On "neocons"

I first heard the term "neo-conservative" in 1985, while a senior student at St. Joe's, in a class on the Vietnam War taught by Dr. Anthony Joes, a vocal conservative. Although SJU was hardly a hotbed of radicalism, an outspoken conservative was still something of a zoo animal - unusual enough to be an attraction.

Dr. Joes read from an editorial by Norman Podhoretz that ran in Commentary, explaining that a neo-conservative was simply a former liberal who had begun to question critically a lot of the assumptions that ultimately led to Greaty Society-type social engineering. I couldn't quite understand its transmogrification into a slur with anti-Semitic undertones over the past few years, but Brookhiser gives it a shot. It never was intended to identify a particular foreign policy view, other than that America was exceptional among all nations, a magnet for those seeking a better life, and an example to the rest of the world, particularly those parts suffering under totalitarianism. How that played out in terms of foreign intervention seemed an open question, with the neo-cons of the day supportive of the Reagan approach generally (specific misadventures, such as Lebanon, notwithstanding).

That some in that self-identified group of neo-conservatives now wish to persecute the GWOT in Iraq, and that some of those who are the most influential are Jewish, is hardly a reason to oppose their views based on their ethnicity. But there are those who do anyway, especially the wackos on the left. It is disappointing when right-thinking people adopt the same stance as the wacked lefties on this issue.