My interpretation of the term “neoconservative” is of conservative the speaker dislikes, and whose policies he deems destructive. The term has been defined to mean one who believes in a minimal role for government, a robust military on the ready for deployment and a nativist driven sense of the US role on the world stage. The post-911 retreat from isolationism, to, first, the doctrine of "preemption – acting in anticipation of threats to the homeland, what I’d call “proximate threat prevention” and second, trying to remake hostile tyrannies into friendly democracies, or “ultimate prevention”.
How much of this is new, or diverges from Reagan or even Eisenhower conservatism? Reagan’s adversary was not an asymetric organisation like Al Qaeda, but he did move proactively, in cooperation with Britain and the Vatican to oust Soviet totalitarian imperialism. He moved to oust dictatorships through wars of proxy… He tried to shrink government though practical realities demanded he raise taxes and expanded some departments. The current adminstration will have to face the realities of opposition control of both houses and cooperate in spending legislation, some of which will have bipartisan support.
But Bush is neither a neocon nor a simple conservative. He just doesn’t know what he is and goes on from one failed policy to another or repeats the same one. Cheney is a latent tyrant who crudely says what others of his ilk might keep their own counsel on.
The Vietnam War was conceived as a preemptive war to stem to tide of communism in Indochina, and was started by a liberal and escalated by his liberal successor. So preemption is nothing new and no mark of a neocon. The naked desire to emasculate the safety net on the offered premise that welfare robs the recipient of dignity and motivation has been floating around for decades among traditional conservatives who opposed FDR and LBJ. There’s nothing “neo” in that.
If I were to give a prefix to this current batch of so-called conservatives who have destroyed our country’s reputation in the community of nations, turned a surplus into a monumental debt and deficit, neglected health care and education, and bleed the troops and the treasury over a blindly ill-conceived prudential error – a FOOL’S ERRAND – and created a groundless invasion into a regional crisis, I’d label them paleo-cons, conservatives longing for the time of robber barons, when the rule of law was less often enforced. This administration is marked the kind of conservatives that longed for the days when might made right.
