Buchanan's Bunk--Take the Anti-Neo-Con Test: Who Said It - Matthews or Buchanan?

Post Chronicle/Newsbusters ^ | 7-20-06 | James L. Clark

[SJackson]

Anyone who follows the trail of Pat Buchanan notices that he, whether consciously or not, is anti-Israel. In his writings and many TV activities, one such being the long-running McLaughlin Group, he leaves this impression indelibly. He also leaves an unmistakable impression that one of his favorite people to hate is President Bush, whom he ran against in 2000 as the Reform Party candidate (teamed with an African-American lady even farther right than he), after a bizarre dustup over who should get that privilege, terribly important since federal money depended on the winner. He also attempted to get the republican presidential nomination in 1992 (against the elder Bush), and then against Dole in 1996.

Though there's much to admire in Buchanan's overall conservatism (maybe closer to libertarianism/isolationism), he is often off-base with respect to reality. Here are some thoughts by Buchanan in a recent column, with some responses from yours truly:

Buchanan: When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war", the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed.

Clark: No president since the sanctioning of Israel as a nation has had a Middle East policy, other than respecting the right of Israel to exist and protecting that right. Having a constant Middle-East policy otherwise is impossible, since the Arab nations are not democracies and exist at the whim and governance of whoever has risen to the top, usually through something like assassinations. After 9/11, Bush and Congress pummeled Afghanistan in order to get at the Taliban in order to bring down Al Qaeda. The current Lebanon situation is identical to that of Afghanistan. The terrorists (Hezbollah) strike from Lebanon with impunity from the Lebanese government, whose army is not used to root out the terrorists (couldn't anyway - too weak). This is the 1980s redux, when Israel went into southern Lebanon to protect its north. Of course, if memory serves, Buchanan was against the Gulf War, when, because of this nation, Saddam was ousted from Kuwait and actually prevented from taking over the oil-rich Middle East, his ultimate aim.

Buchanan: First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran.

Clark: The jury's out on all counts. Neither Rome nor this nation was built in a day, so time will tell. Democracy may not be possible anywhere in the Middle East, but it's too soon to tell, especially given the volatile nature of the Arab mind and the accessibility to weapons.

Buchanan: Now, Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon -- smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy -- has exposed Bush's folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.

Clark: Long after Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, the Syrian Army stayed until last year. It needs to be remembered that there has never been a Palestinian state. When Palestine was partitioned by the UN in 1947, the Israelis accepted the some 8,000+ square miles they were allowed and were accepted as a nation by the UN in 1948. The Palestinians accepted nothing, formed no government, and made themselves into perpetual refugees, living, often in squalor, on handouts from Arab nations -- think Arafat and his ilk. All Palestinian organizations (PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.) are terrorist groups representing no nation, but supported by Arab nations that attacked Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, during which war the U.S. stopped Israel from occupying Egypt. Israeli enemies, then, are terrorist groups supported by Arab governments, and the only way to ward them away is to attack their domiciling countries.

Buchanan: The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade.

Clark: Pure boilerplate...something that might be expected of Howard Dean. Bush has blessed nothing, and the government Buchanan claims is pro-American has allowed Hezbollah to function freely in terrorizing the citizens of a U.S.-friendly nation so small it is but a speck in the midst of its Arabic/Islamic enemies.

Buchanan: Olmert seized upon Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers to unleash the IDF in a pre-planned attack to make the Lebanese people suffer until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah, a task the Israeli army could not accomplish in 18 years of occupation.

Clark: Too simple by half. Olmert, unlike President Carter in 1979-81, would not accept hostage-taking. Hezbollah is not a nation, as Iran was in Carter's day, so Olmert had to deal with the captors as terrorists, disrupting their supporters in the process - no alternative, as was the case in Afghanistan. Carter chose not to spring the hostages from a nation, but let them rot for 14 months. Either Lebanon will rid itself of Hezbollah or it will be destroyed again, as was the case in the early 80s.

Buchanan: Israel instructed the United States to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, though Bush himself had called for the elections and for the participation of Hamas. Our Crawford cowboy meekly complied.

