At a speech tonight in New York — okay, it was the first annual Norman Podhoretz Lecture, delivered at a dinner hosted by Commentary Magazine — Charles Krauthammer gave a characteristically brilliant disquisition on “neoconservatism as a governing philosophy.” But he earned his biggest laughs and biggest applause when he took on an obnoxious essay by Francis Fukuyama published last year in the National Interest.
Fukuyama, Krauthammer said, said the Bush democratization project was a bad idea and had always been a bad idea and everybody who supported it and led it should have known it was a bad idea — even though in the year before the war Fukuyama was utterly silent about it.
Krauthammer called the Fukuyama article “retrospective prophecy,” and noted that in the aftermath of the Iraqi elections it had already been proved wrong. “Maybe,” he mused, quoting Fukuyama’s own highbrow soundbite back at him, “that’s what happens at the end of history.”
Yee-ouch. Talk about being hoist on your own petard. Game, set, and match to Krauthammer.