Right-Wing Liberal

[Fighting Words: A Tale of How cession speech after losing the Democ- If this is what passes for conservatism Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism, ratic primary to Ned Lamont—when in America today, neo or otherwise, how Ben J. Wattenberg, Thomas Dunne talking about the way his party has far indeed? But perhaps this is the point. Books, 384 pages] turned its back on the legacy of hawkish “Today, it is said that the country has senator Scoop Jackson. moved to the conservative Right,” Wat- This vestigial loyalty to the party of tenberg notes, “but governments con- Right-wing FDR, Harry Truman, and LBJ comes in trolled completely by Republicans run handy for Wattenberg’s latest project: deficits to increase domestic spending, Liberal rehabilitating, even humanizing, neo- much to the chagrin of conservatives By W. James Antle III conservatism. And how better to do so and some neo-cons.” None of this both- in an era of liberal resurgence than to ers Wattenberg, however. He writes that BEN WATTENBERG is an engaging tele- drop the conservatism and emphasize “many neo-cons have no visceral dislike vision commentator and by almost all the neo? Neoconservatism, he com- for moderately high big-government accounts a nice guy. But if Fighting plains, is too often “confused with con- spending provided the programs can be Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created servatism, with the key differences never shown to work and can be changed if Neo-Conservatism is the best in post-Iraq quite understood.” they don’t. I extend that to most of the War neoconservative apologetics, the Wattenberg works hard to make those so-called pork-barrel and earmarked movement is in far more trouble than the differences plain. Rejecting Ronald spending.” defeat of John McCain would suggest. Reagan’s formulation that government Wattenberg goes out of his way to bol- Where Wattenberg focuses on his per- could be the problem rather than the ster the liberal credentials of leading sonal story as a former presidential solution in favor of a “muscular role for neoconservatives and vice versa. He speechwriter, campaign adviser, and the state, and for America in particular,” quotes former House Speaker Tom author, he is a charming and gifted racon- he writes, “I have never been against gov- Foley as saying, “Scoop [Jackson] was teur. When he shifts into ideologue mode, ernment, big, small or medium size.” Wat- the closest one in the Congress I can his latest book becomes reminiscent of a tenberg specifically defends the pro- remember to a European Social Democ- Max Boot op-ed—one can’t quite shake grams of the Great Society, saying, “in rat.” On the other hand, Wattenberg the thought that it might have been general, the ideas they espoused made maintains that Lyndon Johnson was “in ghosted by a paleoconservative satirist sense.” This includes laws requiring auto- some important ways … a neo-con.” So writing under an assumed name. mobile manufacturers to include seat- was Hubert Humphrey, whose 1970 True, there are some unmistakable belts—such a measure “does indeed election to the Senate after having differences. Nowhere does Wattenberg have Constitutional backing through the served as Johnson’s vice president was call for anything as outlandish as raising Interstate Commerce Clause,” he writes, “a national win for the neo-conservative vast armies of illegal aliens to man the reasoning like a Warren Court justice— notion that a candidate could be liberal, latest crusade for global democracy. The and much of the War on Poverty. kind, tough on domestic issues, and a Fighting Words author is more of a “We should (reasonably) protect the winner.” Even Bobby Kennedy is happy warrior than a cold ideological environment,” Wattenberg continues, described as “having some neo-con ten- enforcer. But like Boot, a great deal of apparently burnishing his non-conserva- dencies,” though Wattenberg says what Wattenberg writes—inadvertently tive credentials. “And poor people Ronald Reagan also fits the bill because and in some cases deliberately—makes should get health care.” Wattenberg “he hated Commies, and prior to becom- the paleos’ case that contemporary neo- even distances himself from Charles ing governor, was a liberal Democrat.” conservatives are really the “boat Murray, an American Enterprise Insti- There are some old Democrats Watten- people of the McGovern revolution” tute scholar and important domestic- berg won’t claim as is own, however. He rather than real conservatives. policy thinker often identified with neo- chastises Francis Fukuyama for using the Perhaps this is understandable. conservatism, for claiming in his phrase “Wilsonian realism”: “Woodrow Although present at the creation, Wat- landmark book Losing Ground “that the Wilson was a racist.” But Wilson is a rare tenberg was always more reluctant than Johnson programs were among the prin- exception. Wattenberg boasts that liberal some first-generation neoconservatives cipal culprits that were driving America journalists “toilet trained by the neo-cons” to sign