Conservative, Not Neo-Conservative

One of the most significant urban myths in American public affairs is that of the control of foreign policy, specifically in regard to Iraq, by neoconservatives. Besides being largely untrue (more on this at a later date), this theory has a potentially ugly implication. Notwithstanding his own religious background, Joshua Micah Marshall fell victim to this line of self-deception today, in the usually reliable TalkingPointsMemo. At the end of a blog exploring the issue of intelligence quotients, Marshall writes:


And as long as it's just free inquiry we're interested in, can we move ahead with that study into the Jewish propensity to dominate host nations and guile them into hopeless wars for their own enrichment? Or at least suss out the implications if the theory turns out to be true?

If I misundersand Marshall's meaning, I apologize. But it seems to me that to Marshall, a critic of Israel, the Iraq war, and neoconservatives, 1)host nations= United States of America; 2)hopeless wars= Gulf War II; 3)their own enrichment= what?

Let's go over the data: 1)Colin Powell, then Secretary of State: Episcopalian; 2)Condoleeza Rice, then National Security Advisor, now Secretary of State: Presbyterian Church, USA; 3)Dick Cheney, Vice President: United Methodist Church; 4) George W. Bush, President: United Methodist Church. (I leave out Donald Rumsfeld, who has told Chris Matthews that President Bush never asked him if he would support an invasion of Iraq).


The four officials most responsible for our invasion of Iraq, and none of them Jewish. I'm not accusing Joshua Micah Marshall or others of like mind of anti-Semitism. It's just that anti-Zionist bias has a "propensity" to cloud the "host's" judgement.