"An Apparent End to Evil?" The Rise and Fall of Neoconservatism
Edited on Sun May-23-04 07:11 PM by thebigidea
An Apparent End to Evil?
The Rise and Fall of Neoconservatism
by andre perkowski
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
- Dick Cheney
"If we just let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to be clever and piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants, I think we will do very well, and our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
- Richard Perle
"Perle packs an awful lot into his days. But even he has his limits."
- David Frum
Are those limits finally clear to even the most Hannitized of our citizens?
They were to spread democracy "throughout the Middle East."
They were to be greeted with flowers.
They were wrong, they were naive, they were neoconservative.
The whole Dick Tracy gallery of rogues and global hegemony villains are melting away before our very eyes... the press weasels are the first off the ship, diving into the lifeboats and displacing the women and children:
William Kristol, Weekly Standard editor and PNAC pontiff, seems to be having a hard time grinning like he used to. His Chesire smirk has become a panicked pout - for he smells his own blood in that polluted water, and the sharkish elements are indeed circling.
Tom Friedman, a man known to carry a ridiculous mustache that makes him look like an off-duty rent-a-cop, has started gagging on his own excretions. The man is mired in months of his own meandering bullshit, suffocating on his own screeds. Anonymous eyewitnesses report sad stories about Friedman found wandering somberly down the streets at 4am, looking for just the right man in the street quote to garnish his increasingly pathetic columns. But even fictitious friends are hard to find for Friedman, as each potential "small businessman" or "Expert in Middle East Affairs" he approaches tend to swat him away with a firm hand.
His starry-eyed NY Times collaborator, Judith Miller - is probably removing Ahmad Chalabi's entry in her speed-dialer at this very moment. And as for Chalabi himself, well - lets just say he's examining the trunk capacity of his sedan and looking a bit more furtive.
Christopher Hitchens can still be found intermittently on CSPAN, restraining a boozy belch and reduced to repeating a refrain that suits him well: "Pathetic... just pathetic!"
Tucker Carlson bailed out in favor of upgrading his bowtie collection, his Crossfire cohost Bob "Bile" Novak embroiled in enough controversy to cause denture malfunctions, near-fistfights, and grand juries.
"Richard Perle is a private citizen, who serves the U.S. government without pay, and is entitled to earn a living so long as he avoids conflicts of interest."
- David Frum
Richard Perle, if he already isn't ensconced in his tragically ironic villa in the South of France, is booking passage ASAP. Where has all the evil gone, long time passing? Corruption trails him, and has an easy time of it due to the viscous goo Perle leaves behind like a sickly snail. Mired in lawsuits both real and imagined, Perle will be spending more time attending to his combover than to overambitious ideas about world conquest this summer.
Paul Wolfowitz will soon be mainly inflicting his nasal drone on his ceiling fan alone, nobody left to listen to his mad ravings. Hopefully he'll get some quality time to actually find out how many people his splendid little war were sent to death by his pen.
El Snarlysneer Supremo, Dick Cheney of the Undisclosed Ambition, is pastier than ever and encased in a shroud of shameful scandal. Everywhere he goes, people whisper: "Halliburton!" - and those are just the people slipping him checks! Those that aren't in the bribing mood see him for what he is: the pinnacle of B-movie evil. Only this movie doesn't exactly intend to end without a fight.
Speaking of fights for survival, Donald Rumsfeld is putting the finishing touches on what Tweety Matthews of the Hollerin' Hardball will no doubt label a "strong resignation speech not seen since the likes of General MacArthur" whilst attempting to conceal his erection. Condi Rice is already scoping out replacements, painfully aware of the fact that she herself will be shoved out the door soon enough, ushered into a life of cushy counseling gigs and Stepford/Stanford speaking engagements. And how will her bruised boss cope, consigned to Crawford and continuous games of Tetris?
The Prime Neocon Nitwit himself, our glorious President, George W. Bush - is now showing the signs of his battered image as a "popular wartime President." How fitting that he falls off a bike. The headlines say: "Bush suffers.." - possibly not the only headlines we'll read this year that begin with those two words. For suffer he will, continuously - the accumulated crimes of his time in office have caught up with him. At the same time. In an election year. Needless to say, Karl Rove sleeps a bit less smugly.
The strategy Rove might pull in the coming months will be to try and dissociate Bush from the neocons... he was "led astray" or "given bad advice." Uh uh, Rovey-boy. Bush is part and parcel part of this Project for a New American Idiocy bullshit... he must not be allowed to escape the label: he is a neoconservative, not a compassionate anything.
So perhaps Rumsfeld will be the first offering. Baker will be trotted out to fill the plugs.
But the damage has already been done, the empire has come undone.
The giddy peaks of 2002-2003 already far behind them, the PNAC crowd have a humiliating fall just up ahead. Now we get to watch them squabble for the last remaining parachute... what fun!
But remember, folks: though it may be fun to wallow in their current problems, we aren't in the clear yet. Be careful, the monster might grab your leg just when you think he's dead.
"There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted."
- Dick Cheney
"I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems..."
- Paul Wolfowitz
So let us remove their sanctuaries, unmask their ringleaders, pull back the curtain and make sure it never happens again. Because there's always Jeb, you know.
