Comments on: Republicans Looking for an Enemy?

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:51:32 +0000

Rick, they made President Clinton the enemy, and were determined to be all things anti-Clinton. Thus when Clinton told them Al Qaeda should be their highest priority, they instead did the opposite and ignored Al Qaeda until it was too late. Watch the blogginheads segment.

By: Rick DeMent

Rick DeMent — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:40:14 +0000

And yet terrorism was not an issue in the 2000 campaign at all and the GOP platform didn't even mention it as an issue.

By: PAXALLES

PAXALLES — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:12:06 +0000

Frankly Fukuyama Fingerpointing Not a Great Dot Connection...

James Joyner has an interesting piece at Outside the Beltway on the Republicans allegedly looking for an enemy as they tend to do well when foreign policy is on the ascendency. This was according to Francis Fukuyama, the scholar and...

By: McGehee

McGehee — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:00:26 +0000

Andy, you're only the second blog commenter I've seen compare neoconservatives to Trotskyites.

By: Andy Vance

Andy Vance — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 21:56:27 +0000

Oh, and "Dissident President?" How Trotskyite is that?

By: Andy Vance

Andy Vance — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 21:19:49 +0000

Neither Matt or Fukuyama claim it was a secret plot by "Republicans." They specifically say it was "Bill Kristol and his circle," i.e., the neocons, trying to influence what they considered to be a listless GOP in the 90s (they actually preferred McCain to Bush), and then from within as an influential faction in administration centered around Cheney (who saw the neocons as a means of pursuing reassertion of executive authority and hawkish, hardball foreign policy). After 9/11, they offered up their ready-made neo-Wilsonian ideology and rhetoric. Old skool realists Powell and Rice resisted, but the neocons were better prepared, better organized, and more determined. It's no secret that "national greatness conservatives" were looking for an enemy - any enemy - to give the country "purpose" all through the 90s, including China. The libertarians noticed, and were postitively apoplectic, because they saw it as Trotskyism in conservative clothing.