Patrick J. Buchanan

George W. Bush “betrayed us,” howled Al Gore. “He played on our fear. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure, dangerous to our troops, an adventure that was preordained and planned before 9-11 ever happened.” Hearing it, Gore’s rant seemed slanderous and demagogic. For though U.S. policy since Clinton had called for regime change … Continue reading “Have the Neocons Killed a Presidency?”

Most Americans yet believe President Bush did the right thing in ridding Iraq and the world of Saddam Hussein. Yet, how we were persuaded to go to war raises grave questions about the character and competence of those who led us into it. As we now know, Iraq had no tie to Osama, no role … Continue reading “A Matter of Trust”

Napoleon III, Emperor of France, saw his opportunity. With the United States sundered and convulsed in civil war, he would seize Mexico, impose a Catholic monarchy and block further expansion of the American republic. In 1863, a French army marched into Mexico City. In 1864, Maximilian, the brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, was crowned … Continue reading “What Are We Doing in Russia’s Neighborhood?”

Can the Great Satan find common ground with a charter member of the Axis of Evil, the Iran of the ayatollahs? Stranger things have happened in our own lifetimes. In 1972, Nixon, who built a career on anti-communism, was walking on the Great Wall of China, the honored guest of a Maoist regime responsible for … Continue reading “Coming Thaw with Tehran?”

A close read of President Bush’s November addresses at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington and at the Whitehall Palace in London leads a traditionalist almost to despair. George Bush did not write this democratist drivel. This is the kind of messianic rhetoric he probably never heard before he became president. Who is putting … Continue reading “Here We Go Again”

Re-election year is shaping up as positively for George W. Bush as it did for LBJ in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972. Recall: Both LBJ and Nixon had engineered surging economies for the election year. Both held the face cards in foreign policy in wartime, with electorates wary of the perceived radicalism of their … Continue reading “Three of a Kind?”

“Watch what we do, not what we say,” was the retort of Attorney General John Mitchell to reporters questioning Nixon’s commitment to desegregation. Though mocked for cynicism, Mitchell was right. Even as Nixon’s men were railing at the radical idiocy of forced busing for racial balance, they were desegregating six times as many schools as … Continue reading “Will Bush Exit – or Escalate?”

Reading President Bush’s address to the National Endowment for Democracy, one wonders: Have the neocons captured him totally? For, though he is being hailed as Reagan’s true heir, Bush has begun to sound like a clone of Woodrow Wilson or Jimmy Carter. Foreign policy is, in Walter Lippman’s phrase, the “Shield of the Republic.” Its … Continue reading “George Woodrow Carter”