Neocon Inaugural? by Donald Devine

The president had formally adopted the neoconservative mission to take democracy to the world and install freedom everywhere. The United States had finally accepted its Woodrow Wilsonian responsibility to create a hegemonic empire to bring peace and democracy to all. Neocon par excellence, William Kristol, was ecstatic. He characterized the speech as “informed by Strauss and inspired by Paine,” referring to the American radical revolutionary Tom Paine, and to Krisol’s college mentor, Leo Strauss. No higher compliment is possible in the neocon pantheon.