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In characterizing one particular group of neoconservatives, the author observes that “They took words very seriously, believing that they had real consequences.” The remark is an apt one that applies to neocons generally. Indeed, this insistence upon taking words and ideas seriously is chief among the qualities that make writers like Podhoretz, Kristol, Midge Decter, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Walter Laqueur-all of whom figure prominently in this account-so interesting and so formidable. As faithful readers of Commentary-long the leading journal of neoconservatism-know, when neocons engage in intellectual combat, they play for keeps. The game is not for the squeamish or thin-skinned. At the top of their form, neoconservative writers fashion polemics like a military campaign, employing massive force directed at the point of greatest vulnerability. The aim is not to trade blows with the adversary tit-for-tat. It is to overwhelm him. The intended result is not an “exchange” but victory: complete, decisive, and with no prisoners taken.
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