That’s exactly my feeling. I actually said something very similar in a previous comment . (One correction on the prior comment… i meant “early ’00s” not ‘early ’90s”.)

Being as libertarian as he is, I wonder how long he’s going to stay with this political alignment before he goes completely wacko.

He refers to the “populist bile” of Beck as though it somehow sprung from the head of Irving Kristol himself. Far from it, Beck’s angst comes most deeply from a social outrage of liberal politics that is completely alien to neoconservatives.

Sullivan’s was a weird piece, either intentionally dishonest or just indigenously devoid of thoughtfulness.

How do people like Sullivan make a living? Is being gay, British, and well educated really so marketable that you need nothing else?

But one of the things that is motivating Sullivan to a great extent is exactly the fact that he once aligned himself with neocons. He is desperate to expunge that “stain” from his soul, and to curry favor with those who disapprove of neocons. That’s part of what motivates his vitriol against neocons; he must make sure liberals and the Left know he’s back on their side, which in his and their eyes makes him a good guy.

This is an example for how Neoconservatism has become a term loaded with various meanings it didn’t originally have. Sullivan is using it the same way most of the left now use it… as shorthand for “all those Republican meanies.”

The most annoying thing about Sullivan is that he is now bashing the exact same policies which he fervently supported duing, say, 2003-2004. Then came that gay marriage debate and suddenly all conservatives and the Bush administration were the bad guys. And now he’s with Obama. I’m almost willing to place a bet as to when his new found hero betrays him and earns his rejection.

I really used to respect Sullivans individualism, but it wears thin now that he’s chosen to be “an individual” on all sides of every argument. (I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much.)

Wow! That was a NASTY piece of work by Sullivan. Sheesh. But I guess that is what we have come to expect from a used up, petty, vindictive, and general POS like Andrew. Nothing but angry words. No facts. No examples. No nothing except anger and frustration . . .

. . . until the very end where he tries to summon some kind words. Is he insane? And you agree with him?

I’ve never read anything from Mr. Kristol, but over the last decade I saw his influence. I saw the U.S. lean forward as it had never done before. I saw the success and I saw the failure. But, I always saw that the neoconservatives were quite unlike their liberal and protoconservative countrymen. They were neither intellectually lazy nor dishonest.

The failure to discover WMD in Iran, I believe, struck a deep chord of shame within neoconservatives. They didn’t make up excuses, or revise history. They realized that at some level Saddam had fooled them and they were ashamed.

Ask a liberal about Keynesian economics, or a traditional conservative about isolationism and you’ll get nonsense, revised warmed over baloney. Ask a true neoconservative about WMD in Iraq and they’ll look you straight in the eye and utter the quantum foundation of intellectual growth itself, “we were wrong”.

I truly believe that neoconservativism is the only political philosophy that is shaped by reality rather than the other way around. It is pragmatic, not idealistic. It’s practitioners do their homework, apply logic and review metrics. They are intellectually hard working and intellectually honest. Perhaps this can be attributed to the person of the late Irving Kristol himself.

Given that a good number of us here made the change, came home out of the darkness, all I can say is “thank-you”, to the real trail blazers, such as Irving, Podhoretz, Horowitz, etc., etc.