Buchanan is one of those 'regular contributor' talking heads that unfortunately gives conservatives a bad name. Charles Johnson pointed it out early on but it wasn't until Buchanan called Victor Davis Hanson a 'neocon court historian' that it finally hit me.

Here he is doin what he does best:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/07/15/mad-matthews-no-surge-hasnt-worked

Stay on him, Robert. EVERY time he appears on TV he should be discredited.

Posted by: rishika at July 16, 2008 5:22 PM

First, Pat Buchanon rewrites the history of World War II and now this.

I have always thought the man played to the cheat seats, but this borders on lunacy.

Posted by: tanstaafl at July 16, 2008 5:25 PM

Frigg'n fruitcake.

Posted by: Cornelius at July 16, 2008 5:28 PM

He called Victor a neocon court historian?

That bastard. Let's get 'im.

Posted by: undaunted at July 16, 2008 5:39 PM

Not knowing Buchanan's age, I checked wiki and while noting he is a septugenarian, his mother and father both lasted into their mid eighties. Just how challenging does he think he can make this next decade and a half? Never mind - I really don't care to find out.

How could 'the greatest generation' have spawned the tragically pathetic generation of Buchananites?

Posted by: miira at July 16, 2008 5:58 PM

Did not Pat Buchanan advise Pres. Regan to walk away from the deaths of over 300 US Marines in Lebanon? is that not another way to emboldern the terrorists, ie Hizbollah? You cannot show weakness to arab muslims especially they only respect brute force. something that one of your first presidents did.. in Tripoli.. on the shores. we need leaders not wimps.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at July 16, 2008 6:01 PM

A very piercing comment was made on Buchanan some years ago by the steady, not-to-be-taken-in Jamie Glazov, in his article "Pat Buchanan, His Fans, and Anti-Semitism that appeared at FrontPageMagazine.com on Friday, January 25, 2002.

Here's an excerpt:

“During his infamous defense of John Demjanjuk, Buchanan claimed that Demjanjuk was not the guard he was alleged to be at Treblinka. Buchanan turned out to be right: Demjanjuk was a guard in a different concentration camp.

The non-existence of a forthcoming Buchanan apology on Demjanjuk implied that Buchanan believed that he had actually won on this issue.
During his defense of Demjanjuk, Buchanan made the intriguing statement that the diesel gas fumes used at Treblinka could not have killed anyone. These diesel gas fumes were used not only at Treblinka, but also at a number of other death camps. Hundreds of thousands of Jews died in these camps. If these victims did not die from diesel gas fumes, then how and why did they die? Would Buchanan be willing to expose his family members, as well as himself, to the same fumes in order to demonstrate his point?

During Ronald Reagan’s presidential visit to the Bitburg cemetery in Germany, Buchanan wrote, for Reagan's controversial speech, that the Germans buried there, who included members of SS units and Nazis who participated in Hitler's extermination of the Jews, were "victims of the Nazis just as surely as the victims in concentration camps."

Fascinating.

Buchanan has also compared the Nazi camps with those set up by Gen. Eisenhower for German prisoners of war. This is a comparison between POWs being held because they are an enemy in war and a group of people who are liquidated because of their race.

Buchanan has drawn a parallel between Andrei Sakharov, the great Soviet dissident who was persecuted for, among other things, his courage in standing up for human rights in a totalitarian regime, and Arthur Rudolph, a German rocket scientist who admitted his involvement with slave labor and other atrocities of the Nazi regime.

Why would Buchanan do this?”

Posted by: Hugh at July 16, 2008 6:29 PM

More on antisemitism as a security risk in the 1930s and now, can be found in the followiing article from Oct. 3, 2005:

Fitzgerald: The State Department nest of ninnies

Reinhard Gehlen was a Nazi, Hitler's Intelligence Chief for the Eastern Front, and a man up to his neck in murder. But he and his former Nazis managed to fool the CIA into thinking they were of value. After the war a number of Americans, some outright immoral, others merely guilty of the shallowest and stupidest kind of false machiavellianism, wanted to use Gehlen's supposedly valuable "network" in the East. The CIA fell for Gehlen's pitch, and contributed millions to him until, finally, in 1956, it stopped. And as anyone might have concluded, the network was useless and riddled with double agents who, as so many Nazis did, now worked for the KGB -- that is, for its variously-named predecessors such as the NKVD. There were those who were useful to the Americans in Eastern Europe.
But it was not Gehlen and his Nazis who were useful, but rather the former anti-Nazis, many of them Jewish, such as those associated with the Red Orchestra. Some day it will all come out, and all sorts of people, from Buffalo Bill's grandson to the suave mustachioed brother of a celebrated Harvard archeologist of White Russian descent, will get their due. And then there were others --what in god's name did Gehlen and his murderous turncoats contribute to the defense of the West? Nothing. And what is worse, they muddied the waters, and often misled.

The kind of CIA men and State Department men who effectively killed denazification themselves deserve to be studied for their own prejudices and stupidities. The spirits of Breckenridge Long, and Loy Henderson live on in Michael Scheuer and others who, at this particular moment in history, as in the 1930s and 1940s, are in fact, given their obvious prejudices which causes them to misread the situation, security risks. At MI5, or its predecessor, Vernon Kell appointed Maxwell Knight, a fascist and antisemite. In May, 1940, Churchill cashiered Kell. Then, as now, antisemitism is not only distasteful -- but now it is far more: it is a security risk. Anyone who displays its symptoms is unlikely to be sufficiently clear-headed to deal with the worldwide Jihad. Churchill did not tolerate such security risks when he became Prime Minister. And such security risks cannot be tolerated now.

As for Gehlen, he did less for Western security and the ultimate liberation of Eastern and Central Europe than did Leopold Labedz, sitting in his London flat, editing articles for Survey, or than Melvin Lasky, editing the CIA-funded magazine Encounter, the best magazine of the last century and possibly the best thing the CIA has ever done. Would that the kind of people who were behind that intelligent decision were in the CIA today. Or perhaps they are just joining up, at this very minute. But that appears doubtful.

The tutelary spirits of those in the State Department who deal with such matters, that is to say, matters connected to the Middle East and to Muslim terrorism, are two: one is that of Breckenridge Long, the Assistant Secretary of State who was so instrumental in keeping Jewish refugees from being accepted into the United States before and during World War II; the second is the late and unlamented Loy Henderson, he of the doleful countenance, who was so instrumental in moving heaven and earth in keeping the United States from recognizing the nascent state of Israel, and did what he could to help smother it in its cradle. The palpable want of sympathy of Long and Henderson continues to this day -- only now it is aided and abetted by the prospect of working as hirelings of Arab governments and the fear of recognizing the true nature of the Arab opposition to Israel -- which is simply a case of a classic Jihad against an Infidel sovereignty in the midst of dar al-Islam, carefully redefined as a struggle for "nationalist operations" of the recently (post-1967) invented "Palestinian people."

