A Garden of NeoCon Horrors*

You’d think Paul Wolfowitz would have the good sense to keep quiet, but as Maureen Dowd wrote in her column on Sunday, he has no shame. Neo-Cons, like all fanatics and preachers of moral rectitude, do not know silence, nor do they have the remorse chromosome in their genetic codes. They are not known for the qualities of soul-searching and self-examination. If they ever admitted they were wrong about Iraq, their heads might explode.

And, as long as complicent cable news outlets and newspapers are willing to give Wolfowitz and his cohort free airtime and space, they will never be silenced. They may have left public office, but they still wield inexplicable power in the court of public opinion. Like their cousins in radical conservatism, the Tea Partiers, the Neo-Cons thrive on fear-mongering and outright lies. They make millions of dollars on their ghostwritten fictional memoirs, and rise to the top of bestseller lists. Somebody out there is buying what they sell.

For example, Wolfowitz told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria last Sunday that the families of the Pan-Am bombing victims had demanded money during the Bush Administration's negotiations with Libya over its removal from the official terrorism list. Wolfowitz admitted he had no proof to back up his claim, but he said it anyway. (The Pan-Am families, of course, have vehemently denied his allegations). But no matter – Wolfowitz and other relics of the Bush era seem to have a peculiar talent for staying front and center. Do you suppose it’s because we are all so in awe that none of them has ever been prosecuted for war crimes, and we are irresistibly drawn by the sheer chutzpah of career criminals who get away with it?. Or, does the mainstream media still remain convinced now, as they were then., that Iraq was a grand adventure and a rousing success despite a few “setbacks?”

Now. Wolfowitz is calling for aggressive military intervention in Libya, and was given valuable Wall Street Journal op-ed space to make his case.  Several months ago, he and Bush torture enabler John Yoo lambasted the decision to try terrorists on our soil, or to close Gitmo, in a high-profile New York Times op-ed piece.   Somebody obviously listened to them. Attorney General Holder long ago walked back on plans for New York City trials as perfect symbolic venues for 9/11 terrorism payback. Gitmo is still very much there. All trials will now be by military tribunal, not in civilian courts.

 Maureen Dowd suggested in her column that Wolfowitz should just go away and take up horticulture. Any NeoCon Garden would surely include the toxic herb Wolfbane, which is an apt name and has the unpleasant side-effect of causing too much nervous excitement ( I think W. might have been given an infusion of that particular herb to psych him up for invading Iraq).

 And Wolfowitz has always cultivated bleeding hearts, which look lovely, but their pretty name belies the fact that every part of them is poisonous. The Bush crowd sold the nation on its bleeding heart doctrine in the run-up to invasion - by ginning up a lie about WMDs and then spreading vaunted, unwanted and nonexistent Democracy where it smelled money to be made for the Military Industrial complex.

Of course, there's always been a fair amount of the noxious Dumbcane in the NeoCon botanica. That's another toxic weed that is the devil to get rid of once it takes hold. Just when you think you it's gone, it keeps popping up, year after year.  It  thrives especially well in the moist unhealthy air and swampy soil around Washington, D.C. 

 * This post was originally submitted as a "comment" to the NY Times. It was rejected, probably because it was deemed too abusive.  How can you be too abusive to Paul Wolfowitz?  Other posts openly called for his demise.  Wow, life is so unfair.