Back in their pomp

The Economist:
Bill Kristol tells a nice story about a chance encounter in a shopping mall. Mr Kristol is a neo-conservative prince, the son of one of the movement's founders, and a ubiquitous talking head on Fox News. But even neo-conservative princes have to go shopping. One weekend found him wandering the glitzy corridors of Tyson's Corner, in northern Virginia. A young man accosted him and confessed that he, too, was a neo-conservative. He then paused for a moment before adding that he wasn't quite sure what neo-conservatism was.

This is not an isolated example of enthusiasm for the creed. The neo-conservatives are back in their pomp after a dismal year. The essence of neo-conservative foreign policy (to clear up the young man's confusion) is a mixture of hawkishness and idealism: hawkishness on projecting American power abroad, but idealism when it comes to using that power to spread good things like freedom and democracy. The neo-cons have no doubt that their vision has been vindicated by recent events in the Middle East. Would democracy be stirring in the region if Mr Bush hadn't chosen to topple the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? “Three cheers for the Bush doctrine”, says Charles Krauthammer, a leading neo-con journalist, in Time magazine; “Neo-cons may get the last laugh”, says Max Boot in the Los Angeles Times; “Let us now praise Paul Wolfowitz”, adds David Brooks in the New York Times.

Many of the fiercest critics of “neo-conservative foreign policy” are being forced to back-pedal. Mr Krauthammer quotes Jon Stewart, the presenter of Comedy Central's wildly popular mock news programme: “What if Bush has been right about this all along? I feel that my world view will not sustain itself and I may...implode.” There has been a good deal of imploding already among anti-war Democrats, with even Ted Kennedy proclaiming that George Bush deserves credit for the stirrings in the Middle East.

The neo-conservatives are also taking heart from ... Mr Bush's decision this week to nominate John Bolton as America's ambassador to the United Nations. Mr Bolton is more “con” than “neo-con”. (Cons, for example, were against keeping troops in Iraq after the end of the war.) But at the least he is one of the neo-conservatives' favourite conservatives. He shares their distrust of multilateral institutions, with their airy-fairy waffle and their predilection for impinging on American sovereignty. He described his signing of a document formally notifying Kofi Annan of America's intention, in effect, to withdraw from the International Criminal Court as “the happiest moment of my government service”. Two of the neo-cons' great heroes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeanne Kirkpatrick, were both at their finest as UN-bashing ambassadors to the UN; Mr Bolton is well placed to follow in their footsteps.