Despite his campaign promises, over a year into his presidency, Obama has been unable to deliver the change that Americans and the world alike had hoped for. Part of the problem is that neocon ideology is alive and well, reaching into the corridors of the White House, and dominating the airwaves.
Indeed, back in January 2009, after Obama had just announced his appointments, prominent neoconservative icons, intellectuals and ideologues were virtually jumping for joy. Military historian (and McCain campaign staffer) Max Boot, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and regular contributor to the Washington Post and New York Times, declared: "I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain." David Horowitz, editor of FrontPageMag.com and a regular columnist for Salon.com, rebuked sceptical conservative activists: "Now, as president-elect he has just formed the most conservative foreign policy team since John F. Kennedy, one well to the right of Bill Clinton. Where is your gratitude for that?"
And even earlier during the campaign period, Robert Kagan, co-founder of the notorious Bush-affiliated Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and columnist for the Washington Post and New York Times Syndicate, hailed "Obama, the interventionist"; while staunch Bush supporter Christopher Hitchens, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, demanded that readers "Vote for Obama" due to McCain and Palin being a collective "disgrace."
Why did so many leading neoconservative commentators, who previously supported the Bush administration's doctrine of unilateral pre-emptive global warfare, come running to Obama's doorstep?
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