Neocon Robert Kagan believes Hillary is a neocon, though she and her suppporters won't admit it.

[betterdemsonly]

From the New York Times.

Both Mr. Kagan and his brother are taking considerable pains to describe their advocacy as broadly bipartisan. “The urgent priority is to unite internationalists on both sides of the spectrum,” said Fred Kagan, while his brother, Robert, mentioned his briefing of a bipartisan congressional delegation at Davos and his good relations with top White House officials, including the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice. (Their father apparently did not get the memo, calling Mr. Obama’s speech “pathetic” and saying of the president, “We should not underestimate the possibility of extraordinary ignorance.”)

But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his “mainstream” view of American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Mr. Kagan said, adding that the next step after Mr. Obama’s more realist approach “could theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table” if elected president. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he added, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/us/politics/historians-critique-of-obama-foreign-policy-is-brought-alive-by-events-in-iraq.html?_r=0

In other words socalled "liberal interventionist" really are neocon Democrats. Stephen Walt elaborates beautifully in an essay on the continued influence of the neocons in DC.

The final source of neoconservative persistence is the continued support they get from their close cousins: the liberal interventionists. Neoconservatives may have cooked up the whole idea of invading Iraq, but they got a lot of support from a diverse array of liberal hawks. As I've noted before, the only major issue on which these two groups disagree is the role of international institutions, which liberals view as a useful tool and neoconservatives see as a dangerous constraint on U.S. freedom of action. Neoconservatives, in short, are liberal imperialists on steroids, and liberal hawks are really just kinder, gentler neocons.

The liberal interventionists' complicity in the neoconservative project makes them reluctant to criticize the neoconservatives very much, because to do so draws attention to their own culpability in the disastrous neoconservative program. It is no surprise, therefore, that recovering liberal hawks like Peter Beinart and Jonathan Chait -- who both backed the Iraq war themselves -- have recently defended neoconservative participation in the new debate over Iraq, while taking sharp issue with some of the neocons' position.

The neoconservative-liberal alliance in effect re-legitimates the neoconservative world view, and makes their continued enthusiasm for U.S.-led wars look "normal." When the Obama administration is staffed by enthusiastic proponents of intervention like Samantha Power or Susan Rice, and when former Obama officials like Anne-Marie Slaughter are making neocon-like arguments about the need to send arms to Syria, it makes neoconservatives sound like a perfectly respectable faction within the broad U.S. policy community, instead of underscoring just how extreme and discredited their views really are....

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/06/20/being_a_neocon_means_never_having_to_say_you_re_sorry_dick_cheney_william_kristol

He is married to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland

Hillary lobbied Obama hard to get her appointed.

But why would Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration agree to appoint to this politically sensitive position someone who willingly served such a controversial figure in suppporting and implementing the “war on terror” and all the baggage that comes with it? Furthermore, how reliable is a Talbott reference anyway? After all, I understand that he just helped his friend Robert Kagan, Nuland’s neocon husband, get a job at Brookings and Talbott is also a friend of neocon writer Marc Gerecht, the husband of Diane Zeleny who also just latched onto a likely sweetheart deal sort of appointment as Head of External Relations and Congressional Affairs at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). Whether Zeleny deserves or is qualified for the position or not.

From what I know about the Department, an FSO doesn’t just get detailed to the staff of a highly charged and ideological Vice President unless that detailee agrees to follow the boss’s dictates. Cheney’s were all too often forceful and odious. Furthermore, does anyone really think that Cheney –with his penchant for super loyalty and secrecy - would have ever accepted Nuland (or anyone else) for the position without some kind of loyalty test?
Surely the State Department under Hillary Clinton could have found equally (or likely even better) qualified career candidates who do not carry Nuland’s political baggage.

http://www.progressiverealist.org/blogpost/response-andrew-exum-curious-choice-state-department-spokesperson


I do think one of the reason the Centrist establishment is so excited about Cantor's loss is that they intend on adopting much of Bush's foreign policy and recruiting his donors and voters.

[Scuba]

1. Of course she is. To deny it is sticking one's head in the sand.

[RufusTFirefly]

15. You're going to vote for her. And you're going to like it!

To do otherwise would provide clear and unequivocal evidence that you are (pick one or more)

• sexist
  
• a "hater"
  
• interested only in ponies and unicorns
  
• a closet Libertarian
  
• the best bud of Ted Cruz
  
• the best bud of Ralph Nader
  
• Jebbie's useful idiot
  
• keeping boxes in your garage
  

[merrily]

2. Hillary lobbied? On another thread this morning, I read that McCain had something to do with

Nuland's appointment. Based on her wiki, Nuland worked for the Clinton administration, so it wouldn't surprise me that Hllary lobbied for her.

But, bottom line, only one person had the authority to nominate Nuland for her current post.

Joe Scarborough called Hillary a neocon a few weeks ago, claiming he loved him some Hillary. I sincerely hope that Hillary is not the nominee in 2016. However, when several Republicans are saying the same thing about anyone or anything, I get suspicious of their motives.

[betterdemsonly]

3. Maybe republican support for Hillary indicates

she shares their views?

Yah think?

[merrily]

9. Those could be two different issues, though.

She could share a good many of their views and their motives still could be suspect.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. The Warrior Queen, a Neo Con?

