Last week, Reihan Salam wrote a short column called “Why I Am Still a Neocon.” A lot of people sort of made fun of Reihan, pointing out, among other things, that nothing Reihan said made much sense, or had much of anything to do with any policies that might be described as “neocon.” They also pointed out that Reihan’s clincher—“Richard Nixon killed my uncle” (by supporting West Pakistan’s oppression of East Pakistan/Bangladesh back in 1971)—was not entirely on point. (Over at the American Conservative, Daniel Larison provides his own beatdowns of Reihan’s inconsistencies and links to others as well.)
In response to the fact that he made an ass of himself in about 500 words, this week Reihan makes a larger ass of himself in about 2,500. It seems to me that Reihan’s major problem is that he didn’t write the first column to say anything substantive about foreign affairs. Rather, he wrote it to convince the Bill Kristols and Charlie Krauthammers of the world that he’s still a right guy. It’s not easy being a liberal these days, not with Barack “I am the law” Obama in the White House, but it’s not easy being a conservative either, not if you actually want to think for yourself, as Reiham is occasionally wont to do. Well, such men are dangerous, and it’s Reihan’s job to explain to Bill, Charlie, and the rest that when it comes to foreign policy, he’s just as dumb as they are, that he looks forward to reviving the Cold War, if we could just find a damn enemy.
But the cream of the jest is that Reihan attempts to talk the neocon talk and walk the neocon walk without once mentioning the word “Israel.” Dude, that’s the whole ballgame!