Clark: This is what is known as the Covenant of Hamas -- The 1988 Hamas Covenant (or Charter) -- states that the organization's goal is to "raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine," in order to establish an Islamic Republic. Enough said! The "meekly" comment is juvenile.

Buchanan: The predictable result: Fatah and Hamas fell to fratricidal fighting, and Hamas militants began launching Qassam rockets over the fence from Gaza into Israel. Hamas then tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers, captured one, took him back into Gaza, and demanded a prisoner exchange.

Clark: It's amazing that Buchanan said this, since it destroys whatever point he was trying to make. Israel can hardly stop two terrorist groups from terrorizing each other, as the Sunnis and Shi'ites do in Iraq. In any case, the groups could have slaughtered each other without slaughtering Israelis in the process.

Buchanan: Israel's response was to abduct half of the Palestinian cabinet and parliament and blow up a $50 million U.S.-insured power plant. That cut off electricity for half a million Palestinians.

Clark: Was Israel supposed to sit idly by while the rockets fell and do nothing? Again, if the Palestinian cabinet and parliament amount to a government that supports terrorists, these entities have to expect retaliation.

Buchanan: Let it be said: Israel has a right to defend herself, a right to counter-attack against Hezbollah and Hamas, a right to clean out bases from which Katyusha or Qassam rockets are being fired, and a right to occupy land from which attacks are mounted on her people. But what Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do -- disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.

Clark: Buchanan rages but offers no solution, knowing full well that the enemy is not on a battlefield, but in the shops and neighborhoods. Trying to make a religious issue out of the whole affair is disingenuous.

Buchanan: Democrats attack Bush for crimes of which he is not guilty, including Haditha and Abu Ghraib. Why are they, too, silent when Israel pursues a conscious policy of collective punishment of innocent peoples?

Clark: Simple. Democrats (at least in leadership) don't give a fig about Israel or the Middle East. Presently, they're almost exclusively engaged in November politics and an almost incomprehensible hatred for the president.

Buchanan: Britain's diplomatic goal in two world wars was to bring the naive cousins in, to "pull their chestnuts out of the fire."

Clark: It's hard to imagine anything this disingenuous. Britain was mainly interested in survival, and the goal was far too sanguinary to be just "diplomatic". FDR knew full well, notwithstanding any other British motive(s), that the USA, in foregoing the European WWII action, would be left to fend for itself in a war that could reach its shores, even then, in the 40s. England would have fallen, and the French quit the war in 1940, so the waterways and airways to the USA would have been open to Hitler.

Buchanan: Israel and her paid and pro-bono agents here appear determined to expand the Iraq war into Syria and Iran, and have America fight and finish all of Israel's enemies.

Clark: It's only because of this country's action in 1973 that Israel did not decimate much of Egypt. The Israelis needed no help or permission from this country when they completely obliterated Iraq's nuclear program in 1981 in a brief moment on a quiet afternoon. Syria and Iran, in and of themselves and for perfectly obvious reasons, have been threats to the entire world for some time without Israel being any part of the equation. Israel has the power and technology right now to wipe out all of its neighbors in an afternoon, and would do so before being enslaved or getting a by-your-leave from this or any other country.

Buchanan has his reasons, and he may fancy himself to be the voice in the wilderness. He isn't.

----------------------

Take the Anti-Neo-Con Test: Who Said It - Matthews or Buchanan?

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on July 19, 2006 - 21:32.

It is axiomatic that the goal of the foreign policy of the United States should be the advancement of the interests of the United States and not of any other country, no matter how sympathetic, including Israel. That said, should it not give Chris Matthews pause that his pointed anti-neo-con spiel has become indistinguishable from the well-rehearsed Pat Buchanan line on the matter? In a weird twist, Dem hyper-partisan Bob Shrum, a supporter of Israel, was the odd man out on this evening's Hardball.

To demonstrate my point, let's play a little game. Guess who made the following statements?