Who knew?

[RufusTFirefly]

5. ( This Area Reserved for Vehement Denials and Strident Blue-link Non Sequiturs )

Accompanied by the increasingly grating but apparently obligatory

(Perhaps it's included for bookkeeping/invoicing purposes.)

[bahrbearian]

11. Right on

[H2O Man]

6. recommended

thanks

[JHB]

7. That's not unknown, nor surprising. But also don't expect it to mean the same coming from Kagan.

Remember where the neocons originated: in the 70s among the 'hawk' Democrats (e.g., Richard Perle was an aid to Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, D-Washington) and the 'Moynihan wing' that had been fine with interventions to contain communism (and also had constituencies that would single-issue vote on "support for Israel" and had a very hard line about what that meant).

The portion of those that didn't jump over to the Republicans became the self-described 'centrists' of the Democratic establishment. They got along fine with the Reaganites, and both Bill and Hillary come out of that general group, as does Obama. So, for that matter, did Al Gore. So, at least in general, it's not surprising for Hillary to be classified as a neocon.

However...

That also depends on how broadly one defines 'neocon'. For any set of views, it's one thing to share elements of a worldview, it's another to be fanatically devoted to a particular version of it. I may think it's fair to categorize Hillary as a neocon, but I don't put her in the same boat as Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Kagan, and their ilk. They were always bloodthirsty charlatans. Like somone who says he can contact your dead realtives, they gained their reputations by feeding deep-down fears and secret-hopes ("Yes, I'm RIGHT! The Soviets aren't decaying, they're just letting us drop our guard so they can pour across Europe! I KNEW it! And those damn pansy peacenicks want to help them!&quot . And they were so cocksure of their own PR as foreign-policy geniuses that they were caught flatfooted by all of the major events: collapse of the Soviets, the rise of nonstate terror groups, how to handle Iraq, on and on. But like all talented charlatans, they simply ignored that they'd been wrong and kept their believing audience with them. (Why care about a few dropping off when those that were left more than made up for it with increased influence and wealth?)

So in the end, who cares what Kagan thinks? How many times has he been wrong about big things before? His opinion is worthless, and here it's self serving: trying to diminish the difference between those who were the architects of the Iraq war and those who were not.

I'll keep my own counsel on this, Mr. Kagan, thanks anyway.

And here's video of Mr. Kagan and the rest of the PNAC gallery inviting Hillary in...

[TwilightGardener]

8. Young American soldiers will die so that she can look tough, if she's CiC.

Probably within the first year. And the NYT, WSJ, and WaPo will be jubilant and proclaim that "AMERICA IS BACK IN THE LEAD!!" I won't vote for her. I am grateful for Obama's foreign policy, except for his Libya adventure.

[Ichingcarpenter]

13. She will see us on the 'Tarmac'

under fire

[merrily]

18. I guess some of the flowers in the bouquet that little girl handed her on the tarmac

must not have been as fresh as they could have been?

Careful, though. Another DUer posted that she had made the fastest retraction of that remark in human history. And, after I told him he was mistaken about that, he said I was sexist. Apparently, my pointing out that his post "misspoke" about her made me sexist?

[merrily]

14. How about his surge in Afghanistan, his red line in the sand re: Syria and

his attempt to keep our forces in Iraq beyond the withdrawal date that Bush and el Maliki had negotiated? Iraq refused to continue indemnifying our mercenaries in the event of things like rape and murder, so, of course, we couldn't stay. And, of course, his alleged inability to withdraw from Afghanistan before the end of this year (assuming that actually happens).

As best I can tell, the only reason Obama didn't intervene in Syria months ago was a combination of the the lawsuit over Libya filed by Kucinich, Rand, Capuano, et al,, plus a petition from over 100 members of Congress, Democratic and Republican, plus a letter from Boehner raising 14 legal points about the authority of the Executive to act in Syria without consulting Congress

This time, though, Pelosi and Boehner, apparently under the belief that the two of them alone can amend the war clause of Article I, if they act jointly, told him he need not consult Congress about Iraq. And, it looks like Syria is back on the table, too. And then, there are the drone murders.

[Bluenorthwest]

20. Hagel is still a Republican and might run, that would be your dream vote!

nt

[woo me with science]

10. Of course she is.

[whatchamacallit]

12. File this under

DUH!

[tularetom]

16. Remember how we all laughed when William Kristol said Hillary would pick Petraeus as VP?

It would be historic if he was actually right for once. But not too surprising in this case.

[reformist2]

17. This is incredibly damaging to her prospects.

[KoKo]

19. Not with Netanyahu getting 29 Standing Ovations from Dems & Repubs in Congress

though. The Establishment Wing of the Dem Party loves the NeoCons and the McCain/Graham Wing of the Republican Party agrees. If Hillary is pushed by the Establishement there's no way of stopping her and she will pick up votes from Republicans who agree with the NeoCons. That's the worry. And, that she's keeping other Dem Candidates from declaring by continuing the tease of "will she or won't she" run while she rakes in the big donor money and gains more momentum.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets 29 standing ovations from Congress

[Bluenorthwest]

21. So you list Robert Kagan as a trusted person? Why is that?

nt