up with the Right. He remains a down.” Wattenberg disagrees, though he must now “grudgingly accept the media- registered Democrat and recounts fond does concede some of LBJ’s handiwork savvy, intellectually studious neo-cons in memories of his years as a speechwriter was “taken overboard.” “On balance,” he a way they would never have accepted for Lyndon Johnson, a president with writes, “the Great Society has helped the criticism from rigid, old-fashioned conser- whom he still substantially agrees. He American people. How far would an vatives.” Wattenberg says “to use an old adopts a tone of sorrow rather than elected official get today if he ran on a union phrase, it is the conservatives who anger—much like Joe Lieberman’s con- platform of eliminating Medicare?” are the free riders” benefiting from neo- LICENSED TO UNZ.ORGDecember 15, 2008 The American Conservative 33 ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Arts&Letters conservative media access. He even brags ity and temperament.” The neoconserv- That’s not to say the ideological com- that he once refused to sign off as “From atives opposed Soviet Communism and ponent of the book is completely use- the Right” when filling in for Robert the New Left, but not the administrative less. Fighting Words does deliver on the Novak on “Crossfire”—“a modest neo- state or big government. They did not promise of its subtitle: Wattenberg has conservative act”—because “neo-cons reject liberalism per se but continued to shown more clearly than any paleocon- are not necessarily people of the Right.” embrace the liberal policies that they servative critic ever could that neocon- At this point, one almost feels com- had supported before they were mugged servatism is at heart a liberal creation. pelled to defend neoconservatism from by reality. So a neoconservative can sup- Those critics should thank him pro- Wattenberg. The first generation of neo- port the civil rights movement but fusely for telling the tale. conservatives ably reacted to the oppose affirmative action, approve of excesses of liberalism at home and Medicare but resist Barack Obama’s W. James Antle III is associate editor of abroad. Many of them were more ani- health plans. Moreover, neoconserva- The American Spectator. mated by domestic policy than foreign tives frequently relied on social science affairs. Unlike their successors, they data to prove what ordinary people understood that government actions knew from tradition, religion, the Con- often have unintended consequences. stitution, and common sense. Off Base They proved effective critics of liberal That’s a tough thing for Wattenberg to policies from the late 1960s onward— grapple with as he equates neoconser- Continued from page 20 unlike Wattenberg, most of them opposed vatism with Scoop Jackson’s 1972 Demo- those aspects of the Great Society that cratic presidential campaign slogan: on the state and national levels. If Jindal benefited people who did not work—and “Common sense, for a change.” So natu- were white, he might be hardly more had a hand in conservative successes like rally, he doesn’t contend with it, instead notable than Mike Huckabee, another Reagan’s supply-side tax cuts, deregula- arguing, “My kind of neo-con was for the favorite of the base. But because he is tion (no longer in vogue), welfare reform, Bush doctrine before there was one.” the son of Indian immigrants, he will and even ending the Cold War on terms Most Americans, chastened by the Iraq have an advantage if the party wishes more favorable to the United States, War, clearly don’t regard this kind of for- to diversify—in fact, he’s pretty much though we should be grateful Republican eign-policy thought as common sense. the only nonwhite Republican who presidents did not always heed the neo- The fact an adventure so closely associ- could be a contender in 2012. He con- cons’ advice in this last area. ated with neoconservatism is in no small verted from Hinduism to Catholicism Wattenberg touches on some of this, part responsible for the Democrats’ and is a strong pro-lifer, so the base especially in his chapter on “the social recent political victories—and the elec- should not have any problems with him issue” where he remembers working with toral repudiation of the Republicans— on those fronts as they did with Mitt Richard Scammon on The Real Majority, will make liberals unlikely to take the Romney, whose Mormonism and pro- a book that influenced no less a conserva- neoconservatives back, no matter how choice background made him suspect. tive than Pat Buchanan. He brought some much Wattenberg emphasizes the move- If a deep-red state like Louisiana could of Wattenberg and Scammon’s findings to ment’s liberal roots. vote for him for Congress and governor, Richard Nixon’s attention as they tried to As Wattenberg’s personal memoir, then the rest of the traditional Republi- peel the Silent Majority away from their Fighting Words contains some amusing can rank and file should not find it diffi- ancestral home in the Democratic Party.

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