It may be a cliche, but one hopes he means it. The retirement of the knee-jerk reflex to consider every occurrence outside our borders a replay of late-’30s Europe would be really welcome.

Perhaps I’m not being fair, but isn’t “socially-traditional neoconservative” rather internally contradictory? A neocon can be “socially conservative,” but even if we substitute the much more sterile “socially” for “culturally,” can one really be a Wilsonian advocate of “spreading democracy” and, in any meaningful way, “traditional”?

I just now noticed that you ask this very same question at the end of your comment; my mistake. Nonetheless, I feel it certainly bears repeating, with, perhaps, my expanding upon it as I have. Moreover, given that neoconservatives tend to be economically neoliberal, can we at all call them traditionalists?

*sigh*

In gauging the mettle of one’s ideological opponents, i always find it helpful to count the cliche’s. For today’s performance we have:

“When the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.”
“a robust, forward-looking foreign policy ”
“Liberty at home depends on security abroad.”
“neoconservatives are former liberals who were mugged by reality”

Whew. If we were to score the post on technical merit alone this would rate a perfect “10 ” in terms of triteness. Moreover, he has helped me pick those gems out by putting most of them in bold type.

But it gets even better when one engages the meaty substance of his commentary. One always has the sinking feeling that he has strolled into the tall weeds when the obligatory appeal to authority takes the form of Old Man Podhoretz and Daniel Moynihan. I reckon Kirk or Chesterton would be a little too airy-fairy for him….too much of that stuff and you end up like David Frum, y’ know.

“Charles Murray’s argument that public-assistance makes poverty worse was validated by the GOP’s 1996 welfare reform legislation. ”

His point here may very well be correct, and I think many of your readers will agree with him. But it seems to me that the legislation he mentions “validated” nothing other than it was a pretty convenient position for the executive and legislative branches to take at the time.

“But folks must keep in mind that erstwhile (neo)conservatives such as David Brooks, David Frum, Richard Perle are soft-and-squishy self-promoters ”

i guess this shows what a commie I am, because I still think these guys are neo-conservative. Maybe he’s objecting because they got “mugged by reality”.

Finally, let’s glance at his final paragraph which – I apologize, everyone – I will quote in full.

“As I noted previously, the way forward for the GOP is to build an alliance between between hard classical-liberals and socially-traditional neoconservatives. If the “neocon” label is essential “toxic” for many on the right, that’s fine. Neoconservatism preceded the Bush doctrine and “compassionate conservatism.” Its clarity of moral purpose will remain, and for building a victory coalition going forward, I’ll simply be advocating a “core values conservatism,” one that combines the primacy of the pro-life movement for total human dignity with moral clarity in international politics – a combination that Barry Goldwater advanced for a strong and successful ideological right in earlier decades.”

I have no idea what any of that means, and I get the vibe that he may not know either. I m also pro-life and I suppose I too would support “total human dignity” if I ever saw it. As i was only three years old when Goldwater ran for President, I may have to take his word on that part, although I would have thought that winning elections would enter into the equation. And waht is a “socially-traditional neo-conservative”? Isn’t that oxymoronic? And wasn’t that the whole point of calling them “neo-conservative” in the first place?

Sorry to bore everyone with that screed but, wow, I feel better. We now return you to your previously scheduled program, already in progress.

Promise in vague generalities to do something about the budget, abortion, etc. but never really deliver while demanding lock-step conformity and strong support on the other issues?