One regrets that the Secretary of State appears unaware of this problem. The refusal to understand the tenets of Islam in some quarters, precisely because a true understanding would make Israel's case stronger, and the Arab case weaker, is not surprising. In the 1930s, those with an inherited or acquired animus against "the Jews" were the last to see or admit to the threat that Hitler posed -- for precisely the same kind of reasons.

That is why even those who are not outraged at the hypocrisy of the treatment of Israel had better become outraged at the larger issue: the failure to come to grips with the Jihad as a natural and logical expression of central tenets of Islam, and not, as the State Department would still have us believe, simply the beliefs of a "handful of extremists," something that expresses a "sense of humiliation." No, it is not "humiliation" but a feeling of being thwarted, because Islam "is to dominate and not be dominated," as the celebrated phrase puts it. Any evidence that this is not happening goes against the natural order of the universe and is intolerable to Arab and Muslim beliefs and amour-propre.

The State Department is not, as a whole, a nest of ninnies, but in the area that is now of most concern -- that of the understanding of Islam, it certainly seems to be. Of course, there are those who have a glimmering of such understanding, who are horrified by the appeasement and apologetics that have characterized so much of what has gone on among those who deal with the Middle East. These include those now retired to posh positions elsewhere, and who like to assure one and all that "everyone agrees on the final disposition of things -- a two-state solution." This is said with a tone of complacent self-assurance by the likes of Edward Djerijian and his colleagues. But the evidence that this is an absurdity, that it ignores the uncompromising division of the world between dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb and the real nature of the relentless Jihad against Israel (it is Israel in any dimensions that is the problem for the Arabs and those Muslims over whom they hold sway) is not even addressed. When people start prating about what "everyone knows to be true" or start invoking the word "solution" for something that in fact will exacerbate the problem -- that idiotic "two-state solution" -- then one's mental antennae should quiver.

In its coddling of the Palestinian Authority and relentless pursuit of moderate Muslims, those manning the relevant desks at the State Department show that they, at least, have learned little since the Nazi period. The same kind of impulse that allowed support for Reinhard Gehlen, because he or those under him could not possibly be anything other than stout anti-Communists, could they? is at work in the failure to analyze Islam, its theory and practice. This is partly inertia: the holdover-effect of decades of ignoring Islam, or still worse, believing it to be a Bulwark Against Communism and therefore A Good Thing (see all those Stinger missiles lavished on muhajirun in Afghanistan, see CENTO). It is partly the effect of decades of propaganda, either by the companies that constitued ARAMCO, or by those who could for their own benefit "recycle petrodollars" with various contracts for arms, hospital management, and so on -- in the AWACS fight nearly a quarter-century ago, United Technologies (arms) and Whitney (hospital management) led all those disinterested American corporations that were fully prepared to insist that Saudi Arabia was the truest-bluest ally of the United States and "the American people" that it could possibly be. But Saudi Arabia in 1980 was just as malevolent toward Infidels as it is now; the doctrines of Islam, and of Wahhabi Islam, were not born yesterday, or developed as a response to any behavior by the American government in the past 25 years or indeed in the entire period of its existence.

And then there is just laziness. How much easier it is to parrot party-lines, rather than actually sitting down, reading and re-reading Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, reading the real scholars of yore (of whom a representative sample is now easily avaiable in "The Legacy of Jihad," a compilation of texts old and new from Andrew Bostom). How much easier to go to receptions at various Arab and Muslim embassies, to take absurd figures like Edward Djerejian (now at James Baker's -- 'nuff said? -- Institute for somethingorother at Rice University), whose every prediction, every take on things in the Muslim lands, is vitiated by reality, every day. A confederacy of dunces, a nest of ninnies, well -- you are free to come up with your own brand-new terms of venery, just like Julian of Norwich."

[Posted by: Hugh at August 17, 2006 12:01 PM]

Posted by: Hugh at July 16, 2008 6:32 PM

Hanson wrote about the WW II book, Buchanan answered, and then Hanson responded again. I believe that Buchanan had nothing to say to this; and how could he?:

http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/patrick-j-buchanan%E2%80%94pseudo-historian-very-real-dissimulator/

Some years ago, Buchanan pilloried Charles Krauthammer about a column in which Krauthammer repeatedly used a phrase like "trailer park trash" because some one else (Howard Dean?) had used the phrase. There was no question but that Krauthammer was using the phrase rhetorically, to criticize its use. Buchanan was upset that Krauthammer would say such a thing. It was weird; but then, you can guess Krauthammer's ethnicity.

I read Buchanan's columns, but the book on World War II and his latest turn of phrase suggests that he is getting weirder as death approaches.

Why does he say nothing about Islam? What does Joe Sobran (near death) say nothing about Islam? Part of it is the sense that Muslims are a large and still distant group. Part of it is the sense that Islam is a "religion" worthy of respect.

In the view of America First, Zionism is a big trap, impossible to support in the face of huge Muslim opposition. "No blowback wanted here." Also, if the main thread of jihad has been focused on Israel, and if Israel is a distasteful sovereignty, why not let her die and keep Islamic violence against America to a minimum?

But having said all that, we can still ask, Why so little emphasis on Muslim immigration? I think the answer is that 1 or 2 percent is nothing to be concerned about. The answer is for Christians (specifically, white Christians) to have more babies.

Or so I think he thinks.

Posted by: StillBreathing at July 16, 2008 6:53 PM

Buchanan to my mind recalls those figures from the late 1930s in America, whose words and deeds were noted by John Roy Carlson in “Under Covers, such as Lindbergh with “America First” and his admiration for Hitler, or William Pelley and his Silver Shirts or Fritz Kuhn and his Bund, not to mention admirers of Japanese militarism – all people people exposed to public view when Carlson, in 1943, published his 544-page riveting account of what he had found, working for the government undercover among the assorted antisemites and cranks who opposed war with Hitler as “the Jews’ war,” and promoted, some of them knowingly, some of them possibly unknowingly, the aims of Nazi agents in the New World. They were of course security risks, and many or most of them were rounded up and imprisoned for the duration of the war. It was John Roy Carlson – he was an Armenian-American, whose real name was “Arthur Derounian” -- who in “Under Cover” (a book well worth finding, and reading) turned over all the rocks first.

