The Neocons Lament
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, History, The War On TerrorismRemember all those quotes from the neocons that Vanity Fair published pre-election, which the neocons then disowned?
Well, the full article is out and it’s a doozy. So you read it and tell me if you think the author David Rose took their quotes out of context.
From Vanity Fair, some key paragprahs after Rose recalls his meeting with Richard Perle:
Having spoken with Perle, I wonder: What do the rest of the war’s neoconservative proponents think? If the much-caricatured “Prince of Darkness” is now plagued with doubt, how do his comrades-in-arms feel? I am particularly interested in finding out because I interviewed some of the neocons before the invasion and, like many people, found much to admire in their vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East.I expect to encounter disappointment. What I find instead is despair, and fury at the incompetence of the Bush administration many neocons once saw as their brightest hope.
And according to Rose, the neocons who said he quoted them out of context are just flat out lying, and they’re the ones trying to score political points, not Vanity Fair. Well, except Kenneth Adelman, who applauds Rose and Vanity Fair’s pre-election teaser…
Some of the neocons also claim that the Web excerpt quotes them out of contextâ€â€?implying, perhaps, that in other parts of their interviews they had praised the performance of Bush and his administration. That charge is untrue. Meanwhile, not all the neocons are unhappy. On Wednesday, November 8, with news of the Democratic takeover of Congress still fresh and Rumsfeld’s resignation still hours away, I receive an e-mail from Adelman. “I totally agree with you,” he writes. “Why keep Issue #1 behind closed doors until the American people have a chance to vote? That’s why I was (among the only ones) not giving any ‘rebuttal’ to the [Web] release, despite being asked and pressured to do so, since I think it’s just fine to get word out when it could make a difference to people.“Plus I personally had no rebuttal. I thought the words I read from you were fair and right on target.”
It’ll be interesting to see what the rest of the neocons have to say now…
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 and is filed under Foreign Policy, History, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Wow, now that’s really something. I’m watching Anchorman at this moment, the part where Will Ferrel gets his ass whipped by his female anchorwoman counterpart, and after he’s hit rock bottom he’s trying to get a meal at his once favorite restaurant. His old friend the owner brings a plate of something disgusting, and says “you will eat cat poop, yes you will, cat poop” As I read this article I think about Hiilary saying how this president was the worse in modern times. All the neocons laughed at her, a woman president, what a joke! Well now she gets to say ‘ Eat cat poop, George, yes you WILL eat cat poop.
And, like Ron Burgandy, he deserves it. But everyone’s still missing the point. Bush didn’t fail us. Yes his admin. is terrible and what he did for this country is truely bad. But where were the checks and balances? Where were our representatives to keep them honest. They’re the ones who let us down.
One of the pundits criticizing Bush talked about how good the original idea of “spreading democracy” in the Mid-East was. That our greatness as a country gave us the moral authority to go to war, and all that was wrong was Bush’s mishandling of it. NOT !!! To me this reeks of mid-evil crusaders going off to war to spread Christianity to the infidels. They don’t get it either.