Posted on 08/28/2002 9:16:46 AM PDT by sixmil
Patrick J. Buchanan isn't giving up. He's left the Republican Party for good. And he isn't planning a fourth run for the White House.
But he is finally trying something fans have been telling him to do for years. He's founding a magazine.
The new, bi-weekly magazine will debut next month and be called "The American Conservative." Scott McConnell, former editorial-page editor of the New York Post, will edit it. Society gadfly Taki Theodoracopulos will help with cash.
Buchanan is upbeat, about the magazine at least.
"We hope to have a conservative magazine which is genuinely and authentically conservative," he said. "We hope it will be sort of a rallying point for the conservatism that is really utterly unrepresented by either the K Street conservatives or the Weekly Standard, National Review, Commentary, New Republic neocons."
IBD talked with Buchanan at his home in Virginia to get a flavor for the new journal.
IBD: How are we doing in the war on terror?
Buchanan: I think the president did a bully job of diplomacy and moral leadership from September to January. The way they fought that war and won it was outstanding. It was a moral and just war, fought in a moral and just way.
But when he got into identifying an "axis of evil" and then threatening pre-emptive strikes against all nations that might develop the kinds of weapons we've had for the past century, he lost his focus. He has disrupted alliances. He has threatened actions that we don't have the troops in place to take.
He's asserting a right to wage pre-emptive war without the approval of Congress on any nation that aspires to build the kinds of weapons we've had since World Wars I and II. I don't think he's got the right to do that, and I think a policy of warning about pre-emptive strikes is the kind of policy that could invite pre-emptive strikes against us.
IBD: What about a war with Iraq?
Buchanan: Anybody who has a state, including Saddam Hussein, is going to be reluctant to go to war against the United States or to commit any atrocity which would put them in a war with the U.S. Containment and deterrence will work with almost any state.
Saddam is terrified of the United States. He wants to hand over his power to one of these sons of his. He's got all these palaces out there.
Why in heaven's name would he want to trigger a war with the United States of America and have all that blown to kingdom come along with him, his sons, his family, his dynasty, his army, everything?
I don't think we should give up on the policy of deterrence. It frightened Joe Stalin. It frightened Mao Tse-tung. These guys are not in that league.
IBD: What should we be doing here at home?
Buchanan: The first thing we should do is get serious about border security. Since 9-11, we've only had 411,000 illegal aliens come into the United States.
If there is a weapon of mass destruction smuggled into this country, the whole idea of global interdependence and 10,000 Mexican trucks coming into the U.S. every day, almost all of them not inspected, and over a million containers - that's going to come to an end.
It will be a very powerful argument for retiring to economic independence and economic nationalism, where you do not have thousands of people crossing your border every day. One or two more of these attacks and globalization itself is in trouble.
IBD: What will that mean for an open society?
Buchanan: I'm a believer in an open society, I'm a believer in a free society, and this is why I'm opposed to the idea of an empire. They say we need a Department of Homeland Security. I thought the Defense Department was in charge of homeland security. Apparently it's in charge of empire security.
Of what advantage is all this American empire, interfering in all these quarrels around the world, if as a consequence we lose freedom at home and live in constant danger of some kind of small atomic weapon detonated on American soil?
I think the American empire is going to go, and I think that's a good thing. The reason they were over here on 9-11 is that we are over there.
IBD: Where do you see things 10 years from now?
Buchanan: I regret that for the rest of Mr. Bush's first term, we're going to be at war. The president has subcontracted out our Middle East policy to Ariel Sharon, and I think that's a dreadful mistake.
Palestinian terrorists ought to be condemned and Israel has a right to peace, but you have to give the Palestinian people some hope. And I think Bush's (June 24) speech gives them very, very little hope. I think his speech could have been written in Tel Aviv.
IBD: Will there ever be a Palestinian state?
Buchanan: I think the question is not whether there'll be a Palestinian state. There may be two. The ultimate question is whether there's going to be a Jewish state in the Mideast. I think Ariel Sharon is leading them into a cul-de-sac from which there is no way out but back through Oslo and Tabaah and the Saudi plan.
I said he has an antipathy toward Jews.
The article clip I posted demonstrated that.
It's not like Carto twists Buchanan's arm or anything.
Believe it or not, scumbags tend to associate with various sorts of scumbag, and anti-Semites tend to associate themselves with other flavors of anti-Semite.
You do get known by the company you keep.
I made a post comparing the conservatism of Bush
to that of Ronald Reagan. How does that make
me a supporter of Buchanan? I think Pat is a
national socialist too, so the line you are taking
is bizarre.
OK, then...
Did Ronaldus Maximus, for all the he DID do (and he did a lot) have the testicular fortitude to just rip up the ABM treaty?
If you mean by associating him with Joseph
Sobran, I'll cop to that. Sobran is just
a Buchanan-out-of-the-closet.
Well, it's pretty much common knowledge that Pat Buchanan is against anything remotely related to helping the Jewish people and/or Israel. So, you can call it what you want, but he is anti-Jew, and he has been known to compliment and/or praise Hitler in the past as well.
Neo-cons on the otherhand, pay lip service to the forefathers, and prefer debating troop movements in the Middle East to conserving elements of our civilization.
While an enlightened group of intellectuals will tolerate debate, the Neo-Cons have a policy of excommunicating any group that threatens their desire for ideological purity, thus fracturing the potential might of a truly Rightwing government. NR's Bill Buckely excommunicated the Randians, Libertarians, and John Birchers in the '60s, and when Pat was making the most meaningful challenge to the ruling class in 1992, he was wheeled out to call Pat an anti-Semite.
If their is a definable Rightist in this country, it is a person who believes that the current ruling elite needs to be replaces wholesale. At the very least, we should not be tolerating both the massive failures in their ability to defend us nor allowing them to embark on ceaseless wars in the Middle East.
During the Cold War? I should hope not.
He did, however, fire the entire Air Traffic
Controller union. Compare that to erecting
steel tariffs to woo union votes.
Poetic, dude.
So when are you going to discuss the article that is the subject of this thread?
His magazine will probably fail financially; reflecting the narrow appeal of his presidential run(s).
Neo-cons are the left. They just like to cross-dress in conservative jargon.
What? You mean I have to read that schlock?
No thanks. I was responding to a post wondering
why Buchanan was pro-Pali.
And the Soviets were not? Were you asleep during the Cold War? Containment worked then. Stalin was a bit meaner than Saddam, if you didn't know.
You are truly an IDIOT.
You're a damned lie.
I, according to the dictionary, am a "neo-con," although I refer to myself as a post-conservative. The Left is my sworn enemy due to what it has done in the name of black people which is to send them back to the plantation. I loathe the left with a passion unknown to most men.
So stick it.
Why not? It was a fairly stupid idea in 1972, and it didn't improve with age.
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