Typical neoconservative tripe

[bluestateguy]

This column by Frank Gaffney I think is the best example of stereotypical neo-conservative bibble babble. Contrary to much of the conventional wisdom at this board, your typical neo-con is not a foam at the mouth raving lunatic like Michael Savage or Ann Coulter. No, instead, your typical neo-con is like William Kristol, Frank Gaffney or Richard Perle: self-righteous, overconfident, slick, pseudo-intellectual, condescending and belittling. And by God if you don't do foreign policy the neo-con way, it's going to be the end of the civilized world as we know it.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/frankjgaffneyjr/fg20050606.shtml

Oh, and I'm sure if Hillary Clinton did everything Frank Gaffney asks her to do in this column, that he'd support her and cease all criticism of her. Yep. Yeah.

[Bark Bark Bark]

1. Outside The Tent

Outside The Tent calls them ClownHall.com...with good reason.

http://www.outsidethetent.com/wp/archives/they-actually-said-that/

[punpirate]

2. Well, some things never change....

... your description fits most going back to the first Committee on the Present Danger in 1950. They were doing the same thing, then, in the `70s and `80s, and now.

While you say "overconfident," I would rather describe it as an arrogance--in this sense, the ability to forcefully project a view which defies or ignores the known facts. These are highly intelligent people who nevertheless use their intellectual prowess as a kind of gymnastics or jiujitsu to deflect examination of their core assumptions.

My favorite in this regard goes back decades. In Playboy's interview with William F. Buckley, he admitted that he had used marijuana, but asserted that he did so legally, since he was on his sailboat and had gone outside the three-mile limit before lighting up.

Mental gymnastics. There was no mention of helicopters from neutral countries where marijuana was legal dropping off the supply to him on his boat, so that means it was in his possession when he left the harbor in New York.

The law addresses possession, not use. And yet, he'd constructed, to him, a very neat explanation of his innocence which emphasized everything but the actual facts of the law. That's just another sort of sophistry.

The right has been doing this for many decades. All we can do is point it out as simply and directly as possible. :)

[magellan]

3. I'm no big fan of Hillary, but I couldn't finish reading his crap

Gaffney sounds as if he's assumed the role of Clinton's "mentor" (without anyone's leave) and is chastising her for being a bad pupil. The smug arrogance and the deeply anti-democratic sentiment in his lecture was enough to put me off...but worse, it's so obvious he BELIEVES what he's saying that my stomach turned and I had to stop reading.

[TomClash]

4. Oh how nice!

Frank took some time off from his usual profession - whoring for missiles - to give Hillary political advice.

[applegrove]

5. What a bunch of megalomaniacs. They now are trying to control

Hillary outright. Man they will do anything to try and create hatred between her and the Democratic Left. Anything to keep her from getting the nomination.

Seems like they want the left part of the Dems to follow Dean. And the moderates to follow Hillary.

And we are just supposed to sit here like so much moss on a log and let that happen!

Big tent.

Tribalize your own dam followers and leave us the hell alone.

Someone warn all the underlings around Bolton, Rove and the rest of the enforcers. They are about to suffer a loss. They will not win on Bolton. They will make someone pay for their feelings of inadequacy.

[Pryderi]

6. A neocon supporting "PRIVACY ACT"??? What about Valerie Plame?

"In particular, you can demonstrate your familiarity with – and sympathy for – the executive branch’s grounds for refusing to go beyond what it has already done to satisfy the critics’ demands for highly sensitive documents. Like George W. Bush, as President, you would not want to jeopardize highly perishable “sources and methods” by making raw National Security Agency intercepts available to Senators other than the chairman and ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. Like him, you would recognize that, even then, the names of Americans whose conversations with foreigners were monitored must be withheld in deference to the Privacy Act."