Bush never campaigned as a neocon. His only nexus with them is really his acceptance of the efficacy of standing up democracies in the Middle east, one part of his justification of the war.

He ran as a conservative, although there is little conservative in his administration. About the only tenant of conservatism that he has fatihfully adhered to is the notion that what is good for American business is good for America.

Weshould note that the present day neocons are the intelectual (and in Bill Kristol's case, direct) decendents of those liberals who left the Democratic party after the McGpovern wing took over. They are really liberals in the FDR-JFK-LBJ-HHH-"Scoop" mold.

So, what's the problem?

For those who wanted a conservative as president, and thought Bush was such a conservative, he is a deep disappointment.

If you like a liberal as president, and don't mind a few strands of conservatism, you should be happy with Bush.

Classical liberal, or current-day lefty liberal? Big difference.

AG

I heard the audio clip of that moment... it belies (yet again) the reams of stuff in the BDS MSM that GW is "stoopid" or "mean" or "intolerant."

I don't know if I could act as charitable (or as disarmingly funny) with someone standing there lying to my face.

"Classical liberal" usually refers to those people who opposed the kings and the Pope, and rule by "divine right of kings." this includes Locke, who offered a natural law explanation adopted in our fouinding documents. All of the founding father were liberals in this sense, although Adams was less so. today we call these people "libertarians" because FDR stole the name.

FDR was told that to solve the depression, he wold ve to take a strong tack, adopting either a conservative program or a progressive program. FDR forged a middle way, which he called "liberal." That's when the word took its present meaning as, generally opposed to conservatism with a strong progressivism.

In 1972, with the taking of=ver of the Democraitc party by the McGovern wing, old toime liberals in the mold of FDR or JFK were booted from influence, and eventually drifted into the Republican party and in the wsecond generation, began calling themself=ves "neocons."

I call the later liberals "wimp" Liberals because, although they continue to support the idea of galavanting around the world bring peace, prosperity, and liberty to the downtrpoden of the earth, they generally believe that war is an option to do so. JFK, HHH, LBJ, and Scoop jackson had no problem with that idea.

Bush is an idealist whose foregn policy is liberal in the pre-McGovern sense. most of his errors in iraq have come because he was blinded to reality by his idealism.

btw, just as tjhe wimp liberals were taking over the Democratic party, in response to Vietnam, the Democratic conservatives were being weakened, in part becausae some moved to the Republican party. The liberal wing of the Republican party was weakened considerably by the aging of some of its leading lights and nixon's troubles.

So we have come to the problems of today, which, i would argue, have actually become much worse just BECAUSE ideologies have become more aligned with parties. it's one of the reasons that the House, designed to be fluid and the bringer of new ideas and change, now is stolid with few actually contested seats.

In the old system, if a district was, say, conservative in he main, both parfties wold put up coinservative candidates. if that candidate didn't work out, it was much more likely that he would be voted out in the next election.

Although i thought the two partiy, both with all the windgs system was stupid when i was young, i now see its wisdom. In that system, a party not only had to put up a candidate who ideology matched that of the electorate in his district, it had to put up the best candidate of that ideology in each district or lose seats. in our present system, all that counts, inmost districts, is ideology, and in our new system, that translates to party.

Not good.

Early in the morning....

I meant to say that the wimp liberals do NOT see war as an option, generally, for bringing blessings to the people of the earth.

They agree with libertarians (classical liberals) on this, because libertarians don't think that the role of government is to bestow blessings on the people of other nations.