Jonah Goldberg wades into the "what is a neocon" question. This is the first of what is apparently a series, but the telegraphed conclusion appears to be that the term has been used to refer to practically everything under the sun at one time or another, is all but meaningless, and ought to be abandoned:
In fact, it's increasingly difficult to find plain-old "conservatives" anywhere these days. National Review, according to a ludicrous article in The New York Observer is a "paleo-conservative magazine" which is "seen as a kind of a relic by the new neocons" but according to The American Conservative, National Review is not only "safely in neocon hands," we actually symbolize the neocon takeover of the conservative movement. Often, the absurdity has become syllogistic: Neoconservatives are conservatives who favor war and if you are a conservative and favor war you are a neoconservative. My own beloved mother perfectly captured the nebulousness of the term. When asked whether she was a neocon by The New York Observer, she jokingly replied, "You mean the people who like to kill people and break things. That's me!"