Neocons still disbelieve -OR- Visitors from Opposite World

Dana Milbank covers Richard Perle's Nixon Center
lecture.

"Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon
Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole.

In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and
of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum
of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.

2. Neoconservatives do not exist.

3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be
blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle
informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is
a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a
right-wing policy."

So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as
the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? "My name was on it
because I signed up for the study group," Perle explained. "I didn't
approve it. I didn't read it."

Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving
a "moral" basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to
remove Saddam Hussein? "I don't have the letters in front of me,"
Perle replied.

Shorter Perle: "I am not the droid you seek."