A. "The neo-cons are out there complaining that this president isn't tough enough. I have no idea what they mean. 50,000 dead in Iraq - it was supposed to be a cakewalk, Ken Adelman is out there today saying we should go other places, you have other guys that want to blow up every Arab country on the list."

B. "They want a wider war, especially in the Middle East. They want the United States to fight Israel's war against Hezbollah, Syria but especially Iran. But it's not in the interest of the United States. None of those countries - even Hezbollah and Hamas - have attacked the the United States. I don't think the country is listening to the neo-cons anymore - they're discredited. The question is, is Bush listening to them? He was gone for a while, right up through the second inaugural, to a script they wrote."

C. "Frum wrote [the script]."

D. "When are we going to notice that the neo-cons don't know what they are talking about, they're not looking at this country's long-term interest? They're bound up in regional and global ideology. And they have had no experience, I'll say it again, in even a school-yard fight. They don't know what physical fighting's all about. I don't why we keep falling for it."

E. "The president fell for it after 9-11, when they put their little pre-cooked meal in front of them, after he knocked down Afghanistan. Wolfowitz and all the rest of them."

F. "I really certainly hope the president isn't listening to them, because I really question whether they have America's national interest at heart."

OK, answers please!

--------------------------

For the record, Matthews was A, C & D and Buchanan B, E & F. But the tone, and the not-so-subtle sub-text, were identical.

[SJackson]

Where are the Christians?

The Persecution of the Palestinians [barf alert]

'Comrade Wolf' and the mullahs, Patrick Buchanan

Buchanan defends foreign aid – for Hamas, Patrick Buchanan

Buchanan defends foreign aid [For Hamas-he's wrong],Joseph Farah

[Stepan12]

Pat Buchanan praised Hamas in his last book for helping to get Israel to flee Lebanon. If Israel prevails in Lebanon (and I think that's a very big if with Ohlmert in power), then that will hurt the thesis of Pat's latest book and he would not be able to say I told you so.

He may have a very personal interest apart from plain anti-Semitism to wish Israel ill in this present conflagaration.

[sheik yerbouty]

Buchanan is still seething that Der Fuhrer is dead..

[edcoil]

It's a free country, he can be anti-whateverhelikes.

He is also anti-arab, anti-war, and all the other aunts, uncles, etc. I may not agree with him but I will defend his right to express his opinion - we are all adults and can handle it.

[LordBridey]

A voice crying in the wilderness is exactly what Buchanan is.

[Candor7]

Buchanan's is truly a bigotted fascist in the deep recesses of his cgaracter. He is deeply intelligent and has a brilliant analytical mind. However he is essentially Aryan in his outlook, and this I believe is an emotional matter in his character.

He does not see the conflict as a clash of civilization, but sees America seduced and dragged into a war that is essentially not , according to his thinking, any of our business.

Pats patriotism is beyongd question but when it comes to seeing the ancient conflict beteeen the line of Isaac and Ishmael, and the essential differences between Sumerian based totalitarian culture versus the basic idividual focused aspect of the Jewish tradition and its associated enlightenment inn comparison, he fails to emotionally grasp where the basic humanism which found the USA fits in.

He sees the conflict as a quagmire and knows that the likes of Paine and Samuel Adams fit into the Jewish traditions more easily, and he feels that being involved in the conflict relegates America to a resignation from our path of perfecting a more perfect Union in our own native country and culture. This leads him to decry Zionism more than the titalitarian style of ancient Sumerian culture in its now modern Islamic manifestation.

Bush is right. We now are getting glimpses of the ancient god Baal clothed in the robes of Mohammed. They are truly evil and seek to cast a pall of darkness over the world.Buchanan just doesn't get it.

[johnny7]

I bet 'Spitboy' masterbated... while Buchanan let go his barrage of anti-Israel venom.

[VaBthang4]

"A voice crying in the wilderness is exactly what Buchanan is."

Buchanan has become a buffoon. A caricature. A true white-bread nitwit whose rants have about as much gravitas as the guy spinning pizzas down at the corner bodega.

