Neoconservatives have launched another ill-considered assault, this time against Ron DeSantis. The popular Florida governor (and presumptive GOP presidential contender) issued a statement on the war in Ukraine asserting that Ukraine is not central to American interests, and we should not endlessly fund the Ukrainians.
This sensible view echoes an older, more restrained Republican foreign policy, which is why the neocons then went after him with (rhetorical) guns blazing. Voters should consider this a point in his favor. Indeed, it is difficult for me to think of a better endorsement for DeSantis’ nascent foreign policy than being denounced by the people I most regret having heeded in my younger years.
A partial roll call includes John Bolton, who tweeted he was “disappointed” and that DeSantis was “badly wrong.” Bill Kristol, who ran the Weekly Standard into the ground, imperiously demanded that the editors of still-publishing conservative media outlets “not only come out strongly against DeSantis on Ukraine, but also discuss whether being on the wrong side of the defining foreign policy issue of our time isn’t disqualifying for the presidency.”
David French, who has sold out his conservative Christian principles all the way to a New York Times gig, declared DeSantis is projecting “moral confusion and profound timidity” and that a DeSantis victory would mean that “the Reagan Republican Party is truly lost, its moral clarity is gone.” National Review’s Jay Nordlinger proclaimed, “Ukraine is the frontline of a broader contest between freedom and tyranny. If Putin were allowed to
