Neocons give up

Everyone is piling on Bush now. It seems to be the thing to do, right winger and liberal alike. To not do it would make one an obvious hack.

I'm pretty happy we're seeing the destruction of the Bush movement, but it's very sad it took a disaster of this scale to make the obvious error of an entire ideology so obvious.

Liberals and progressives have been saying this for years. Oh look, we were right, and even the most die hard neocons are bailing out.

Neoconservatism has always an ideology dependent on the global projection of national power. What gave it its strength was that after 9/11, Americans were so angry at the assault that they wanted to go overseas and attack those responsible – thus was ‘The War on Terror’ born.

They were lied into thinking that the removal of Saddam Hussein would make the world a safer and more prosperous place. Clearly it hasn’t; if anything, you’re more at risk riding the Tube now than you were three years ago.

The lie has been shown not to stand up; and when that has not only failed but has been shown to have failed, what can an ideology based on the global projection of national power do when confronted with a crisis which shows it to be nationally powerless?

Nothing. The collapsed levees of New Orleans will have consequences for neoconservatism just as long and deep as the collapse of the Wall in East Berlin had on Soviet Communism; for when hacks and fulminators like John Podhoretz are openly criticizing the president, the Great Leader, the ideology is on the way out. And hopefully all of those who urged the ideology on, myself included, will have a long time to consider the error of our ways.

Democrats will take back Congress in the mid-term elections. That much seems pretty certain. Perhaps we have reached the lowest point in this country and better days lay ahead in every way. If Katrina sweeaps away the Neoconservative movement, and hopefully takes religion with it, maybe America can get back to what America does best.

** update **

Just occurred to me, this is just the beginning of the rage. I had been apathetic to politics recently, but this has got to be a time to be plugged in and paying attention.