The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait takes on the “decrepit intellectual state of neoconservatism,” and its intellectual driver, Bill Kristol. Chait claims there was a time when “there was something inspiring” about the neoconservative vision, but no longer:
As the Iraq war has curdled, the idealism and liberalism have drained out of the neoconservative vision. What remains is a noxious residue of bullying militarism. Kristol’s arguments are merely the same pro-war arguments that have been used historically by right-wing parties throughout the world: Complexity is weakness, dissent is treason, willpower determines all.
Kristol’s good standing in the Washington establishment depends on the wink-and-nod awareness that he’s too smart to believe his own agitprop. Perhaps so. But, in the end, a fake thug is not much better than the real thing.
(Via Andrew Sullivan)