The antisemitism of Buchanan, a mental pathology that, whjle never pleasant, can also be dangerous, always for Jews, which makes it intolerable enough, but also, as in the the late 1930s, involves serious questions of national security, or even of what might be called civilizational security. For antisemitism is such a strong force, a kind of mania, that infects the thoughts of otherwise intelligent people who see everything, who begin to grasp everything, through the prism of this mania, that they lose all sense of proportion and of reality, and even, at times, forget about what would make sense even for their own self-preservation (never mind what happens to Jews), so intent are they on finding excuses for antisemitism and for antisemites. In its virulent form, it is a menace to everyone.
I have observed Buchanan over the years. Decades ago, it was clear to me that such a man was an obvious anti-Semite, and I merely wondered how well he could disguise it, or keep it under control if not entirely under wraps, by such means as smiling in false-friendly fashion to others, Jews, who might appear with him as guests or co-hosts or something on one of those talk shows where two semi-idiots, one representing Liberals and the other Conservatives, and neither one a very impressive representative of either political persuasion, shows up weekly to tell us, members of the long-suffering public, what we are to think, or at least what a Liberal thinks, and a Conservative thinks, and you, dear viewer, are supposed to take it from there.
I never doubted for a minute after the Demjanjuk Affair, in which Buchanan spent so much time and effort defending a man who had been a guard in a Nazi concentration camp – whether or not there was enough evidence, using the level of proof that the hyper-solicitous Israeli judges demanded, to declare him a particular monster, one Ivan the Terrible – was hardly the point, and Buchanan continued to fight, as if it were a matter of great moment to him, to prevent this Nazi concentration camp guard, Ivan Demjanjuk, from being deported to the Ukraine. It is a commentary on the age that Buchanan has been permitted to be a well-paid guest – those Gucci—loafered feet, those cars, that life of fabulously well-paid Washington ease for being a –what is he, exactly? -- a political operative, a political operator, a pundit, forsooth!

I’ve commented on him, in passing, before.
Here are two such remarks:
“Buchanan's antisemitism prevents him from supporting Israel or understanding that the Lesser Jihad against Israel is no different in kind from the Jihad now being pursued against non-Muslims in Western Europe and elsewhere.” [Posted by Hugh at January 18, 2007 9:02 AM]

“…in the instant rewriting of history the usual brigade of Israel-haters will invoke the word "Neo-Cons" (a ridiculous term, whether used by those who apply it to themselves or those who denounce it), meaning supporters -- Jewish supporters (to people of this type, there cannot possibly be any other kind), and thus try to pin the tale of blame for the Iraq tarbaby on the presumably Jerusalem-supporting donkey, and the usual false cabal (Wolfowitzh Perle, Feith) trotted out and people named Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush carefully ignored. That Gucci-loafered man of the people, Pat Buchanan, the very type of a devotee of Father Coughlin and other pre-World War II nasties brought vividly to life by John Roy Carlson in "Under Cover," when not defending Demjanjuk or mourning the death of Generalissimo Franco, seems not to have much to say about the Jihad but plenty to say about those "Neo-Cons." He is merely sinister and silly; those he attacks, the Spreaders of Democracy, have merely been ignorant and arrogant and silly -- but not sinister.” [from this posting: Posted by: Hugh at January 4, 2006 12:19 AM]

Buchanan, Defender of Demjanjuk, author of a recent book attacking Churchill, whom he hates, for what Buchanan believes was the “unnecessary war” – World War II. One of the best, because one of the coldest and best-informed, reviews, was by John Lukacs. It appeared, by the way, at Buchanan’s own “American Conservative” – they didn’t dare to turn it down. Every word is instinct with the contempt that a real conservative – of a kind admired by Jacques Barzun, whose endorsement of one of Lukacs’ books got me reading him – has for someone like Buchanan.

Posted by: Hugh at July 16, 2008 6:59 PM

Of course, Pat Buchanan wants no interference with the "peaceful" nuclear work of the mullahs. He knows where it is leading -- and he likes it.

Posted by: Rahman bin Rahman at July 16, 2008 7:49 PM

Presumably the war against Japan was also unnecessary.

The Japanese people were not beholden to their emperor and did not consider him to be a divine figure.

Japanese people did not willingly fight to the death, fly planes into allied ships and commit suicide rather than be captured by foreigners.

All this was perpetrated by a tiny minority of extremists who misrepresented the Japanese people.

The Americans should have shrugged their collective shoulder and said that the Japanese people are moderate and therefore left in peace. Afterall, the moderate Japanese had only killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese prior to Pearl Harbour and had no designs on establishing a brutal empire across Asia.

Posted by: Stephen Gash SIOE England at July 16, 2008 8:06 PM

Once upon a time I almost voted for him. Look, he said the right things at the time, you know, about upholding the Constitution; sovereignty of the United States; stuff unfavorable to globalists -- and that all rang well within my ears.

But, I decided to wait and I voted for someone else.

Gawd am I glad I did -- the man is fruitier than a fruitcake spiked with brandy during a full moon!

Buchanan IS a fifth column!

Posted by: witness at July 16, 2008 8:23 PM

Pat Buchanan is a throw back. Wendell Willike defeated the isolationist wing of the Republician party in 1940. The summer of 1940 saw France fall under Hitlers boots. Pearl harbor sealed the distruction of 'Isolationist conservative' and Washingtons advice no longer served the USA.

Ron Pual is the 'rebirth' of this point of veiw that got him single diget support.

Posted by: Ruebacca at July 16, 2008 8:27 PM

A large percentage of the wackos in America are on the Left side of the political spectrum. Pat Buchanan, however, is one of the exceptions to this rule. In my mind, he ceased being a conservative long ago and can now accurately be described as a reactionary. After all, the Far Right is as goofy as the Far Left, the difference being that Far Left nonsense has entered mainstream liberalism significantly more than Far Right nonsense has made an entrance into mainstream conservatism. No one comprehended this essential truth more than the recently departed William F. Buckley. In any case, shame on Buchanan, who should not be listened to seriously anymore.

Posted by: Wellington at July 16, 2008 8:44 PM

Pat Buchanan is a throw back. Wendell Willike defeated the isolationist wing of the Republician party in 1940. The summer of 1940 saw France fall under Hitlers boots. Pearl harbor sealed the distruction of 'Isolationist conservative' and Washingtons advice no longer served the USA.

Ron Pual is the 'rebirth' of this point of veiw that got him single diget support.