Man, what a fall. A case study of how a lack of humility, bitterness and an unfulfilled desire for power can bring a Man to believe up is down and down is up.

[joe fonebone]

No...........he is just a moron.......

[MikeA]

Could you believe that massive circle jerk between Dumb and Dumber last night??? Anyone on these threads who ever again pretends that Saddam-loving, anti-semite loser Buchanan is a "real" conservative should have the transcript of this amen chorus between Hissy Matthews and Goebbels Buchanan shoved down their stupid throats. These are the same people who will label nearly every Republican a "Rino" even as their hero Patty Boy goes on Hardball and agrees with every treasonous word out of the left wing fever swamp guru Matthews' mouth. Even John McCain is more of a conservative than Pat "Losing Saddam Was Like Losing a Part of Myself" Buchanan.

McCain at least supports a central tenant of modern conservatism, i.e. that in the wake of 9-11 a proactive defense is what's called for, one that takes the fight to the enemy rather than waiting for the enemy to bring it here to us on our soil. Buchanan the "true conservative" apparently doesn't get that. I guess he prefers the destruction be wreacked on our soil, rather than over there. We've got to confront these people one way or another Pat. It's either on our terms or there. Which do you prefer? Loser.

[Stepan12]

I may not agree with him but I will defend his right to express his opinion - we are all adults and can handle it.

My point is not to encourage squishing him a la Micheangelo Signorile, but not to follow his advice.

[george wythe]

Buchanan needs to run for President again. He's the only patriot suggesting that we put US interests first.

We need to get out of these international alliances, close the borders, and stick to the American business, which is business.

Arabs were our friends until the Zionist lobby got us into this position. All the Islamic terrorists will stop attacking the US if we stop our support of Israel.

We don't need to fight Israel's wars. Enough of this support for Israel. America First.

[/end of Buchanan's Brigade rant.]

[gcruse]

"he, whether consciously or not, is anti-Israel"

Oh, please. There's a continuum here...

Novak > Buchanan > Sobran > David Duke

[Iscool]

Pats patriotism is beyongd question but when it comes to seeing the ancient conflict beteeen the line of Isaac and Ishmael, and the essential differences between Sumerian based totalitarian culture versus the basic idividual focused aspect of the Jewish tradition and its associated enlightenment inn comparison, he fails to emotionally grasp where the basic humanism which found the USA fits in.

This may be explained by the fact that Pat is a staunch Roman Catholic...It's no secret that the 'religion' adheres to replacement theology whereby God is done with the Jews and the Catholic church is modern day Israel with the old promises and inheritance belonging to the Catholic church...

Pat seems to see the Jews/Israel as no one special in God's or anyone else's eyes...

[gcruse]

Hey, I got the quiz right, except I skipped the Frum script thing which was too short and cryptic, to me anyway.

The difference was Matthews' recognizable BDS symptoms. The venom permeates his language.

[Stepan12]

Chrissy Matthews and Pat Buchanan. The Molotov/Ribbentrop 1939 non agression pact lives again in the red/brown alliance against America and the Jews.

[uncbob]

Somebody ought to ask PRINCIPLED Buchanan ,who ran against Bush because Bush had abandoned GOP principles , how the hell he could stay in an administartion that

1. Wanted Wage and Price Controls
2. Wanted Socialized Medicine
3. Started that insane DETENTE with the Ruskies
4. Abandoned GOP candidates in 72 so HE could get a majority
5. At worst of all opened up CHINA to the 20th century so now they are a economic and military threat to the USA

Buchanan had any integrity he would have resigned instead of going to China to kiss up with those ASS*^%$

Buchanan has no creditability

[SJackson]

From Tom Roeser's blog (a Chicago political commentetor)

Paleos.

