Irving Kristol died Friday in Arlington, Virginia, from complications of lung cancer. Mr. Kriston was a Brooklyn son, a City College grad who swung left with the Depression, then right amid the social spending of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. An accomplished essayist with a biting wit, he fostered the modern conservative movement, but laughed at the neo-con label that would be his legacy.

From the Times:

“Ever since I can remember,” he said in summing himself up, “I’ve been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-conservative and, in religion, always a neo-orthodox, even while I was a neo-Trotskyist and a neo-Marxist. I’m going to end up a neo. Just neo, that’s all. Neo-dash-nothing.”