Duck Season

Josh Chafetz links to this piece by Irving Kristol in theWeekly Standard on what neoconservatism is. As the "godfather" of neoconservatism, version 1.0, Kristol can be considered as an authority on what neoconservatism is now. I read the piece, then read it again when Kevin Drum also links to it and summarizes Kristol's main points. But I still don't know what exactly neoconservatism is.

Part of the problem is that even without an exact definition, people disagree widely on what a neocon is. Many liberals use the term "neocon" as shorthand for anyone who supported the war in Iraq, and in other cases, limit it only to conservatives who supported the war. The Buchananites define it as liberals who stole the party from them, and often use it as a codeword for Jews. Jonah Goldberg, meanwhile, in a four part series argues that the label has no real meaning and wishes it would go away:

... neoconservative has become a Trojan Horse for vast arsenal of ideological attacks and insinuations. For some it means Jewish conservative. For others it means hawk. A few still think it means squishy conservative or ex-liberal. And a few don't even know what the word means, they just think it makes them sound knowledgeable when they use it.

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My own beloved mother perfectly captured the nebulousness of the term. When asked whether she was a neocon by The New York Observer, she jokingly replied, "You mean the people who like to kill people and break things. That's me!"

The label isn't going to go away, though, and it's probably better for us to have a definition of what it is then to have it assigned one based on the whim of whoever is using the term at the time.

Another thing to consider, if we go by Kristol's definition, is how much of the program one has to follow to qualify as a neocon. If one agrees with the stuff on foreign policy, but not domestic policy, does that make one a neocon? But even if we define neoconservatism loosely, there's still problems with both Kristol's definition and one used by liberals.

As both Goldberg and Brad Delong point out, neoconservatism thirty years ago is not what neoconservatism is today. The Soviet Union is no longer around, so definition by anti-communism is no longer useful. Similarly, the definition of neoconservatism as used by liberals is practically useless, as, if Drum and Delong's comments boards are accurate indications, liberals define neocons as evil, fascist warmongers.

Instead, I'd like to propose a new definition of neoconservatism (call it version 2.0). Today, neoconservatism 1.0 simply goes by the term "conservatism". The old neocons, of course, were those on the left who changed sides because of their anti-communism and their rejection of the liberal ways of dealing with communism. So why don't we define neoconservatism 2.0 by replacing anti-communism with anti-Islamofacism? So my new spiffy definition:

A neocon (version 2.0) is an American liberal who rejects the left's way of doing foreign policy after 9/11. He doesn't fashion himself as a flag-waver, but he likes this country very much, and thinks that the values for which it stands are worth defending. He knows that Islamofascism is a serious threat and must be defeated. He prefers working with other countries on foreign policy but realizes that it's almost impossible in the current environment, and accepts that, if we must, we will go it alone, or with a coalition of the willing. He may not like what Bush is doing with domestic policy, but because of how much import he puts on the ongoing war against terrorism, he is going to vote for Bush in 2004, or is seriously considering.

Now, most of the people who fit this definition will initially reject the term, because they will not want to be called anything "conservative". But this is not dissimilar to thirty years ago. Neocons 1.0 for a long time didn't consider themselves to be conservatives either.

Under this definition, Christopher Hitchens, now a favorite of many on the right, is a neocon. So is former New York City mayor Ed Koch. There are many neocon bloggers too. Michael Totten is a neocon. Michele Catalano is a neocon. The guys at Oxblog are neocons. I am a neocon. Hell, my co-blogger Nick can be a neocon too. It's a big tent, and we need all the help we can get.