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Will contra the neoconservatives
A split in the mainstream conservative ranks! Dropping all collegial niceties, pulling no punches, and letting the chips fall where they may, George Will writes that as a result of their aggressive democratist ideology “neoconservatives alarm almost everyone who isn’t one—and especially dismay real conservatives.” Ooo-ee! “What the nation needs,” Will continues, is “a root-and-branch critique of the stunningly anticonservative idea animating the administration’s policy. The idea, a tenet of neoconservatism, is that all nations are more or less ready for democracy.” Will laments that the pathetic Kerry is utterly incapable of mounting such an argument.
Could Will’s unprecedented attack on the neocons be an anticipatory fulfilment of the paradoxically hopeful scenario for the election that I suggested last week? I said that if—as now suddenly seemed possible—Bush routed Kerry, and if as a result the left no longer presented an immediate threat to the maintenance of the national defense, conservatives would then be freed from the paralyzing command “not to fragment conservatism in the face of the left,” which in turn would release the forces of a more genuine conservatism against the Bushite brand. In other words, a massive Bush victory, by making the Democratic left irrelevant for a while, could surprisingly result in a real intellectual and political challenge to Bush and the neocons from the right. Perhaps the recent polls favoring Bush have already set loose such an anti-Bush, anti-neocon revolt. Email entry |