there are some against an incompetent “leading from behind” “let the terrorists get the ground-to-air missiles” intervention in Libya.

  7. Rumsfeld became the symbol of the neo-cons for those who opposed them. I wonder what Rumsfeld thought of “leading from behind”. Taking a backseat to British and the French probably didn’t appeal to him, but effecting change using minimal involvement probably did (despite the fact that minimal involvement makes it more possible for people to get ahold of Libyan armaments).

  8. “let the terrorists get the ground-to-air missiles”

    Did this happen in Iraq as well? If so, did it become a problem for us? If not, why not? Seems like “the dead-enders” had access to whatever armaments the US forces didn’t destroy first.

    1. One of these days, some CIA person will write memoirs of his adventures tracking down and destroying the Stingers left behind in Afghanistan. I’ve heard rumors that it was one of the biggest clandestine intelligence activities since WW-II.

    2. There was a considerable effort to destroy weapon caches and depots in Iraq. Not really sure why the media wouldn’t cover something as important as that…

    1. Perhaps “metacon” would be better. Or “paracon.” No, that has a slightly positive sound to it…can’t have that.

  12. It always seemed to me that leftists like to use the term neo-con because they like to think of people they disagree with as neo-nazis.

    The word rolls off their tongues just like cries of racism.

  15. I dunno, I lived in Seattle briefly, just before DEC went under, and there was a place in Pike Place Market that made a mocha cappucino (with a dark chocolate crispie bar balanced across the rim) that was great. It was my one and only mocha cappucino, but I enjoyed it. Way too sweet, but as candy, it rocked.

    I have never, ever, before this comment, typed “neocon”.

    1. Ya, they do taste good. I just like to make fun of the cappucino culture (especially in Seattle) 🙂

  16. “I was never sure if a Democrat like me could also be a neo-con. But perhaps my Jewish background complicates the question.”

    Actually, most original neo-cons were Jewish former Democrats. I always took the word as a PC attempt at Jew bashing.

  17. Rumsfeld signed the same 1998 letter to President Clinton regarding Iraq that Fukuyama and Kristol signed.
    See it here: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
    That’s why I think of him as a neo-conservative. I can’t think of a better single litmus test than that letter.


    “Bobone seems unclear on what the prefix “neo” means.”

    I honestly don’t know what you are getting at here.
    Neo-conservative refers to a viewpoint; a person who has always been a conservative can still subscribe to the neo-conservative viewpoint.

  19. Ok, smart guy, two questions:

    1) What does this article get wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
    I ask because I associate the current usage of the word “neo-conservative” with the Kristols, Fukuyama, and the New American Century Project. Bilwick1’s point is fine, as a commentary on people who use “neo-con” to mean “anti-Bush, anti-Iraq-war”, but the word still retains further meaning, as indicated in the wikipedia article. But hey, it is wikipedia, so it is a work-in-progress, and probably inaccurate. So, tell me, what does it get wrong?

    2) Why is Rumsfeld not a neo-conservative?

    I would be grateful for even tentative and incomplete answers to either question.

  21. I see. I don’t know why you think that — it is completely inconsistent with any article I could find on the subject, and, of course, it is inconsistent with the wikipedia article I cited above. Is there any author who might sway you? How about Jonah Goldberg? Goldberg uses the term the way I use it — as a signifier for a belief system, one which could have always been held by a conservative. See this series of articles: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/206921/state-confusion/jonah-goldberg

  23. I’m sorry I even mentioned Goldberg, lest it distract from the truly excellent Irving Kristol article. I recommend the Kristol article to Rand, and to anyone else confused about the term “Neo-Conservative”.

  24. Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz are the original neo-conservatives (that is, former “liberals” who became hawks on foreign policy). Rumsfeld and Cheney are not “neocons” — they are conservatives, and always have been. And no, Wikipedia is not a reliable source in matters like this.

  26. “And no, Wikipedia is not a reliable source in matters like this.”

