The neoconservative movement's 180-degree turn

By Michael Kinsley

April 17, 2005

THE TERM "neoconservative" started out as an insult, and is still used that way. When people say that the selection of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank marks the triumph of neocons in Bush administration foreign policy, they are generally not indicating pleasure. Cynics say they are indicating anti-Semitism: A neocon is a Jewish intellectual you disagree with. That's way too harsh. But what does neoconservative mean?

Rich Lowry, a conservative of the non-neo variety writing in the current issue of The National Interest, defines a neocon as someone with a "messianic vision" of using American power to spread democracy, an indifference to the crucial distinction between what would be nice and what is essential to national security, and excessive optimism that we can arrange things according to our own values in strange and far-away lands.

Wow. It was not always thus.