A liberal's second look at Pat Buchanan [View All]

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Full story at The Raw Story, http://www.rawstory.com (third column)

By Craig Colbert
RAW STORY COLUMNIST

Over the last few years I have been gaining much respect for one Patrick J. Buchanan, founder of the Conservative educational foundation The American Cause, confidant to Nixon, Ford and Reagan and perennial Presidential wanna-be.

I first started to look at Pat Buchanan in a different light in the days following the 2000 Presidential Election when Mr. Buchanan actually went on the Today show and stated that most of the 3,407 votes he received in Palm Beach County were probably meant for Al Gore.

I cannot think of anything he had to gain by making such an acknowledgement but my belief is that he was more concerned about the integrity of the process than what Bush and his supporters thought of him. Thus the worm began to turn regarding my view of Pat Buchanan, a man I had up until that point felt was an ultra-conservative nut job.

Since then “Bully” Pat, as a buddy of mine likes to call him, has written several articles for conservative outlets like WorldNetDaily.com railing against the neo-cons and their agendas.
In a March 24, 2003 column for The American Conservative titled “Whose War?” Mr. Buchanan outlined how, “A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interest.”

In that article he reveals that, “On Sept. 20, (2001) forty neoconservatives sent an open letter to the White House instructing President Bush on how the war on terror must be conducted… (The) letter was an ultimatum. To retain the signers’ support, the president was told, he must target Hezbollah for destruction, retaliate against Syria and Iran if they refuse to sever ties to Hezbollah, and overthrow Saddam. Any failure to attack Iraq, the signers warned Bush, ‘will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism.’”

He went on to add, “Here was a cabal of intellectuals telling the Commander-in-Chief, nine days after an attack on America, that if he did not follow their war plans, he would be charged with surrendering to terror. Yet, Hezbollah had nothing to do with 9/11.”

Now while this may be old news to those who have been paying attention what has made me an even bigger fan of Pat Buchanan these days is his bulldog determination to be the voice of reason on the conservative side.

This week he was a guest on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and then a guest host Scarborough Country the following evening.

On Hardball Buchanan declared, “(This) was clearly not a war of necessity. It‘s war of choice… The neoconservatives have this agenda of democratic imperialism and it can‘t work. If you‘re an empire, you go in and dictate and you win. And it‘s the definition of a superpower, when you commit to a war, you win it. Our reputation as a superpower is on the line now….The stakes are more than Vietnam.”

As impressive as his showing on Hardball was the next night when he guest hosted Scarborough Country there was absolutely extraordinary as he actually tag teamed with Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, to press neocon defender Ann Coulter on where the war was going and why the President has been unable to articulate an exit strategy.

PAT BUCHANAN: “Ann, let me say, I happen to agree with Robert Reich on this. Look, I do think the country needs answers to some questions. Suppose, after we turn over power on the 30(th) and then they hold elections that the people who win the elections are radical Shiites, a lot of them are radical Sunnis, who run on the proposition that we‘re going to tell the Americans to get out of the country. Do we then get out if that side wins the election? And how long, in terms of blood and treasure and the rest of it, do we spend in Iraq to build a democracy when it does not look like right now the people that want a democracy are willing to fight quite as hard as those who would like to get us out of there?”

ANN COULTER: “I think the point is this is going to be hard. It‘s going to take a long time. But it‘s something that absolutely has to be done.”

BUCHANAN: “Why?”

COULTER: “We need an Arab Israel over there. We can‘t keep pimping for Israel. We need a puppet government. We need to be on the ground. We need a friendly government. We need democracy.”