Monday, March 24, 2008

Bacevich on Obama and McCain


Via Matt Yglesias, I found this great article by Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich, a conservative, argues that Barack Obama would be a better president for the conservative movement than George W. Bush has been, or John McCain ever could be. It's really very intriguing, I wouldn't mind Bacevich's wing of the conservative movement returning to prominence in the Republican party. The article goes into how true conservatism has been slowly dying since 1980. He argues that the Republican Party's devotion to corporate excess and American empire has brought about it's doom. Bacevich believes that as the common sense candidate, a Barack Obama presidency would bring about a political climate ripe for the destruction of neo- and corporate- conservatism.
I concur, and while I certainly have little sympathy for coservatism in any guise, it seems like the paleocons or traditional conservatives, if you will, are the more inherently reasonable people in the tent. These are the guys that are against premptive war, the police state, and corporate excess. They certainly have a number of disturbing cultural and economic beliefs, but they are much more open to compromise than those that currently dominate the Republican Party. Bacevich certainly is a reasonable fellow. His book, The New American Militarism should be widely read by conservatives and liberals alike.

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