Criticizing the Neo-Cons

Today, David Brooks suggests that the public perception of the "neo-cons" is incorrect, and seems to suggest that criticism of neo-cons is tantamount to anti-Semitism:

In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") travel in widely different circles and don't actually have much contact with one another. The ones outside government have almost no contact with President Bush. There have been hundreds of references, for example, to Richard Perle's insidious power over administration policy, but I've been told by senior administration officials that he has had no significant meetings with Bush or Cheney since they assumed office. If he's shaping their decisions, he must be microwaving his ideas into their fillings.

Fair enough - there probably is overstatement, perhaps premised on the fact that PNAC's report, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century, was seemingly followed extremely closely by the Bush Administration, particularly with regard to Iraq and the Middle East. I think PNAC itself bears some responsibility for any inflated public perception of its influence - it seems to want people to believe that it is everything its fiercest critics claim, and links prominently to that report on its website. Additionally, I think many people apply a broader definition of neo-con than that embraced by Brooks, and to them the movement is not synonymous with its Jewish constituents.

And if you can give your foes a collective name — liberals, fundamentalists or neocons — you can rob them of their individual humanity. All inhibitions are removed. You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue. You will find books, blowhards and candidates playing to your delusions, and you can emigrate to your own version of Planet Chomsky. You can live there unburdened by ambiguity.

That's a good point, too often forgotten in today's world of deepening partisanship. But stepping back to an earlier statement,

Still, there are apparently millions of people who cling to the notion that the world is controlled by well-organized and malevolent forces. And for a subset of these people, Jews are a handy explanation for everything.

and the article's conclusion that anti-Semitism is resurgent, I hope the intended message is not that criticism of neo-cons (or of the overblown influence of the neo-cons) is rooted in anti-Semitism. Most people I have heard criticize the neo-cons have no apparent knowledge of which ones are or are not Jewish, and their criticism seems to be rooted in policy and concern about undue influence as opposed to their religion. (The most ridiculous rumor cited by Brooks is about Dick Cheney - "my favorite described a neocon outing organized by Dick Cheney to hunt for humans". Cheney, of course, is not Jewish. Simiarly, Ann Coulter is probably the most hated of the self-professed neo-cons - and she favors converting as much of the developing world as possible to Christianity.) If I heard, or even sensed, that this was a reinvention of the notion of Jewish cabals which, in one way or another, control or manipulate the world, I would be one of many who would promptly jump down the throats of any advancing such nonsense.

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