Posted by: Ruebacca at July 16, 2008 8:27 PM

Yup, thanks to the globalists -- look where we are today. We have democracy in iraq; the global economy is going gangbusters; the stock market is booming; food prices are the lowest in history; and unemployment doesn't exist.

The bull is running alright.

Posted by: witness at July 16, 2008 9:12 PM

Someone ought to come up with a clever adaptation of Tom Lehrer's "MLF Lullabye".
"Muslims" would reflect the role of "Germans" in the lyrics and can include Buchanan's anti-semetic contributions.

Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber,

No danger lurks,
your sleep to encumber,
We've got the missiles,
peace to determine,
One of the fingers
on the button
will be German.

Why shouldn't they have nuclear warheads?

England says no, but
they are all soreheads.
I say a bygone
should be a bygone,
Lets make peace
the way we did
in Stanleyville and Saigon.

Once all the germans
were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson
in nineteen eighteen,
And they've hardly bothered us
since then.

So
sleep well, my darling,
the sandman can linger,
We know our buddies won't
give us the finger.
Heil
--hail--

the wehrmacht,
I mean the bundeswehr,
Hail to our loyal ally!
M - L - F
Will scare Brezhnev,
I hope
he is half as scared as I.

Posted by: heroyalwhyness at July 16, 2008 9:34 PM

The Buchanan columns are interesting many levels. Whatever his inner views are, his actions suggest several things. His most recent columns - in which "neo-cons" (read: JEWS) are pulling us into war with IRAN (just like that other unnecessary war, WW II) seems to me an effort by conservatives to dodge blame and find a scape goat. The reason for our foreign policy failures are not the rich and powerful supporting an oaf in his efforts to steal the presidency so they could be free to plunder the country (and the world); no, the real problem is that those people - those NEO-CONs - were a fifth column that subverted the great and glorious Christian nation of the United States.

Buchanan - and his fellow conservatives, if that is what we can still call them - supported Bush; now, rather than admitting they were wrong and short sighted, they need to find someone (besides their own selves) to take the blame, so they can go on feeling smart and writing columns and selling books.

The other interesting thing is reading the comments from his readers. If you go to any of the Pat Buchanan web sites that run his columns - such as through Drudge or antiwar.com - the comments are filled with overt, vitriolic anti-semitism. I'm not saying Pat supports them, but they are worth a read. One reader notes that the death of millions of Jews by the Nazis was ordained in the bible - as soon as they cheered "Barabus!" (the thief who was let go, instead of Jesus). Over and over there these hateful people somehow feel comfortable on Pat's comment pages, and they are crawling out of the woodwork.

My wish was that I knew enough history to respond to Buchanan's specious columns; they reek of revisionism and scape-goating. I believe that many rich folks and many poor white folks are troubled by the mess they made; so they are getting ready to blame someone. Pat's just laying the way.

Posted by: ReligionofPeas at July 16, 2008 9:48 PM

Buchanan has skated on this thin ice before. Remember the "amen corner" comment a few years back? Any position he takes is always anti-Israel; that's a given. The media tolerate him because so many of his positions are identical to those on the extreme LEFT.

Posted by: Rahman bin Rahman at July 16, 2008 10:06 PM

I think Buchanan hit bottom in his column a few weeks ago, when he wrote that Hitler did not really plan to kill the Jews.

In his column "Was the Holocaust Inevitable?" Buchanan claimed the following:

1. Hitler was sincerely interested in peace and never interested in conquest:

"If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a great fleet?....If he wanted war with the West, why did he offer peace after Poland and offer to end the war, again, after Dunkirk?"

2. Hitler never intended to kill the Jews. He only turned on them when he felt boxed in by Churchill in the West and Russia in the East:

"But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust. Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table. That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll."

http://tinyurl.com/5k5s3l

Folks, this stuff is starting to resemble the stuff you see on neo-Nazi websites like Stormfront.org. It's not worthy of a mainstream conservative commentator.

Posted by: Steven L. at July 16, 2008 10:41 PM

Pat Buchanan has been going from bad to worse, suggesting that the war against Hitler was unnecessary
.........................

Yes, I had intended to post about this, especially the coverage in Newsweek. His basic stance--repellantly--is an apologia on appeasement in the days leading to WWII. Oh, not the usual--that Chamberlin was really a decent fellow who was just duped by the cagy Hitler--but an ugly case against all those who realized what a threat Nazi Germany really was. He is especially scathing about the redoubtable Winston Churchill.

I talked to a number of friends and aquaintances about the article, and even though these are very intelligent people, not one person I talked to could understand what I found so disturbing about it. They thought ideas did not matter--that Buchanan just likes to hear himself talk, that most people pay little attention to him, anyway, and what does it matter a pundit's opinion on something that happened almost seventy years ago, anyway?

Well, for one thing, I would find his views offensive in any case--especially the appalling calumny against the courageous and clear-sighted Churchill. But more than that--ideas resonate--very often a writer on history is also holding that history--or their interpretation of it--up as a mirror to his contemporaries.

So--what point could Buchanan possibly have for contemporary Americans in praising appeasement of the sworn enemies of the democratic West, and the excoriation of men who warn of the dangers of such an approach? It's pretty obviously a reference to America's jihad enemies in general, and Iran in particular, and this piece just proves my suspicions.

By the way, the inimical Christopher Hitchens has no patience with Buchanan's repulsive revisionist history, and absolutely takes him apart. A joy to read.

I think this link will work:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/141501

Posted by: gravenimage at July 16, 2008 11:18 PM

Steven L.: Buchanan is in no way a mainstream conservative commentator. He left that guise long ago. He's also not as well read as he should be. If he were, he wouldn't be spouting nonsense about Hitler's peaceful intentions. A reading of Mein Kampf would clear this up immediately. Winston Churchill read this twisted work. He knew. Buchanan is woefully ignorant here, as he is when he alleges that Hitler really wanted an end to war after his invasion of Poland or after his triumph in June of 1940 with the fall of France. In fact, asserting such is idiotic because all Hitler wanted was breathing space until his next conquest.

Buchanan is in the process of insuring that his legacy will be an extremely negative one. I feel no pity for him, though, because he is digging his own shameful grave. He has only himself to blame.

Posted by: Wellington at July 16, 2008 11:20 PM

Here is John Lukacs' review of Buchanan's book on the "unnecessary war," World War II, as he describes it. Lukacs was clearly holding back, containing his fury, keeping everything suitably icy. But we know what he thinks; his contempt for Buchanan is palpable.

