John's Blog

The End of Neoconservativism?

Does the system pertubation resulting from Katrina signal the end of neoconservativism as a legitimate political force in American? Based on the recent fervor over the miserable federal response to Katrina, I think it just might.

Even conservative thinkers are starting to dance around the edges of this issue, Ross Douthat, a frequent contributer to the National Review, points out that Katrina was the "Anti-9/11." The 9/11 crisis was uniquely suited to, and practically tailor made for, the neoconservative world view framed within the ideological context provided by Sam Huntington's Clash of Civilizations model. The problem is, this world view lacks a framework to explain the role of government in disaster recovery. In contrast, a strong disaster relief function fits almost perfectly into the SysAdmin function of government espoused by ex-Naval War College professor Tom Barnett. Why was the USS Bataan, a Navy Hospital ship with 6 ORs, 600 beds and the ability to make 100,000 gallons of clear water a day, just left sitting, unused, off the Gulf Coast as this crisis unfolded?

David Brooks at the NY Times, writes that public confidence in civic and governmental institutions has plummeted over the last 5 years, due mainly to repeated failures of administration, including failure to find WMDs, incompetent postwar planning, corrupt corporate governance (eg Enron) and government sanctioned torture at Abu Ghaib. He goes on to say that there "is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are." Brookes speculates that the reaction may be a progressive resurgence, a Giuliani-esque law and order movement or perhaps a McCainist non-partisan patriotism.

What Brooks isn't quite willing to say, but is strongly hinting at in my opinion, is that the first political backlash of Katrina will be a strong repudiation of the neo-conservative ideology that got us in this mess. Yes, Mother Nature can't be controlled or contained, but the response to the aftermath was utterly castrated by a systematic weakening of the federal government driven by an ideological agenda. FEMA and DHS, loaded full of neoconservative appointees, have marginalized and ignored the planning needed to respond to this type of crisis because it doesn't fit their world view. The bottom line is that ideologically driven government doesn't work; even most strident libertarians would tend to agree disaster relief is an appropriate role for government.

After 9/11, it is unclear why the head of the agency in charge of disaster relief was headed up by an estates lawyer with absolutely no experience in disaster relief. Mike Brown became the deputy director of FEMA in 2001. He got the job because the director of FEMA at the time, Joseph Allbaugh, was Brown's old college roommate. When Allbaugh stepped down in 2003, the President appointed Brown to the head spot. Prior to his appointment in 2001, Brown was commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, a position he was asked to resign from following a string of lawsuits over lack of supervisor oversight. To allow cronyism to replace competence in a post-9/11 world is almost criminal. And to appoint someone to that position who has shown a history of poor oversight as a award for loyalty is reprehensible.

Writing about Iraq, noted RAND Corporation thinker Francis Fukuyama has noted that President Bush's current political base consists of neoconservatives, who provide intellectual firepower, but lack a base of their own, and "Jacksonian America" - nationalists who lean toward toward pugnacious isolationism. If we accept the human cost of the war in Iraq falls disproportionately on these Red Staters, how will they react toward the dual failure of the administration to win the peace in Iraq and protect Mississippi and Louisiana while doing so. Certainly, some will react to their cognitive dissonance with ever increasing support for the President. But I also suspect we'll see a growing schism in the GOP as the NASCAR dads, in contrast to the Beltway think-tankers, realize that the President that promised to keep them safe cannot and did not do so.

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