Last month I suggested that Johns Hopkins political science guru and celebrated ex-Neocon Francis Fukuyama had taken counsel of his fears. This month, WaPo columnist (and unrepentant Neocon) Charles Krauthammer reports that Fukuyama has also taken certain liberties with the truth:
It was, as the hero tells it, his Road to Damascus moment. There he is, in a hall of 1,500 people he has long considered to be his allies, hearing the speaker treat the Iraq war, nearing the end of its first year, as “a virtually unqualified success.” He gasps as the audience enthusiastically applauds. Aghast to discover himself in a sea of comrades so deluded by ideology as to have lost touch with reality, he decides he can no longer be one of them.
And thus did Francis Fukuyama become the world’s most celebrated ex-neoconservative, a well-timed metamorphosis that has brought him a piece of the fame that he once enjoyed 15 years ago as the man who declared, a mite prematurely, that history had ended.
A very nice story. It appears in the preface to Fukuyama’s post-neocon coming out, “America at the Crossroads.” On Sunday it was repeated on the front page of the New York Times Book Review in Paul Berman’s review.
I happen to know something about this story, as I was the speaker whose 2004 Irving Kristol lecture to the American Enterprise Institute Fukuyama has now brought to prominence. I can therefore testify that Fukuyama’s claim that I attributed “virtually unqualified success” to the war is a fabrication.
Ouch.
From the end of the Krauthammer piece – “Fukuyama now says that he had secretly opposed the Iraq war before it was launched…He has every right to change his mind at his convenience. He has no right to change what I said.”
Ouch indeed.
I liked his last comment the best.
“Fukuyama now says that he had secretly opposed the Iraq war before it was launched… Fukuyama then courageously came out against it. He has every right to change his mind at his convenience. He has no right to change what I said.”
Fukyama accused of lying. WaPo blogger and AP writer accused of plagiarism. Watch your six (probably every other angle too) Lex, your marvelous writings may be soon stolen too.
re Lex watching his six. I agree. Lex’s writings are much more valuable than that blow in the wind” Frank Fukuyama (no comment on that last name).
B2
B2 – come on, comment on the last name.
So many things come to mind… I know, it’s a polite place we are in, but this one is begging for more. Course, I’m too chicken to do it myself, I leave that to you big boys.
(Oh, and glad all is forgiven – my heart’s all aflutter – “darling” indeed…
MY favorite quote from this Krauthammer piece:
Fukuyama’s book is proof of this proposition about the lack of the plausible alternative. The alternative he proposes for the challenges of Sept. 11 — new international institutions, new forms of foreign aid and sundry other forms of “soft power” — is a mush of bureaucratic make-work in the face of a raging fire.
We cannot reason with Islamic radicals, we cannot accommodate them, we cannot change them. All we can do is KILL them. Perhaps the solution is a bit too barbaric for our Liberal friends, but a spade is indeed a spade.
The MSM response to the claim that it is biased continues at Villainous Company here: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2006/03/dimwittery_aler_6.html
Unfortunately, our soldiers over there don’t have the luxury of “changing their minds” midstream. They could teach Fukuyama quite a bit about duty, honor, and follow-through once committed. I don’t care what second thoughts he had when the going got tough, he should have held his tongue. We have people over there in part due to his logic and assertions.
Fukuyama might be blazing intellect, but that’s of little use when you’re a failure as a man,
I have voiced my opinion of F2 enough….I am just glad others are catching on.
Tell me again, why do people follow this guy?
“End of History.” ‘Nuff said.