Greetings from the NR cruise! Here is a thought from the ship’s internet cafe. I don’t mind the word “ideologue,” but in our foreign policy debate it is used in such a tendentious way. Consider this from the NYTimes today, about the cabinet shakeup: “`This could actually turn out not so well for the ideologues,’ said one administration official, referring to the staff members in the vice president’s office and the Pentagon who are openly skeptical of the idea of negotiating solutions to the crises over Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programs.” But aren’t the people who believe in a certain kind of negotiated solution–despite our experience with the last, failed negotiated deal with North Korea–just as “ideological,” maybe more so, than the administration’s hawks? If we’re going to throw the word around, let’s say that the shakeup “could turn out not so well for one set of ideologues in the administration and better for another set of ideologues.”