> > Today's neocons (unlike their forebears) don't seem to care about
> > domestic policy at all. And to the extent they do, they don't seem to
> > have any distinctive ideas about it.
>
> What about James Q. Wilson? Wouldn't he qualify?
He's part of the first wave of neocons.
When the neocons made their first appearance (in 1965, in a new magazine launched under Kristol's editorship called _The Public Interest_), reform of domestic social policy was all they were interested in. Glazer, Moynihan, Bell -- they were all professional sociologists first, and their main chime was how the welfare state was destroying the natural bonds of community and leading to riots.
It was only in the early 70s that foreign policy began to emerge as a central neocon concern that differentiated them from mainstream Democrats (all of whom were cold warriors in the 60s). It started when Podhoretz made _Commentary_ into a second, and soon the primary, neocon magazine in 1970. Commentary is the fully funded house organ of the American Jewish Committee, so of course Israel and the Middle East have always been central concerns, and the 1973 war and oil shock made the policy area a central concern for everyone who drove a car or heated their home.
If it didn't happen earlier, I would say foreign policy became the dominant identifying theme of the neocons when Ford appointed Moynihan UN Ambassador in 1975 (on the basis of an article he had written for Commentary after his stormy exit from India) for 8 months of bully pulpitry on the world stage. That act was followed 5 years later by Jeanne Kirkpatrick in the same role. And in between those two, the overwhelming focus of Commentary became its attacks on Carter's foreign policy. They hated that human rights stuff and the Camp David agreement and they hated Andrew Young and his pandering to the third world ;o)
Among the second and third generation of neocons -- the people the age of Kristol's and Podhoretz's sons -- none of them are sociologists.
And the ideas that the original neocons pushed against such resistance -- e.g. welfare "reform" -- are now completely uncontroversial. Not only are they now embraced by the mainstream of both parties, but what passes for reform today is far more brutal than anything the original neocons were proposing in the 60s and 70s. Moynihan's proposals under Nixon look positively munificent compared to what Clinton served up. He actually wanted to increase aggregate spending.
Michael