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# Posted 1:13 AM by Ariel David Adesnik

NEO-CON CONFUSION: I agree with what Josh Marshall says about neo-conservatives. You heard me. I agree. With Josh Marshall.

Josh may harbor an antagonism towards the neo-cons that borders on the pathological, but because he really is interested in them, he often notices important things that other people don't.

Right now, the important thing is that neo-cons seem are very unsure of how to constructively criticize the Administration's laissez-faire attitude toward rebuilding Iraq. As Marshall notes, these attacks are coming from

the branch of neoconservatives who really take democratic imperialism seriously.

Marshall clearly understands something that almost no one else (especially not Maureen Dowd) does: that neo-cons are extremely principled and ideological and that few top officials in this administration are neo-cons. You may not like the neo-cons principles or ideas, but they do have them and other conservatives don't.

So what happens when neo-con paladin George W. Bush begins to act like either a paleo-con or a rubber-spined realist? For a good answer, take a look at Kristol & Kagan's comprehensive essay on Iraq in last week's Standard. (Also see Kagan's WaPo column.)

What you see is that Kristol & Kagan are doing their best to insist that the President and his top advisors are unsure of how to implement the neo-cons' agenda, rather than confronting the possibility that Bush & Co. may not share that agenda at all. This gambit, of course, is a variation on the classic Republican game of capture-the-President, which conservative pundits wind up playing almost every time the GOP captures the White House.

What I can't figure out about Kristol & Kagan is whether they really believe that the White House shares their ideals, or whether they think that the only hope of changing the Administration is through friendly criticism. On the one hand, Bush's recent speech makes it hard not to believe that he is a true believer in the cause of democracy promotion. On the other hand, there has never been any indication that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice or Powell share the President's enthusiasm.

I guess this is all just leading me back to what I already said once today: that there is room in the center of the American political spectrum for a principled foreign policy that unifies left and right through reference to traditional American principles. Ah, pipe dreams.

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