De mortuis nil nisi bonum and all that, but the news of Jeane Kirkpatrick's death strikes me as being a loss to the neoconservative movement, not to the foreign policy world as a whole. Lest we forget:
Ms. Kirkpatrick was at the June 1984 National Security Planning Group meeting that began the secret initiative called the Iran-contra affair. Congress had cut off funds for the contras. The C.I.A.’s Mr. Casey wanted to obtain money from foreign countries in defiance of the ban.Ms. Kirkpatrick was in favor: “We should make the maximum effort to find the money,” she said. Mr. Shultz was opposed: “It is an impeachable offense,” he said. President Reagan warned that if the story leaked, “we’ll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House.”
Over the next two years, millions skimmed from secret arms sales to Iran went to the contras. The story did leak, as Mr. Reagan feared, and his administration was shaken by congressional investigations and criminal charges.
Kirkpatrick was one of the primary UN bashers in this country, even though she was our Ambassador to the place for four years. You might say she was John Bolton before Bolton became Bolton. She was one of the primary "Black is black and white is white" Reaganites, and it's been my experience that people who think that way (see Bush, G.W.) are too stubborn to recognize or admit their errors. She never did.
Posted by Linkmeister at December 8, 2006 11:18 AM | TrackBackThe thing with neocons is that they are never wrong -- everyone else just executes their ideas incompetently. They must be the most hopeful people in the world, never losing faith that someone sometime will get it right. Jeane was a neocon through and through. And her husband routinely collaborated with Irving Kristol. It is all one huge incestuous family.
Posted by: Kate at December 8, 2006 12:18 PM