The Strategist and the Philosopher:

Who are these Neoconservatives who play an essential role in the United States President’s choices alongside the Christian Fundamentalists? …The Neoconservatives shouldn’t be confused with the Christian Fundamentalists who are also found in George Bush’s entourage. They have nothing to do with the renaissance of Protestant fundamentalism in the Southern, “Bible Belt” States which is one of the rising forces in today’s Republican Party. Neo-conservatism is East Coast and a little Californian also. Its sources of inspiration have an “intellectual” profile, often New Yorkers, often Jewish, who started out “on the left”. Some still call themselves Democrats. They have a political or literary magazine in hand, not the Bible; they wear tweed jackets, not the double-breasted blue green suits of the Southern televangelists. Usually they profess liberal ideas regarding social and moral issues. Their goal is neither to prohibit abortion nor to impose prayer in the schools. Their ambition is other.

However, explains Pierre Hassner, the singularity of the Bush administration is to have assured a conjunction of these two currents. George W. Bush has made Neoconservatives and Christian fundamentalists live together. The latter are represented in the government by a man like John Ashcroft, the Attorney General. The former have one of their stars as Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. George W. Bush, who campaigned from the center right without any very precise political anchorage, has realized a surprising and explosive ideological cocktail, marrying Wolfowitz and Ashcroft, Neoconservatives and Christian fundamentalists, two opposite planets. Le Monde [via truthout]