It is, of course, unfair to give this award to only one article. There have been some good ones, but it is the end of the week and this one is deserving.
Keep in mind, awardees may not wish to be honored by the Neutralist, so though we do wish to tar them with our brush as this is a lonely endeavor to begin with, we do issue the caveat.
Bill Kristol's Obscure Masterpiece is a discussion of how poor Bill Kristol did so poorly when he went up against Daniel Ellsberg on Cspan just after the beginning of the Gulf War. The show has almost disappeared from history and if I were Kristol, I'd do what I could to see that it was forever gone because, to be kind, it does not enhance his reputation.
The article would be in the running just for showing up the foolishness of one member of our political class. It clinched the award with these lines,
What this suggests about the people running America is far worse than if they were simply malevolent super-geniuses: They don't know the backstory and couldn't care less. It's as though we're riding in the back seat of a car driven by people who demanded the wheel but aren't sure what the gas pedal does or what a stop sign actually looks like.
Kristol, ivy grad, best and brightest, displayed a lack of historical knowledge and an inventiveness of an alternate history that makes the quote dead on. Neutralism is warranted as our national foreign policy ethos because we will always have the ex student government types running things and the simplest foreign policy is the best they can manage.
Congratulations Tom Engelhardt and Jonathan Schwarz.
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