by Justin Raimondo
... the dark cloud of the election is still hanging over the streets of blue state cities like a pall of autumn smoke, and already news of the neocons' rebirth is on everyone's lips. [Robert] Blackwill, who was brought in to the National Security Council to clean up the neocons' mess in Iraq – and who was behind the ditching of Ahmed Chalabi – is out. Paul Wolfowitz, on the other hand, whose fate will be a bellwether of neocon influence in Bush's second term, could be brought in as head of the NSC, or so it is rumored.
Not only that, but Rumsfeld is staying on indefinitely, while neocon ideologue John Bolton and neocon ally Stephen Hadley (Condi Rice's chief assistant) are up for promotions. Colin Powell is also out, along with neocon opponent Richard Armitage, the two top "realists" in the administration. In retrospect, the pre-election U.S. News piece that somewhat hysterically compared the supposedly imminent purge of the neocons to the Night of the Long Knives seems like Bizarro-logic at its best (or is that worst?). The knives are out, all right, but it isn't for the neocons: instead, it is the "realists" who are falling on their own swords. ...
Carl