Neo-Conservative. Literally, "new conservative." New how? New because you're new to conservatism? Or new because it's a new form of conservative?
Who cares? Well if you read a lot of political journals or some newspapers, or listen to some political commentary, you may hear references now and then to "neoconservatives" or "neocons." It's an interesting label. Like a lot of political labels, it's a pigeonhole that doesn't really fit a lot of people perfectly. But it can be a useful shorthand, and today's OpinionJournal has a pretty good piece by Max Boot on the word, and the movement it broadly describes.
There's one particularly funny thing that Boot doesn't mention: in most of the world, people of the "neoconservative" viewpoint would not be described as "neoconservatives" at all. They'd be called "neoliberals." Only in the United States are such people even thought of as "conservative."
No kidding.
Max Boot has a number of things correct here. One of them, however, is not grouping Theodore Roosevelt as a “hard Wilsonian.” I believe Teddy Roosevelt was our best foreign policy president. I believe TR was even better than Richard Nixon on foreign policy, who was better than any Democrat on that subject was. Teddy Roosevelt was not Wilsonian in any way. Roosevelt roundly criticized President Wilson for his foreign policy positions throughout Wilson’s presidency. Mr. Boot has is right that Wilson believed in the naively optimistic international organization method of keeping peace, however.
Theodore Roosevelt instead, believed in utilizing a balance of power as the guiding principle for American foreign policy. This is how European nations related to each other before WWI. He did not subscribe to the League of Nations as a way of keeping international peace.
I agree with Mr. Boot however, that the term “neoconservative” has lost its original meaning. I remember the original neoconservatives during the Reagan years. They included John Podhoretz and Irving Kristol. Bill Bennett left the Democratic Party, as did Jeane Kirkpatrick. Even Eliot Abrams joined the Reagan administration after a lifetime Democratic Party affiliation. In his autobiography, Mr. Abrams documents his disenchantment with the Democrats’ floundering foreign policy under Jimmy Carter. Mr. Abrams describes his personal anguish in leaving the political affiliation of his entire family following his graduation from Harvard Law. He changed his registration from Democrat to Republican during the Carter years since he saw Democrats as perpetual doves. I guess he is a trademark neoconservative.
Now, the term neoconservative has all sorts of connotations, most of them negative. I remember listening to radio talk show host Mike Malloy in Atlanta use the term derisively (without ever defining it), I guess to slur anybody who has conservative leanings. Now Mr. Malloy is a nationally syndicated talk show host. I doubt that the retired surgeon has changed his leanings. I wonder if Mike Malloy will last longer than the usual liberal radio hosts. I suppose Chris. Matthews uses the term “neocon” to describe a modern-day warmonger given the way he uses it. He always juxtaposes the names Cheney and Wolfowitz alongside the term neoconservative when describing what he perceives as Bush’s war-like tendencies. I have yet to see or hear Chris Matthews define what he thinks a neoconservative is. Remember, Mr. Matthews has the disadvantage of working for Jimmy Carter, too.
It looks as though liberals will unburden themselves of any having to actually debate using “neoconservative” simply as a fifteen letter all-purpose noun to tar Republicans. Ann Coulter documents this methodology copiously in “Slander.” Does anybody besides me see through these people?
I followed a link at the bottom of the page of the original article and found
"A Question of Temperament
Conservatism is not about profit but about loss.
BY ROGER SCRUTON"
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002746
"LONDON--Here and there in the modern world you can find countries with conservative parties. Britain is one of them. But the U.S. is the last remaining country with a genuine conservative movement."
Interesting stuff.