The Neocon: Why Patriot Batteries make for better Inaugurations

LA Times

Bush Pulls 'Neocons' Out of the Shadows
WASHINGTON — In the unending struggle over American foreign policy that consumes much of official Washington, one side claimed a victory this week: the neoconservatives, that determined band of hawkish idealists who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and now seek to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East.

For more than a year, since the occupation of Iraq turned into the Bush administration's biggest headache, many of the "neocons" have lowered their profiles and muted their rhetoric. During President Bush (news - web sites)'s reelection campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the leading voices for invading Iraq, virtually disappeared from public view.

But on Thursday, Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that the central purpose of his second term would be the promotion of democracy "in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" — a key neoconservative goal. Suddenly, the neocons were ascendant again.

"This is real neoconservatism," said Robert Kagan, a foreign policy scholar who has been a leading exponent of neocon thinking — and who sometimes has criticized the administration for not being neocon enough. "It would be hard to express it more clearly. If people were expecting Bush to rein in his ambitions and enthusiasms after the first term, they are discovering that they were wrong."

On the other side of the Republican foreign policy divide, a leading "realist" — an exponent of the view that promoting democracy is nice, but not the central goal of U.S. foreign policy — agreed.

"If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that reveres the less idealistic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it … [and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy."

Hope and pray, Dimitri? Faith-based hunches, wild-assed guesses, cosmic assertions and unicorns are already the M.O. of neocons. And they have one half of your party, Dimitri. The half that writes the checks and pulls the trigger. You may insist on wishing upon a star but the rest of us, seemingly including those who've recently bailed from the administration, well, we're done rolling our eyes or lifting them to Heaven. It's time to get a net.

---

Up until Thrursday, I'd honestly figured that guys like Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz and Kagan merely knew which hot buttons to push when it came to our recovering Sophomore-in-Chief. And in turn, Bush needed them and their "seriousness" to cover his un-. As for being a Neocon, George W. Bush is an accidental one, the way you get on a bus to Cleveland instead of Cincinatti thinking only "C" and Ohio. Dubya wouldn't know Leo Strauss, the Neocon Moses, from the guy who invented rivet-pocket dungarees. And he's not alone. But Dubya has shifted, not surprisingly as all second-termers do, into full-blown "Legacy-mode," and his prompters, those wonderful folks who talk big but now have events like 9-11, Phantom WMDs and outed CIA agents and pyramids of nekkid Iraqis on their resumes, well, they're feeling pretty good about themselves as the soaring New American Patriots, despite the facts on the ground.

How'd we get here? Bush 43 was once merely enamored of the high flying "American idealism" of the folk at the Project for a New American Century and/or the American Enterprise Institute. Well, now he's married to them, in an Iraqi shotgun wedding. You dance with who brung ya, they say. And you don't criticize her dress. Or the offspring. With Thursday's speech, and with covert ops wandering the western countryside in Iran, he's allowed that spotty, brittle PNAC and AEI idealism to mutate into an American Ideal for the world: One size, one metric fits all--Ours. Sure, administration flacks are back-pedalling furiously, but foreign leaders, even the friendly ones, now smell "Rome." Or a straight-laced Caligula. Too late. You had your chance, you ate your cheese or said "Righto!" Doesn't matter where you lined up now. The Nico-Manicheans are here. They have Biblical hormones, righteous zeal and a 3% "mandate." And JDAMS and K-Street. And a woody for straightening out, "enlightening," their lessers. They're a group, and an ideology, in a hurry. Partly because they think this is their moment. And mostly because, they too, want to prove they "matter" in the Grand Continuum. That they are movers and shakers.

Sound pretty certain, don't I? Certainly am. After umpty-ump years of studying, helping, working with and for Architects, CEOs, Developers, Small Business owners, some politicians and other leaders and builders of things, a mental image came to mind. So I made it real a few years ago, and it sits up in the right hand corner of this blog. It's there to remind *me* to look for the deeper consequences of the requests and actions of the leaders I often find myself working for. And, to remind me to follow not just the money but, the ambition too. Where does it come from? And why? What are you really trying to achieve, and why? And most importantly, for Who? Honestly: for Who? It's an important question that needs answering because many of us are good at answering "How we do X." Many of us have no clue why. And when it comes to generating compelling, broad and serviceable rationales and plans "How? needs "Why?" Otherwise we fall in love with our ideas and missions, and others forget or ignore them, and Us. And we die a bridesmaid. But "Why?" without "How?" also leaves us feeling cheated, jilted--all fired up, raring to go, but with no map, no markers, no practical tools to get there effectively.

Go. Effectively. Those are the core of a wise mission and a sustainable competitive advantage. They're also, in metaphorical terms, the implicit purpose in Jim Collins' fine analogy about "being on the bus." With a company, I can stay or leave. I can find other leaders and opportunities that match my ambition at any time, even if it means a pay cut. With my country, I cannot. Sometimes it's an express coach, sometimes a welcome wagon. This time, its a steamroller. For four more years, a lifetime in "9-11 time" I am chained to an ambition I understand, but do not respect professionally or personally. This disrespect comes not from politics, but from people experience. (And, in my view, we are far more alike than we allow ourselves to believe. Thoughts, fears, hopes and questions. Different words maybe, different affectations, but the same once the Kabuki of class and race and role falls away.)

This ambition, his ambition, their ambition, is a destructive, self-interested and myopic one. It is theirs, not mine. And, I suspect if many gave it deeper thought, they'd reach the same conclusion. But paying attention or not, its vortex will make large casualties of innocent bystanders--already has, in lives and national reputation and opportunity. Fear of irrelevance, fear of failure, mirrored in Prideful certitude does that to some, high and low, Turbaned, or not. It separates how from why, depending on whatever needs justifying at the moment. Meaning becomes unmoored from act. Self-image trumps true self-interest. Fear of uncertainty, suspicion of of patience and calm confidence makes fools of many smart people, and fills SEC dockets, newspaper headlines. Or cemetaries.

So here's where Bush's legacy-factor is the slingshot to Neocon willfulness: More, faster, now! Raging and reactive narcissism. That's it. That's all. Foreign policy is the excuse and the device. Social Security Crisis? Fuhgeddaboudit. Hearts and minds are beside the point. You are the tools, or the obstacle. Fine. That's my read, my opinion. But I'm not the only certain one. We've been on these wild-eyed, legacy-fired missions before. Rather, the world has. And, having been through them far more often, on the dealing and receiving end, they know these things do not end well, historically speaking. The record of "enlightenment" by force and bluster, piety and destiny-speak, rather than by simple spadework and plodding, practical example speaks for itself. Stamina wins. Speed kills. SPQR.

---

One of the most popular Googled, and email-referral-ed posts around these parts is one scribbled last January. It tries to tackle and explain with some depth and, hopefully, some humor, what the hell a neocon is exactly. Who are they, why are they, where did they come from and what do they want? And, how is it they manage to do and say all kinds of incredibly stupid shit and still can hold an air of "competence" in the media and power firmament?

In fact, Thursday's Inaugural Address made me recall a certain snippet:

...In Bush's neo-vetted and -scripted platitudes about America's role of freedom and democracy bringer to the world, he sounds like a giddy sophomore who believes with all his soul that if people would just listen people would all hear wisdom and reform their silly selves.

And it was quaint when we heard Rodney King say it. We expect fuzzy thinking from habitual offenders and college students. Difficult to take from the "Fuzzy Math" President.

Seems it's kept it's relevance these last 12 months, and if headlines are guide, the world agrees. If you're so inclined, pack a lunch and your tinfoil hat, it's a fouro special