Here it is, from the June issue of "The American Conservative," now under new management:

Necessary Evil

Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, Patrick J. Buchanan, Crown, 501 pages

by John Lukacs

Patrick Buchanan’s new book contains two themes under one cover. One is addressed to the present, the other to the Second World War. One is his declaration that the American empire is in great and deep trouble—that, like the British Empire two thirds of a century ago, it is overextended and weak. The other is that the Second World War was a grievous mistake—that Britain (foremost: Churchill) and America should not have fought Hitler’s Germany. The two themes are not equivalent, and their treatment in this book is uneven. The vast majority of pages are about World War II. But in Buchanan’s mind the two themes are obviously inextricable, indeed, dependent on each other. For the purpose of a review, however, I must separate them.

That the present American empire is much overextended, overgrown, and at risk of all kinds of dangers, most of them willfully ignored by the American people and their politicians, is so. Buchanan deserves credit for having pointed this out, again and again, in his articles and books. But, alas, in his discussion of his larger thesis, his arguments are stamped by what we might call selective indignation or, more accurately, special pleading. (Indignation, after all, is almost always selective, while not every pleading is necessarily special.)

He claims that the transformation of the United States from a Republic to an empire was started by George W. Bush. What Bush has done and is still doing is, of course, lamentable. But the reaching out of American power all over the world, the fact that there are now American bases and missions in more than 700 places around the globe, the building of a 600-ship Navy, etc., began with Eisenhower and Dulles. It went on with Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and especially with Buchanan’s hero, Reagan, and then under Clinton. Already in 1956, Section Nine of the Republican Party platform called for “the establishment of American air and navy bases all around the world.” This was the party that so many liberal commentators still wrongly called “isolationist.” This was the party to which Patrick Buchanan adhered and the American foreign policy that he vocally thumped for until very recently.

The other trouble with Buchanan’s anti-imperialist thesis is his argument that what happened to the British Empire applies obviously to the present American one. There are two points against this. One is that history does not repeat itself, and the rise and decline of Britain’s empire was and remains quite different from the American situation. Buchanan’s argument is that the Second World War—more precisely, Churchill’s decision to resist Hitler, no matter what the cost—was a disaster for Western civilization but, more directly, for the British Empire itself. Yet the gradual liquidation of the British Empire, and the piecemeal acceptance by the British people of that, long preceded World War II.

The further and perhaps deeper problem is Buchanan’s sincerity. Since when has he been an admirer of the British Empire? There is no evidence for such an affection in his public or writing career until now. To the contrary, there is ample evidence of his conviction that the United States should not have supported Britain and its empire either in the First or in the Second World War.

Here I arrive at the main theme of this book. How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World is only its subtitle, its main title being Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. This emphasis accords with what is—and has been for a long time—Buchanan’s view of history. The Second World War was an unnecessary war; a wrong war, especially involving Europe; it was wrong to fight Hitler; and Churchill was primarily, indeed principally, responsible. A man has, or more precisely chooses, his opinions. The choice, ever so often, depends on his inclinations. In this review it is not my proper business to speculate about Buchanan’s inclinations. I must restrict myself to questioning his arguments.

The British decision to offer an alliance to Poland in 1939 was a hasty one, replete with unintended consequences. Partly true. Hitler did not wish to destroy the British Empire. Partly true. He did want to destroy Communism and the Soviet Union. Partly true. Churchill was a warrior; he was obsessed with the danger of German power. Partly true. Hitler wanted to expel Jews from Europe but not to exterminate them, at least not while the former policy was still possible. Again, partly true. Or in other words, true but not true enough. Here is a difference between Patrick Buchanan and David Irving. The latter employs falsehoods; Buchanan employs half-truths. But, as Thomas Aquinas once put it, “a half-truth is more dangerous than a lie.”

The Second World War began in September 1939, with Hitler’s armies invading Poland. Buchanan writes that the British commitment to Poland was a stupid mistake and that the Poles should not have fought Hitler. Now here is an example of a special pleader’s method: selective quotation. Buchanan will quote A.J.P. Taylor when this suits him, as when Taylor wrote, “Only Danzig prevented cooperation between Germany and Poland.” (Taylor was wrong: all evidence shows that what Hitler wanted was a Poland bereft of any independence from Germany.) Of course, Buchanan will not cite Taylor’s four words describing Churchill: “The savior of England.”

Let me now raise the question: What would have happened if Britain and France had allowed Hitler to conquer Poland? After that he would have gone further east and then conquered the Soviet Union, with the acquiescence of the West. All to the good, Buchanan writes, since Communism was evil, more dangerous than German National Socialism. But there is—and there ought to be—no comparison here. Germany was part and parcel of European culture, civilization, and tradition. Russia was not. Stalin had a predecessor, Ivan the Terrible. Hitler had none. German National Socialist brutality was unprecedented. Russian brutality was not. Nationalism, not Communism, was the main political force in the 20th century, and so it is even now. When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, perhaps as many as 10,000 Germans killed themselves, and not all of these had been Nazis. When the Soviet Union and Communist rule in Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989, I do not know of a single Communist, whether in Russia or elsewhere, who committed suicide.

There was a consistency in Churchill’s view of Europe and of the world. To him, and for Britain, there were only two alternatives: either all of Europe dominated by Germany or the eastern half of Europe dominated by Russia, and half—especially the western half—of Europe was better than none. Besides, Churchill said that the Russians could swallow Eastern Europe but not digest it and that Communism would disappear from Eastern Europe before long. If Hitler had won the war, German rule would have been much more enduring.

This is not the first of Buchanan’s many expressions of his visceral and intellectual antipathy to Churchill. Irving’s main method in defending Hitler is to blacken all of Hitler’s opponents, foremost among them Churchill. But then he is obsessed with what is and what is not true of the Holocaust. Buchanan is not. In this book, Buchanan deprecates Hitler: in 1942 “he was absorbed in self-pity: and he was condemning his own people.” On page 383: Hitler’s was “an evil and odious regime.” But there is a fatal contradiction in Buchanan’s theses: Hitler’s regime—including, one may think, its expansion—was evil, but warring against him was unnecessary and wrong. Either thesis may be argued, but not both.
___________________________________

John Lukacs is author of a number of books, including George Kennan: A Study of Character and Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Dire Warning: Churchill’s First Speech as Prime Minister.

Posted by: Hugh at July 16, 2008 11:26 PM

Thanks, Hugh, for the Lukacs review of Buchanan's recent work. I would add three observations. One, any traditional inclination by America to isolate itself from the world (an ambition from Puritan and Pilgrim days onwards) was unrealistic with the ending of WWII. It was the Truman Administration which grasped this in its entirety. All Presidential Administrations after Truman's simply carried out what Truman, Byrnes, Marshall and Acheson began, with the notable variation uniquely supplied by President Reagan, by which containment was scrapped for outright victory (successfully and to Reagan's everlasting credit).

