A few years ago, around the time that Bob Geldof was arguing that George W Bush had done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did, I appeared on a BBC Radio Five show to try and explain this apparently mystifying, confusing, aspect of the Bush presidency. Well, it was mystifying to the BBC.
Bush’s faith, much mocked in Britain, explained part of it, I suggested, and so too did the American evangelical community’s enthusiasm. “Ah” pounced our friend the presenter, “so it’s all about the neoconservatives”.
It was at this point that I appreciated that the term neoconservative had lost all meaning and that, from now on, it would be little more useful than “fascist” or even, often, “communist”.
Perhaps the news that Irving Kristol, the “godfather” of neoconservatism has died, at 89, will prompt a reappraisal of the movement or, as he preferred to think of it, the neoconservative “persuasion”.
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