Just as with the left, the paleo right believes it does not need the luxury of outlining concrete positions apart from a vague wish that the followers of Pat Buchanan can join with those of Ralph Nader to effect a united coalition. But one can deduce what paleos believe by reading its magazine, The American Conservative. The latest issue (July 31) starts off cheering the Supreme Court for ruling against the Bush administration to try Guantanamo detainees (as does the left)…It then supports the fact that Hamas now wants “a two-state solution,” mourning that “millions of Palestinians have no electricity, no services, no government,” ignoring all the excesses of Hamas that have blocked negotiations in the past (as does the left)…Then it is depressed by the defeat of immigration hard-liner John Jacobs in the Utah Republican primary to Congressman Chris Cannon, ignoring the statement by Jacobs that Satan is involved with Jacobs’ opposition…

…A column by Buchanan recommends we get out of Korea now (“The way to Guam and home lies open”) which is also supported by the left…Economist Paul Craig Roberts, a paleo new recruit, worries about the looming deficit but was caught blind-sided after publication with the announcement that the deficit has dropped from $423 billion to $296 billion, largely due to the Bush tax cuts which Roberts in his former incarnation used to celebrate. No mention of the tax cuts in his pessimistic piece which apes the left…It minimizes any information turned up by the NSA that has been data-mining telephone, fax and e-mail transactions (as does the left)…It pronounces the Afghanistan effort as “a model only for disaster” (as does the left)…It defends The New York Times in publishing the facts of the Terrorist Finance Tracking program, saying that “today’s conservatives are eager to trade freedom for security” warning that the Bush administration cannot be trusted to defend our freedoms (as does the left).

…It publishes approvingly an article by liberal Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) attacking Wal-Mart’s low prices that have come from free trade, warning that these prices come at “a high economic cost” and declaring that “corporate greed is selling out America” in small towns where Mom and Pop stores cannot compete with the giant and hence are closing, the recommendation being that Wal-Mart must be stopped and prices hiked…

…The same issue of the magazine reviews a book Where Did the Party Go? . It’s a book that bashes Hubert Humphrey for being too anti-Communist. The reviewer, Bill Kaufman, says Humphrey “hated pacifists, isolationist and radical American dissenters and purged them with the fervor of Tailgunner Joe.” As one who knows something about Humphrey and knew him, I would say that’s correct-and not a derogation, although Kaufman insists it is. He says Humphrey persecuted drove harmless populist Farmer-Laborites out of his Democratic party and what a shame that was. The only ones who say this now are the few radical leftists still alive in Minnesota who rue the day the followers of pro-Communist governor Elmer Benson were shown the gate by Humphrey. As I knew who they were and Kaufman doesn’t, I can congratulate him on buying the old Commie jargon that Humphrey was a conservative in sheep’s clothing. You will find that same estimate in the favorite organ of the left, The Nation…

…Finally, as a final piece, a snide put-down of conservative scholar and intellectual Paul Johnson for his book The Creators. So in one issue just about the entire panoply of issues favored by the left is glowingly presented (one exception: it is pro-life). The attack on Humphrey particularly appalls me: “Humphrey never was found on the populist side of an issue.” As one who covered him, particularly on the farm issue, I was so mis-led I didn’t recognize it? “He red-baited ferociously in the late `40s and sponsored legislation to outlaw the Communist party USA.” That’s a criticism now in Pat Buchanan’s magazine as it most assuredly would be in any leftist publication. “He opposed the traditional Farmer-Labor party in the mid-`40s.” That group was supporting Henry A. Wallace against Harry Truman. [He opposed] “the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party in the mid-1960s, the New Left and counter-culture in the late 1960s…” Guilty as charged. Then the reviewer projects a hope for realignment between the paleos and the Green Party on the left. There would be trouble fusing it together because of social policy, he says, but then brightly recommends the fusion anyhow. “Let San Francisco be San Francisco and let Utah be Utah. Mind your own damn place.”

Wonderful. Elect the paleos and the Greens and let `er rip. To those who occasionally write here in defense of paleo-conservatism (and you’re welcome) what do you have to say about that? All that’s missing is an article by Kevin Phillips denouncing our theocracy-but he was in last month’s issue.

[OldArmy52]

Yes, I too support Buchanon's right to be the wackadoodle he is.

[gcruse]

Yes, but I no longer ride to the sound of his gums.