When one thinks of the neoconservatives what comes to mind is their warmongering, and they have indeed been the War Party's brains since their incubation inside the Democratic party and their defection to the GOP during the Vietnam era. Yet there are other aspects of the neooconservative mind – or, rather, the neoconservative personality – that are significant, and one of these is their viciousness.

These guys (and gals) fight dirty: the smear, the ad hominem argument, is their signature method. Remember the campaign against Chuck Hagel that targeted him as an "anti-Semite" They lost that one, yet they are not the type to change their ways. They tried the same tack with Donald Trump, throwing every smear in the book at him, and their reaction to his amazing victory in the primaries underscores both the primal hatred they feel for their enemies, and their obsession with control of the institutions they infiltrate.