<DIV>No, they're _snobs_. That's different. There isn't a  first rate mind among them, Bellow excepted.  I guess he's a neocon of sorts. I mean, looka t that Kristol story -- stuch between a genuine first rate mind (Arendt) and a very fine mind of a somewhat lower order, but with a famously sharp tongue (McCarthy), both of the XX persuasion (eek! eyyeww! Girls! cooties!), he's paralysed. But aside from being dumbstruck in that company, which could happen to anyone, can anyone think of a single intellectual contribution of merit on offer by any of these geeks? Leave Strauss out of it, he's not neo-anything. Kristol's wife, Gertrude Himmelfarb, has written some competent history. I have her book on Darwin, which is solid.  But I'm a sucker for high class right wing thinking (Hayek, Posner, Alchian, etc.), and I can't think of a title of an article or a book of real merit or serious value by any of the lot (Himmelfarb excepted). Jaffa on US hsitory, Bloom on Rousseau or the Greeks od the American Mind, Bennett on anything? Give me a break. These guys have the aerobic intellectual capacityf newspaper pundits. jks Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Chuck Grimes wrote: >So the concise definition is neoconservativism is the identity politics >of middle american white men. But the necons are intellectual elitists. Doug ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><hr SIZE=1> Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/search/mailsig/*http://search.yahoo.com">The New Yahoo! Search</a> - Faster. Easier. Bingo.