My Use Of The N-Word

About a month ago, I received this response to one of my comments on LGF:

#30

DesertSage  6/03/2007 11:03:23 pm PDT

…but because they figure he isn’t one of the neocons.

“neocon” is Lefty code-speak for “Jews”.

ChenZhen uses the term “neocon” as a pejorative.
ChenZhen is an anti-semite, I new there was a reason I disliked him.
Babbazee is right!

If there’s one thing I really can’t stand is an anti-semitic Leftist.
The thing I like even less is an anti-semitic Leftist that denies that he’s an anti-semite…so don’t even try it ChenZhen!

Then, last night, I spotted this comment on another WP blog:

25. Mark – July 4, 2007

…Gabe, Neo-Con is a racist slur. No shock that you use it…

 

Am I missing something here? Isn’t ‘neocon’ just short for ‘neoconservative‘? It’s just political ideology, right?

Intrigued, I did some searching, and I stumbled upon some old opinion pieces:

Blame It on Neo -Don’t call me a “neocon” unless you are a friend.

One big culprit has been Air America. Tune in to the proudly liberal radio network, and you’ll hear actress-turned-activist Janeane Garofalo and other hosts frequently blast the “influence” of the “neocons” on the Bush Administration, then go on to name names such as Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams and Libby. Not a single gentile name makes the list, so it’s the Jewish influence to which the network takes particular exception.

‘Neocon’: Slang for ‘Jew’?

After laying the groundwork of neocons as superhawks, the Business Week piece informs readers that the key members of the movement who advise President Bush are “Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith and Defense Policy Board member Richard N. Perle.” Fair enough. All three have, at various times, been labeled neocons. But then, Mr. Dunham draws an interesting distinction. He describes Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney as “key allies,” but not as “neocons.” In the remainder of the article, former Reagan administration official Ken Adelman and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol are identified as other “neocons.”

I have to apologise.  I had no idea that when I called Francis Fukuyama a ‘neocon’ in this post a year ago I was actually using code to label him a Jew.

I’m hoping some of my fellow bloggers could help me out here. What would be more politically correct? Should I just spell out ‘neoconservative’? Or should I adopt some sort of family-friendly way to post the word, like n**cons?

Edit- That was sarcasm, BTW.

One final note.  I see all this as grievance theater.  Accusations of anti-Semitism seem to get fired at people on a hair trigger all the time, and I think this is a perfect example. 

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Satisfied?

I’ve seen quite a bit of whining on blogs about Google’s lack of patriotism with their logo (of all things), especially on Memorial Day.  All the outrage seemed pretty silly to me, as it’s just a stupid logo.  But for the 4th of July, Google brought out this one:

Scroll your cursor over the image and the alt text reads “Happy Independence Day”

Something That Sam Brownback And Joe Biden Agree On

You might have already guessed what that was, but I thought I’d put it in here because I saw another story about this come across the AP wires:  Scholars: Divide Iraq into 3 regions

Under the plan, Iraqis would divide the country into three main regions. Each would assume primary responsibility for its own security and governance, as Iraqi Kurds already have in Kurdistan.

“Creating such a structure could prove to be difficult and risky,” the report said. “However, when measured against the alternatives — continuing to police an ethnic-sectarian war, or withdrawing and allowing the conflict to escalate — the risks of soft partition appear more acceptable.”

Brownback has been talking about this for months, and if I remember correctly, he was the only GOP presidential candidate in the field that brought this up in the debates thus far (although I could be wrong about that).   Biden has been pushing for his “third way” for quite a while as well.  What I haven’t seen, I suppose, is a lot of serious talk about it in the media.

I should note that one of my blogger pals has dedicated his blog toward this solution: Partition of Iraq

I know all this isn’t exactly news, but I thought I’d bring the debate over to my blog.  My personal feeling on this is that it may be too late for this.  Had this been the initial plan, this would have gone quite a bit smoother that it would to try to do it now.  In fact, at this point, it is almost like starting over.  Maybe that’s why the idea hasn’t picked up a lot of steam.  Hypothetically, if someone were omnipotent and knew that this would be the only way to achieve a positive outcome in the region, it would be interesting to know if the American people would have the will to see this through.  The biggest problem is getting the Iraqi people to go along with it, and it isn’t clear that there is a lot of support for this idea.  Even if they were warm to it, it’s hard to imagine that they would have a lot of confidence in our ability to pull it off in light of all the missteps and incompetence that have plagued the effort up to this point.  In the end, there may be just too many variables and risks in just dropping what we’re doing and try something completely new.

For the record*:

*I’m not sure how old this map is, or even its exact origin.  It’s quite possible that the war has changed the landscape quite a bit, so consider it a pretty basic visual representation.