The Chronicle: 5/2/2003: The Neoconservative-Conspiracy Theory: Pure Myth is a good summary of one of the most pervasive recent conspiracy theories:
The ruins of Saddam Hussein’s shattered tyranny may provide additional evidence of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, but one poisonous by-product has already begun to seep from under the rubble. It is a conspiracy theory purporting to explain how the foreign policy of the world’s greatest power, the United States, has been captured by a sinister and hitherto little-known cabal.
It has lots of good “I told you so” material.
He never names it, it’s PNAC, Project for a New American Century, and they have a web site http://newamericancentury.org/. The obfuscation must be intentional on his part.
Then he attempts to hobble the accusation against PNAC by chaining A) Jews and B) Neo-cons to it.
I’m not sure if he’s just heard of these ‘neo-cons’ or what, but neo-conservatives are just former 1960’s liberals who have turned conservative as they got older. It’s a demographic with membership in the millions and hardly a conspiracy.
It reads more like he’s intentionally trying to muddy the waters.
The Neo-Con movement, such as it is, was started by former Trotskyites Norman Podhoretz and wife Midge Dector in the 50s and now has a large following of mainly Jewish intellectuals, many of whom have never been liberals.
Did a little research, found out there is a lot more to neocons than I thought. I thought the semitic aspect started with Alterman, but since it goes much deeper, I’ll have to hold off on having opinion till I know more about it.