Few Americans—or members of Congress—read The Public Interest. Still, the rapid rise of the "neo-cons" to intellectual respectability was revealing. And their complaints, especially about the "dead hand of bureaucracy," epitomized a new mood of doubt. After all, the government had obviously oversold its expertise. The war on poverty was at best a skirmish. Worse, the "best and brightest" of liberals had blundered badly in Vietnam. For these reasons conservatives successfully took the offensive in public debate. Liberals, so confident and optimistic just a few years earlier, seemed tired and
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