If that is Birnbaum's definition of neoconservatism it is ahistorical and clueless. As others have pointed out, neoconservatism has an ideolgical and historic pedigree. If you think "neoconservative" is a code word for "America Jew who supports Israel" then it makes more sense. Of course that adds the irony of being a form of antisemitic stereotyping, but what else is new. Some of the cold war liberal hawks rejected being called neoconservative even as they helped construct the ideology. More irony.
But Summers? A poster boy for entitlement, yes, but a neoconservative?
Chip Berlet
p.s. not every charge of antisemitism is sordid, much less off target.
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From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of Shane Mage Sent: Tue 3/15/2005 10:54 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] neocon schism!
Brad DeLong wrote:
>>
>>[T]the most conspicuous of the neo-conservatives is President
>>Lawrence Summers of Harvard....
>
>Is Norman Birnbaum a professional idiot?
This is what Birnbaum wrote:
"...They denounced those likely to criticize them as unmodern, weak and deficient in loyalty to our country. When all else failed (or their own divided allegiances were questioned) they resorted to the sordid charge of anti-Semitism.
In this sense, the most conspicuous of the neo-conservatives is President Lawrence Summers of Harvard. He is an economist with little apparent talent for historical or moral reflectiveness, more at home with numbers than human beings. His first serious quarrel at Harvard was with Cornell West, and the explanation for it is to be found in his response to questions raised by his professors and students about the university's investments in Israel. To question the moral probity of the state of Israel, he declared, was the objective equivalent of anti-Semitism. A Jewish president of Harvard opened his term by attacking a black scholar..."
Mr. DeLong has a perfect right to his own definition of the word "neoconservative." What is reprehensible is his misrepresenting Birnbaum by leaving out the introductory phrase "in this sense" without admitting to the ellision and then insulting Birnbaum for using the word not in *his* preferred sense but in a sense that Birnbaum has carefully defined and which is quite fitting in regard to President Summers.
Shane Mage
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