Second, as Paul Johnson magisterially points out in his work, Modern Times, there was a great divide in Germany between those who favored "Civilization" versus those who favored "Culture," the former element in Germany being very British and French in orientation and the latter inclining toward the traditional authoritarianism of Eastern Europe. The point here being that Germany itself was very divided in outlook from Goethe and Hegel onwards.

Third, Hitler indeed didn't want to destroy the British Empire and envisioned a world in which five great powers would exist for the time being. They would be Japan dominating Asia, Italy recreating the ancient Roman Empire in southern Europe, Germany the master of northern Europe to the Urals, Britain and its Empire intact and America ruling over the New World. But, of these five, Germany would be dominant over the other four and eventually only the Teutons would be left to rule the world. Thus, Buchanan's assessment that Hitler didn't want to touch the British Empire is technically true but he doesn't mention that Adolf expected that it would be subservient to Germany's wishes. Churchill knew all this.

Oh, finally, I have to note how ironic it is that Buchanan would invoke A.J.P. Taylor, since Taylor was a Marxist historian. Gee, I wonder if Pat knows this.

Posted by: Wellington at July 17, 2008 12:07 AM

"A man has, or more precisely chooses, his opinions. The choice, ever so often, depends on his inclinations. In this review it is not my proper business to speculate about Buchanan’s inclinations. I must restrict myself to questioning his arguments."
-- from the review by John Lukacs of Buchanan's bok

No, not in the review itself. But we who are not writing a review, but reviewing the works and days of Mercedes-driving, Gucci-loafered Washington insider Pat Buchanan, fingering his millions from his syndicated column, and his mainstream-media appearances -- he's right there, right up there, pontificating away for money -- have a perfect right "to speculate about Buchanan's inclincations."

But really, at this point no one has to speculate, do they?

Lukacs knows. His words are instinct with that knowledge.

And so, of course, do we.

Posted by: Hugh at July 17, 2008 12:18 AM

He's not just saying Israel and her supporters are a fifth column. He's repeating the anti-Semitic canard (no surprise, because even his reactionary right wing nut friends and allies like Lawrence Auster have accused him of anti-Semitism) that Jews as a group are disloyal to their native lands.

See http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=35C95BF3-A531-435F-8DC9-5E67AF5F12E4

Posted by: Dave at July 17, 2008 12:20 AM

Pat Buchanan: ass, meet hat.

Posted by: profitsbeard at July 17, 2008 12:20 AM

Steven L. wrote:

In his column "Was the Holocaust Inevitable?" Buchanan claimed the following:
. . .

2. Hitler never intended to kill the Jews. He only turned on them when he felt boxed in by Churchill in the West and Russia in the East
..................................

Yes, Buchanan blames the allies--especially Churchill--for the Holocaust. This is completely insane.

For one thing, crazed, virulent anti-semitism is clearly part of the National Socialist agenda from at least "Mein Kampf", which much predated Churchill's reactions. Indeed, without rampant, murderous anti-semitism, why would they have ever considered turning on the Jews? It wasn't as though Hitler was threatening to target, say, British or American nationals.

There is no direct analogy, but it is almost as if Britain, when doing poorly in the war after Dunkirk, had threatened Hitler with a massacre of the Welsh, or if Americans, when feeling down, had threatened to wipe out the Inuit.

What would Hitler's reaction to such threats have been? Well, I think we can be pretty sure that he wouldn't have cared one whit. Which leads to my last point--the only reason that Hitler made such threats is that he thought the *West would care*--that the deaths of innocent people would concern them.

Now, one can argue--and I have, myself--that the free West might have done more to help Jewish refugees before the war began, and to have specifically targetted death camps after the war began. Of course, it is easy to say this so long after the fact. In any case, neglecting to do enough to prevent a horror is *not* the same thing as committing the horror oneself.

The truth is, I don't think the allies fully realized how completely genocidal the Holocaust was until after the war, when the death camps were liberated, and the full extent of Hitler's "final solution" was revealed.

Posted by: gravenimage at July 17, 2008 12:22 AM

Wellington - you mentioned that fact that Churchill was one of those who, prior to World War II, had read 'Mein Kampf' and taken it seriously.

Another who also read Mein Kampf, and took note, was the young Jacques Ellul.

In the introduction to his book 'Un Chretien Pour Israel' (the flavour of this title is hard to convey in translation: it seems to work better as '*One* Christian Supports Israel', than as 'A Christian For Israel'), he discusses his journey of understanding, from an early state of almost complete ignorance of, and indifference to, the Jews and their predicament, to a soberly chosen position, in the early 1980s, of support for the Jewish state of Israel, and of horrified realization that the latest avatar of anti-Semitism, hatred of Jews, is anti-Zionism: hatred and rejection of the Jewish state.

Here are some paragraphs from Ellul's story of that journey, that bear upon Hitler, and World War II. (My apologies for awkwardnesses in translation: I can post the French text as well, if people would like it).

"Of course I took Hitler’s threats very seriously, but if I was convinced that he was not bluffing, and that he would certainly do what he said, his threats against the Jews still didn’t strike home to me; to me those threats seemed both absurd and abstract: the Jews did not exist for me.

'With but one exception: at the age of 21-22 I was lucky enough to be admitted as a “deserving” student into a holiday house which had been built in Normandy by Max Lazard (in memory of his son, accidentally killed). The “Old Mill” was the first occasion on which I met a Jewish family, admirable; and a holiday stay that was fascinating in every way. I experienced generosity, courtesy, sympathy, intelligence, liberalism, such as I had only seldom met elsewhere. However, this was not enough to make the Jewish people and the Jewish question a central presence in my life.

"The proof of that is my cowardice at Strasbourg in 1939. When I saw for the first time the sign on the famous Kammerzell in front of the cathedral – “dogs and Jews not admitted” - I was shocked, yes, but I didn’t do anything. My only “sanction” was never to set foot inside. Likewise the two famous statues of the cathedral, where the Synagogue (still very beautiful!) appeared with lowered head, eyes blindfolded, broken spear; this left me cold. It seemed “normal” to me that the Jewish people should be thus represented, since they had not known how to “see” the Christ!

"The most serious thing, overall, was the affair of the Kehl Bridge. Around March or April 1939 the rumour ran through Strasbourg that some hundreds of Jews had succeeded in getting German authorisation to leave, but that they were stopped on the Kehl Bridge because the French authorities would not let them enter [the country].