    But you do agree that Irving Kristol is a reliable source in matters like, particularly, this, right? And Irving Kristol disagrees with your usage. As does Goldberg, and as does just about everyone (and perhaps everyone) at the American Enterprise Institute.

  27. Bob Minus One, have you ever though about using a dictionary?

    ne·o·con·serv·a·tism
    [nee-oh-kuhn-sur-vuh-tiz-uhm]
    – noun 1. moderate political conservatism espoused or advocated by former liberals or socialists.

    Which part of “former liberal or socialist” do you not understand?

  28. Edward, the dictionary definition you cited also includes a second meaning, doesn’t it?


    Definition of NEOCONSERVATIVE

    1
    : a former liberal espousing political conservatism
    2
    : a conservative who advocates the assertive promotion of democracy and United States national interest in international affairs including through military means

    And guess what, neither of those definitions is completely consistent with what Irving Kristol says the word should mean. He will set you straight here:

    The Neoconservative Persuasion
    From the August 25, 2003 issue: What it was, and what it is.
    http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/000tzmlw.asp

    I think Kristol’s explanation is vastly superior to what you’ll find in the dictionary, and better than Wikipedia too. Kristol and Goldberg don’t disagree with each other, but I suspect Goldberg would cheerfully acknowledge the authoritative nature of Kristol’s essay.

  29. Bob-1, this isn’t calculus. Go back and re-read my post, particularly the second paragraph. Go ahead, read slowly–move your lips if you have to. No one’s watching.

    I have the advantage of age in that I was around at the birth of the Neocon movement, though not actually part of it myself. I saw people I knew–“liberals” who were actual out-of-the-closet democratic socialists–who, horrified by the totalitarianism and dictator-worship* of the New Left–became the first “neoconservatives.” Also, as others have suggested, make Mr. Dictionary your friend and learn what”neo” actually means.

  30. I meant to add a footnote on my phrase “dictator- worship:”

    “Uncle Ho” worship followed by Mao worship followed by Che-and-Fidel worship. The Che cult, unfortunately, is still with us.

  31. Here’s a test of whether your definition is silly: Is Irving Kristol’s son, William Kristol, a neo-conservative?

    Your definition doesn’t allow for the possibility of a second generation of neo-conservatives, and yet William Kristol, a leading voice in the neo-coservative movement, is a second generation neo-conservative.

    As for the prefix “neo”, Kristol uses it to indicate a new breed of conservative, much as neolithic indicates newer (later) developments in the stone age.

  34. Wodun, sure, that’s true. But here we are in 2011, William Kristol is a leading neo-conservative, and a definition which excludes Kristol AND denies that neo-conservatism is a school of thought while one of its founders promotes it as a school of thought seems like a really lousy definition.

  36. I did. And it was funny! He was lucky the audience was composed of officers and gentlemen.

    (And the video captured a rare example of the President of the United States having something in common with Rand Simberg….)

    1. Obama is a good public speaker. I am not sure how much he prepared and rehearsed his election speeches; he probably doesn’t have the time now to put in the work but he should really try and ditch the teleprompter.

      Maybe it is his writers or his preparation but his speeches have really gone downhill.

      I am guessing his owes his wife big time for that speech.

  37. Can we get back to that idiot Clooney? Oh, and is idiot compadres.

    I’m stymied by him and other liberal Hollyweird types who own two or three houses, half a dozen cars, arrive damned near everywhere by professionally driven limo, who work in an industry that creates products as tightly controlled by a small number of players in any industry in the world, who after all that still think that “they” are still regular guys looking out for other regular guys.

    They do movies, shows and plays about cops, soldiers, and blue collar working people in industries they have ZERO contact with except for their disdain for same. And I’m just a little leery of a guy with $160M in the bank who thinks HE’s still a little guy, with little guy ideals!

    If you’ve got just $160 and keep telling everyone you’re rich, they lock you up at a laughing academy. How is Clooney’s crap any less crazy? It’s sheer delusion.

Comments are closed.