Category Archives: Neoconservatism

Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer Came To Define American Conservatism

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy

Charles Krauthammer was the quintessential neoconservative. As the scholar of American conservatism, Paul Gottfried, puts it, Mr. Krauthammer “worked to reconstruct the American Right as an extension of the Left.”

It’s rather telling, then, that a former leftist, who was hardly distinguished by his hard-right positions, has come to define the American Right.

Inadvertently (or not), Rich Lowry brought the conservative canonization of Mr. Krauthammer somewhat under control by comparing him to William F. Buckley and Irving Kristol. (Although they seemed to have been far more prolific on the book-writing front and had taken tough positions on thorny issues.) But, mercifully, NOT TO intellectual giants like Russell Kirk and James Burnham.

Whether he meant to or not, Mr. Lowry provided a slightly more sobering reality check, although Lowry still sold Mr. Krauthammer’s philosophical predecessors short.

A consummate neoconservative, the late Charles Krauthammer, nevertheless, came to define American Conservatism.

6/27:

The American ‘Libya Model’ Of Denuclearization: Dishonor, Deceive, Kill

Bush, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Neoconservatism

No wonder John Bolton’s mention of the “Libya model” of denuclearization has put the negotiations with Kim Jong Un, leader of the hermit kingdom of North Korea, into speedy retreat.

Via UPI:

The Libyan program was dismantled during the presidency of George W. Bush. The process involved the transfer of Libyan nuclear equipment to a facility in the United States.
During the Obama administration, Col. Moammar Gadhafi was toppled from power and later killed by local rebel forces.

In other words, the US dishonored its agreement with Col. Gadhafi. In response to Libya’s denuclearization, America killed its leader, engaged in regime change and rendered that country ungovernable.

“We came, we saw, he died,” cackled Hillary Rodham Clinton. The gorgon who heads Caesar’s state department was gripped by a paroxysm of joy when a CBS News reporter informed her that Col. Muammar Gadhafi had been executed. “Veni, Vidi, Vici”: “I came, I saw, I conquered” is attributed to Julius Caesar in 47 B.C.

The hilarity unfolded on October 20, 2011. Backed by American drones and French fighter jets above, our Libyan buddies, “the rebels,” apprehended Gadhafi as he fled his hometown of Sirte en route to Misrata, both on the Mediterranean Sea. As they lynched their former leader on camera, the rebels emitted their version of Hillary’s blood-curdling riff: “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.” Sophisticated enough to film their “justice,” these atavists had no qualms about tearing into a defenseless individual before summarily shooting him in the head.

FROM “Murder on Her Mind.”

Question: President Trump seemed to be looking forward to making the impressive leap toward disarming North Korea, followed by an uneasy peace with its leader—even minting a “commemorative coin of Trump and Kim Jong-un.”


Wasn’t the president aware that his national security adviser, Mr. Bolton, could destroy it all?

Didn’t Trump know about Bolton’s foreign policy bellicosity?

The Old Left Loves Trump’s North-Korea Peace Initiative, Mocks Mad Max Boot & Jennifer Rubin

Conservatism, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Old Right, War

Neoconservatives, on the one hand, and neoliberals, on the other, are both united in war. Each faction, respectively, is what passes for Right and Left, these days.

Like the authentic Old Right, the authentic, Old Left used to be enthusiastic about peace, and not war.

It is in this older tradition that Tim Shorrock of The Nation praises the “Historic Korean Summit” and condemns “US Pundits for Reacting With Horror.”

“They were spinning the meeting, and Kim Jong-un’s outreach in particular, as a dangerous event,” he mocks:

April 27, 2018, was a historic day for Korea, and for the millions of people on both sides of that tragically divided peninsula. In a meticulously planned event, Kim Jong-un, the 34-year-old hereditary dictator of North Korea, stepped carefully over the border running through the truce village of Panmunjom and clasped hands with Moon Jae-in, the democratically elected president of South Korea.

Kim’s action marked the start of a remarkable day in which the two nations “solemnly declared” an end to the Korean War, which ripped the country apart from 1950 to 1953. “When you crossed the military border for the first time, Panmunjom became a symbol of peace, not a symbol of division,” said Moon, the son of two North Korean refugees who fled south in 1950. A former student activist and human-rights lawyer who was chief of staff to former president Roh Moo-hyun, Moon ran for office in 2017 on a pledge to make that moment of reconciliation possible.

Over the next few hours, accompanied by top aides and diplomats, generals and intelligence chiefs, the Korean leaders discussed an agreement that would lead to what they both described as the “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula. The two also “affirmed the principle of determining the destiny of the Korean nation on their own accord,” a signal to both the United States and China that the days of great-power intervention in their divided country may be waning. …

… “Yada, yada, yada,” the perennial hawk Max Boot wrote disparagingly in The Washington Post about the “Korea summit hype,” adding that “there is very little of substance here.” Similar hot takes were offered by Nicholas Kristof and Nicholas Eberstadt in The New York Times, Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post, Robin Wright in The New Yorker, and Michael O’Hanlon in The Hill. Their doubts were repeated and amplified as gospel by the usual critics on cable TV.

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Alan Dershowitz Vs. The Fanatic Richard Painter

Democrats, Donald Trump, Ethics, History, Law, Morality, Neoconservatism, Republicans

He’s a sharp mind that has stood up for The Law throughout, and remained above the filthy political fray we’re in: He’s Alan Dershowitz.

Dershowitz has stood up to the shill, Sean Hannity, too.

Now, Professor Dershowitz goes up against Richard Painter, whom I’ve described as the quintessential Yankee, in a 2017 post titled “The Face of a Fanatic, Or A Modern-Day Radical Republican”:

Richard Painter, a modern-day Radical Republican by any other name, has the same crazed look worn by the original Radical Republican, the fanatic Thaddeus Stevens.

The context (as in who the Radical Republicans were) is in my column, “The Radical Republicans: The Antifa of 1865.”