'In fact, from far away I was able to see this little crowd [of people]…I was moved. But I did nothing. I did not attempt to get anything for them. It is one of the accusations that I carry/ p. 12/ in myself. And if I here bring it to mind, it is to show just how foreign the ‘Jewish question’ was to me. And above all, so that no-one can claim that what I have done later was in order to compensate, to wipe away that cowardice from myself. What I did, I did. My journey was wholly different.

' In fact, it is during the war that various elements began to touch me. I understood pretty quickly the affair of the Strouma (1942) [a ship full of Jewish refugees, which sank in the Black Sea after being turned back from Istanbul].

'Then, still, we were much better and much more quickly informed about the atrocity of the extermination camps than people have often said (1943).

'Those news items [about the camps]: I went through them with a fine-tooth comb and I was convinced - they corresponded exactly to what Hitler had said!

'Then there was Karl Barth’s remarkable affirmation concerning the contrast between the regime of Hitler and that of Stalin, both totalitarian, both dictatorships, terrorist.

'Yes, but', said Barth, 'the Hitler regime seeks the extermination of the Jews, and it’s with regard to that point that a Christian should make his choice'.

' And then there was the concrete fact of having helped some Jews to save themselves. It was then that I formed relationships, numerous enough, with Jews...".

Two points to draw out: first, before the War, the young Ellul had read Mein Kampf and taken it seriously...except for its anti-semitic passages.

Secondly: Ellul was capable of revising impressions, under the impact of reality. Because he had read Mein Kampf, then, when he heard the first reports, leaking out in 1943, concerning the death camps, his original pre-War perception - that Hitler's threats toward the Jews were absurd, even if the rest of the program was to be taken deadly seriously - evaporated instantly:

"Those news items [about the camps]: I went through them with a fine-tooth comb and I was convinced - they corresponded exactly to what Hitler had said! "

A lesson for us all, as we reflect on the mad program laid out in the Quran, Sira and Hadith, and in a multiplicity of rabble-rousing sermons, and in particular, in the poisonous threats emanating from Teheran.

Like Churchill, and like Ellul, we have read the playbook. We know that the deeds of the jihadists correspond exactly to the words; and that they will so correspond, in future. I think Ellul regretted, with hindsight, not having seen that the most apparently bizarre aspect of Mein Kampf - its hatred of Jews, and threats toward them - was as seriously meant as all the rest of it.

I think much of the West is in very grave danger of discounting Ahmadinejad's threats against Israel, or the vile antisemitic rhetoric of so many others (most notably Nasrallah), as being too absurd to be real.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 17, 2008 12:37 AM

Townhall has now published online two Buchanan pieces in close proximity, the idiotic article about the thesis of the Hilter book, and now this. The online comments for the Hitler article were strongly negative; and high profile sites like LGF lambasted not only the article but led readers to information that made Buchanan's anti-semitism entirely transparent, like William Buckley's book, for instance. And still, Townhall came back with this--Buchanan is still welcome on Fox News, etc. As far as Townhall goes, and many other news and media sites for that matter, I do wonder about the influence of Internet marketing to give volatile personalities like Buchanan (this can happen on either side of the political spectrum) a voice--as 'hits' escalate with conflict and outrage, do Internet marketing consultants chime in with approval and encouragement? Does the perceived value of advertising space on Townhall's site go up? I don't know. But, conflict and controversy tend to cause higher ratings, more 'hits', more page views in an online environment. And, it seems, many news and media outlets, political sites, promiscuously exploit this basic marketing principle in promoting their product, without regard to moral limits and conscience.

Posted by: JTF at July 17, 2008 12:45 AM

I haven't read the book, but I have read the various related articles and excerpts that Buchanan has published over the last few months on this topic, and Lukacs's "special pleading" is exactly right. For example, Buchanan quotes a well-known remark of Churchill's to the effect that he felt personally excited about the prospect of war, as if that summarized the whole of Churchill's attitudes and feelings, any more than Robert E. Lee's famous "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it" summarizes that great man. Also annoying is Buchanan's apparent omniscience about what would have happened contrafactually if only Churchill and other statesman had taken his advice. And what kind of Catholic has no qualms about letting Hitler and Stalin fight it out across the bleeding body of Poland? And finally (sorry for the rant, I know hobbyhorse riding is forbidden here), it would be easier to take his remarks about fifth columns and amen corners dragging us into war if he hadn't been such a gung-ho supporter of the Vietnam War as a part of the Nixon administration and later, a war which in the light of his own current principles was fought on "neo-conservative" grounds (where was the threat to the US from North Vietnam?) and was much more costly than the Iraq war he criticizes.
I could never understand Lukacs's thoughts on the philosophy of history or his speculations on the end of our age, but when he is writing pure history he is unsurpassable. My favorite is Budapest 1900 -- anyone interested in Central Europe during its classic age will find this a treasure.

Posted by: Marc at July 17, 2008 12:49 AM

Buchanan's book must have left out a mention of hitler's underhanded muslim friend, haj amin al-husseini – the grand mufti of Jerusalem. Weren't those two chatting solutions from 1929 on?

The fact that this twisted mein kampf crap is translated into arabic more than any other language, is all BS piled high, eh Willie?

So this stupid loud mouth limped along for president? You can bet Dr. Savage no longer has his phone number! Here's another white mufti like turban related to The Savage Nation and it's doctor's sheeple........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xny3q8DmYzM

Thanks for all the interesting insights above!

MK

Posted by: Melaria_Kidd at July 17, 2008 3:18 AM

Lukacs has written many books, including several books about Churchill in the immediate pre-war period. He has also written the unusual "A Thread of Years," which is the one I started with a few years ago. I picked it up because there was praise by the almost-never-wrong Jacques Barzun on the back cover, and Barzun was parsimonious with such praise. The book is a study of the changes, year by year, in the West, and Western man, by the method of little vignettes, mainly about a well-off American man from the outskirts of Philadelphia, who travels through time, embedded, like journalists in Baghdad, in the real history of the age, in Western Europe and North America. We see the changes, and the decline and fall -- see Barzun's "From Dawn To Decadence" -- through the history of this one Main Line -- Rittenhouse Square, here we come! -- man. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, or something.

Posted by: Hugh at July 17, 2008 8:06 AM

Pat Buchanan is nuts on foreign policy. The vast majority of Christians (and Jews) in this country consider Israelis and all Jews to be our brothers and sisters. Pat Buchanan is the odd man out.

Posted by: Spot on at July 17, 2008 8:26 AM

Buchanan is so extreme in his views from the right, that when he looks into a mirror, he sees Jimmy Carter staring back at him.

