Antiwar.com Blog

Gasp! IOZ questions the “good war.” Can he do that?

Justin Raimondo explains the strange ideological journey of the neoconservatives from left-wing crazies to right-wing crazies, his take on the situation in Iraq and the possibility of war with Iran and the crazies grudge against Russia.

MP3 here.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000). He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).

He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

Here’s George Will, the inventor (albeit not the chief practitioner) of “strong government conservatism,” sniffing disdainfully at Ron Paul, Congress’s one and only consistent advocate of good old-fashioned “small government conservatism,” as “a cheerful anachronism.” After all, Rep. Paul’s quirky idea that “the federal government is a government of strictly enumerated powers” is held “with more stubbornness than evidence.” Silly Ron — he thought conservatives were advocates of limited government. But he didn’t bank on the revisionism of Will & his fellow neocons, who have redefined traditional conservatism out of existence. Today, Barry Goldwater — and the rhetorical Reagan — would be laughed off the stage of a National Review “summit” (not that he’d be invited in the first place). 

The neocons would prefer to ignore Ron. Here is a Republican congressman from George W. Bush’s state who routinely denounces the big-spending, big-government -creating policies of his President, and is a staunch opponent of the Iraq war. Ron’s devotion to principle — the priniciples conservatives used to uphold, albeit only in theory — shows up the “official” conservative leadership as fraudulent. So why is Will writing about Ron?

Well, to begin with, the libertarian Republican congressman from Texas is reportedly running for President, and, as such, has been invited to participate in the first GOP primary debate, to be held in New Hampshire on April 4. “This could be entertaining, meaning embarrassing,” avers Will. Yes, but embarrassing for whom? The “strong government” conservatives in the GOP presidential wannabe pack — i.e. everybody but Ron – are the ones likely to be caught up short. All have issues with the core Republican constituency — if it isn’t a bit of personal eccentricity, as in Giuliani’s case, it’s a theological one, as in Romney’s — and rank-and-file GOPers looking for the Real Thing are bound to find Ron attractive.  Will cites Ron as saying that the New Hampshire debate will reveal “how many real Republicans are left” — and that is something the neocons, who are apparently uniting around Giuliani, would rather not find out.

The real threat, of course, is that Ron will mobilize the growing legions of Republicans who oppose the Iraq war — and its extension into Iran. As a principled opponent of our interventionist foreign policy — Will describes his support of the anti-“surge” resolution as “vehement” — Ron could tap into the 30 percent or so of anti-“surge” Republicans. In a field divided by as many as half a dozen ostensible conservatives — all of them vehemently pro-war — this would amount to significant support and put Ron on the map as a viable candidate. A populist, antiwar libertarian revolt in the GOP — this is the stuff of the neocons’ worst nightmares. Which is why Will dissed Ron. However we’ll see who has the last laugh ….

We all know what makes presidents great, right?

Taking a partial cue from Jesse Walker, I’ll list my 10 worst presidents in American history. Bush Jr. and Clinton are barred from competition. The links make for good holiday reading if you’re off, and anyway, it’s been a while since I got the full rainbow of hate mail from right to center to left. In chronological order:

1. John Adams

2. Andrew Jackson (Make of this what you will.)

3. Abraham Lincoln (See the link to David R. Henderson above; for opposing views – what you might call damnation by tainted praise – see this and this. And no, I’m not a fan of Jefferson Davis, either.)

4. Theodore Roosevelt (And let’s not forget the man who gave us TR, William McKinley. Today’s warmongers haven’t.)

5. Woodrow Wilson

6. Franklin Roosevelt

7. Harry Truman (And see this.)

8. Lyndon Johnson

9. Richard Nixon

10. George W. Bush (So I broke the rules. Did you read the links above???)

Clark Stooksbury gets out front on what could be the hottest campaign since Irey ’06. Oh, wait…

Nearly everyone at Antiwar.com receives email that accuses us of not covering the good deeds down in Iraq. We “look only at the negative” or “ignore all the positive.” Financial blogger Barry Ritholtz found a similar email in his inbox recently. He writes of it:

I received an email this weekend.

It’s a photo of a US Servicement holding a little Iraqi girl.

The caption accompanying the photo was oh so very telling

“Why isn’t this all over the news? If he had done something wrong, it surely would be!”

I plan to use Ritholtz’s response from now on:

To answer the emailer’s question, it is not all over the newspapers because its not news. The good guys are supposed to do things like this. Its only news when the bad guys do this. […] No, my dear emailer, you have forgotten who we are and what we are all about. A good deed by a US serviceman is what WE DO ANYWAY. In case you didn’t know, we are the GOOD GUYS. If this not being in a newspaper is what upsets you, than you NO LONGER GET IT. This is what the United States is all about. This is what is expected of us. This is the standard we aspire to. This is who we are.