Down Down Go the Neocons

Filed under: Neoconservatives, Politics — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on May 20, 2007 @ 4:34 pm CEST

Sarah Baxter writes for The Sunday Times:

As Tony Blair was bidding farewell to President George W Bush in the Rose Garden on Thursday, the World Bank was preparing to kick out Paul Wolfowitz as president. Allies to the left and right in the Iraq war were falling by the wayside that day.

Was he responsible for Blair’s departure from office, Bush was asked. There had to be a reason why a prime minister who had never lost an election was being dumped. “Could be . . . I don’t know,” the president mused above the distant chant of war protesters outside the White House gates.

And what did he make of Wolfowitz’s likely resignation? “I respect him a lot and I’m sorry it has come to this,” Bush said, leaving the World Bank head to his fate…

Away from the Rose Garden the funeral cortege for the fundamentalist Rev Jerry Falwell was being assembled in the heart of Bush country in Lynchburg, Virginia. The portly 73-year-old televangelist had done his utmost to assemble the coalition of conservative Christians that went on to provide Bush with two presidential victories. Now he is dead and the government sustained by his followers is looking more and more like a corpse.

The writer Christopher Hitchens, a friend of Wolfowitz and foe of Falwell, says: “The main noise in Washington right now is that of collapsing scenery. The Republican party is in total disarray. They’ve been dropping their most intelligent people over the side while the presidential candidates are all outbidding each other to be nice about the revolting carcass of Falwell.”

Wolfowitz, the cerebral neocon, and Falwell, the braying theocon, had nothing in common personally. Indeed, Falwell blamed “the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians” for provoking the 9/11 attacks, an explanation uncomfortably close to the views of the Taliban. But the unlikely alliance between their two movements provided the brains and the brawn behind Bush. Now the neocons have been ousted, one by one, from their positions of influence and trust while the Republican party base is desperately thrashing around for a successor to Bush that it can back in 2008.

So, where the neodogs at?

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4 Comments »

  1. 1 lthomas

    May 20, 2007 @ 7:14 pm CEST

    Only words that come to mind in reading her post.

    Agenda driven, I hate everything about the war and Im so glad the neocons are biting the dust over this.

    This is the kind of journalism that no longer garners any respect. She should just write this in her blog and then we could all read it for what all blogs are.

    Agenda driven. Mine is agenda driven. I am a conservative who wants to put forth my viewpoint of the world in a manner that perhaps encourages others to take the trip with me.

    She is doing the same thing. The problem is that this is considered legitimate reporting and that is a shame.

    I do not begThe fall of Wolfowitz is already entering the annals as a morality fable for the Bush administration in which the arrogant, narcissistic former Pentagon official and a handful of his cronies were foisted on an unwilling international institution until it finally found a way to spit them outrudge her the right to hate everything about war, Neocons etc. But to do it under the guise of responsible journalism is a shame.

    Quotes from this article:

    The Republican party is in total disarray. They’ve been dropping their most intelligent people over the side while the presidential candidates are all outbidding each other to be nice about the revolting carcass of Falwell.”

    The cleavage between the two marks the end of an era in which Bible Belt conservatives became the surprise champions of radical nation-building in the Middle East in the hope of crushing terrorism and halting the march of militant Islam. After Bush, such reforming zeal is unlikely to be repeated.

    This is such venom. Putrid reporting.

  2. 2 yonason

    May 20, 2007 @ 11:00 pm CEST

    NEOCONS HAVE A LONG WAY TO FALL TO CATCH UP WITH THE BOTTOMFEEDING DEMS

    DIPLOSKANK PELOSI
    gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/04/pelosi-snubs-columbian-president-uribe.html

    THUGMEISTER MURTHA
    gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/05/murtha-goes-off-on-congressman.html

    >u>PATHETIC EX-PRESIDENT
    gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/05/no-he-didnt-worst-president-viciously.html
    atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/05/it_is_the_conti.html

    And that’s just scratching the surface of the mud at the bottom of the cesspool.

  3. 3 George Sorwell

    May 21, 2007 @ 12:40 am CEST

    Ltom–

    It could be worse than you think.

    The Sunday Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Fox News Channel.

    Generally speaking, Murdoch’s media outlets tow the line he wants them to. You can read this in the coverage of his attempt to buy the Wall Street Journal. This is not always the same as the conservative line–for example, Murdoch wants to do business in China, so there is very little negative said about China in his media outlets.

    As I’m sure you know, a lot of people claim the Fox Channel is also agenda driven.

  4. 4 lthomas

    May 21, 2007 @ 4:32 am CEST

    Aye. Fox is certainly agenda driven. They all are.

    Media has somehow sold their soul to outpace the Blog.

    Internet advertising is simply going to pull so many dollars from the MSM that their is coming a time when the news will be more conjecture then it will be hard news.

    Not anytime soon but the changes have started.

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