Posted by: Jewel Atkins at July 17, 2008 8:32 AM

If Hitler wanted peace then why did he attack Russia after signing the non-aggression pact with Stalin?
It's a safe bet that the Russians would have sat back and watched Britain and the US fight the war and then maybe joined them when the war was all but won (as they did with Japan), all to give his own claims to the spoils of war any legitimacy, or else signed a new pact with Hitler if Germany had emerged victorious.

Posted by: PMK at July 17, 2008 8:40 AM

Buchanan and Paul are cut from the same oddball political cookie cutter. With a appearance of a conservative at a glance, but they reason like a Quaker who was slipped some LSD unknowningly.

Real conservatives are not anti-Israel, or have a soft spot for Nazis.

Posted by: SoteriA at July 17, 2008 9:13 AM

Buchanan is irrelevant. He hasn't been considered a credible conservative voice by the public for at least 15 years, and even then he was fringe at best. Today, his ideas speak to only a tiny, tinfoil hat minority, and his message of anti-Semitic isolationism has never been less popular than it is right now.

Ron Paul is Buchanan light, and we saw how well those ideas went over in the GOP primaries - low single digits support, similar to Buchanan's dismal showing in his presidential bid back in 2000.

The best part of Buchanan: Nobody listens to him anymore...he's the Cindy Sheehan of the GOP.

Posted by: Madzionist at July 17, 2008 9:42 AM

It's a good thing that he and the GOP parted ways in 2000 - he should pocket what he can from the Saudis and run again on the platform of CAIR, or any Islamic party of the US.

The George Galloway/Le Pen of this side of the pond

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 17, 2008 9:54 AM

I have observed Buchanan over the years. Decades ago, it was clear to me that such a man was an obvious anti-Semite, and I merely wondered how well he could disguise it, or keep it under control if not entirely under wraps, by such means as smiling in false-friendly fashion to others, Jews, who might appear with him as guests or co-hosts or something on one of those talk shows where two semi-idiots, one representing Liberals and the other Conservatives, and neither one a very impressive representative of either political persuasion, shows up weekly to tell us, members of the long-suffering public, what we are to think, or at least what a Liberal thinks, and a Conservative thinks, and you, dear viewer, are supposed to take it from there.
Posted by Hugh

It's interesting that you should mention this about how well he could disguise his anti-Semitism. Debbie Schlussel wrote about it some weeks ago in context of how Hannity (with whom she fell out over his plagiarizing her undercover reporting on that Dearbornistan imam who had ties with Hizbullah, and led that prayer in the TX senate). What she says here might answer your question:

In full disclosure, when Pat Buchanan had an MSNBC cable show, "Buchanan and Press," I was booked frequently until the show was ultimately canceled. His liberal co-host, Bill Press, is a gem of a man, even though we disagree on most things.

When I was first scheduled to go on "B&P," I told my father that I was going to make a comment about Buchanan's anti-Semitism. We were scheduled to discuss Martha Burk's obnoxious insistence that Augusta National, a private club, admit female members. I was going to say that I believe private clubs should admit whomever they choose and that I have no prob, for example, when golf clubs admit anti-Semites like Pat Buchanan. But my dad told me not to, that it wouldn't be classy, and I obliged.

Sadly, that didn't stop Pat Buchanan from showing his Jew-hatred right off the bat. He introduced me as "Debbie Schlussel, a conservative . . . I mean, NEO-CON . . . NEO-Conservative." In case you don't know, that's code for "She's a JOOOOOOOOO." I was pissed. But I could hear my Dad's admonishments in the back of my mind and didn't respond to that, to my continued regret.

I'd had my previous experiences with Pat Buchanan. In college, when I interned for Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, then both on "The McLaughlin Group," Buchanan was also on (as he still is). He would constantly attack Israel whenever I was in the Green Room, trying to start up with me. When my late father and my then-little brother (he was nine years old at the time) came to the set on a tourist visit to Washington, Pat Buchanan asked them how their "money is doing in the Bank . . . the WEST Bank." Haha, funny. Did you see that?--Pat Buchanan simultaneously did a double entendre and an anti-Semitic reference about Jews' alleged obsession with money. Whatta talent. A regular fascist Don Rickles (just kidding, Don).

It was an interesting juxtaposition: My dad and brother making an innocent introduction to Buchanan and getting chided about Jews, Israel, and money, especially since Buchanan--in one of his many rants against American Jews and Israel--made the argument that "guys named Leroy Brown" fought and died in Vietnam and not Jews. Here was my Dad who, when he was drafted during the Vietnam War, not only served in the Army, but was very proud of it. And Pat Buchanan--well, you know, it's that bad knee. Guys named Leroy Brown, but not Pat Buchanan.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 17, 2008 12:25 PM

dumbledoresarmy: Thanks for the info on Ellul. It's hard at times to think nutjobs mean what they say but when they're ambitious to take over a country, and especially when they actually do it, everything they maintain they're going to do should be taken seriously. Anyone who simply dismisses Ahmadinejhad as a wacko and leaves it at that is being foolish.

Posted by: Wellington at July 17, 2008 12:32 PM

The former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously described Tony Benn with the words "He immatures with age". It seems the same description is pretty apt for Pat Buchanan.

Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at July 17, 2008 2:19 PM

"Jacques Ellul..."

Jacques Ellul is like Jacques Barzun. Whatever he writes about, even if before you had no interest, you have an interest because he writes about it. He wrote about the Technological Society and its discontents and psychic desarroi: book-length expansions on Emerson's -- or was it Carlyle's? --lapidary statement "things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."

He understood the meaning, and menace, of Islam at once. As far back as the 1970s, he was lamenting that in France one could no longer say anything critical of Islam.

He should be translated much more extensively into English, and his works reprinted in large, possibly subsidized, editions.

But the governments of the Western world have so many other things to spend their money on, such as aid to the "Palestinian" Authority.

Posted by: Hugh at July 17, 2008 4:45 PM

SoteriA wrote:

Buchanan and Paul are cut from the same oddball political cookie cutter. With a appearance of a conservative at a glance, but they reason like a Quaker who was slipped some LSD unknowningly.
...........................

I'm afraid I can't entirely concur. While I do agree that Quaker pacifism is at times hopelessly naive and potentially extremely harmful in the wrong situation--not taking a strong stand against evil--I also believe that it is, in most cases, sincere and heartfelt.

Buchanan's views--and aims--are much darker and nastier than any Quaker philosophy.

Posted by: gravenimage at July 17, 2008 10:06 PM