Neoconservatives Dine on Chicken Kiev

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush told an audience in Ukraine to be mindful of nationalist tensions and dramatic change. The speech was pilloried on the right, with NY Times columnist William Safire memorably damning it as the "Chicken Kiev" speech. Bush's cardinal sin, in the eyes of his conservative detractors, was that he had aligned his prudent policy-making with prudent rhetoric.

Now, President George W. Bush is being scolded by neoconservative Max Boot for talking imprudently, but not following it up with enough reckless action:

Perhaps the most irksome characteristic of the Bush administration has been the Rio Grande-wide gap between rhetoric and action.

The president has consistently talked a good game when it comes to democracy promotion, stopping weapons proliferation and other important goals, but his actions have just as consistently fallen short. Inaction is defensible -- because there is always a good case to be made for caution in international affairs. But why then has his rhetoric been so incautious?

The basic contour of the problem is that neoconservative foreign policy making is fundamentally not serious. The yawning disconnect between its goals, and America's capabilities, resources and political will is enormous. And so its heroes must, by necessity, fall short.

Yet time and again, the inability of these heroes to deliver is never chalked up to the absurdity of the vision but to some political failing, moral cowardice or sabotage (usually by the dastardly State Department). That's why Ronald Reagan was pilloried by Norman Podhoretz for, of all things, his "Evil Empire" speech. Just like Boot today, Podhoretz decried the gap between Reagan's words and his actions.