Friday, February 03, 2006

Pat Buchanan drives me nuts... most of the time.

I am a bit of a news junkie (and most likely you are as well if you are reading this) so quite often I find myself stewing while watching some MSNBC panel of righties, just wishing I could shake some sense into Pat Buchanan by the lapel of his coat. But every so often he writes a column for Human Events that makes me wonder what to do. It really is hard on my pavlovian instinct to sneer at all things Buchanan when he writes stuff like this about president Bush:
His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.

But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism.
Koolaid drinkers listen up please. I'm certain a large portion of you respect Buchanan and agree with him on most issues. He does not contend that the administrations foreign policy is metaphorically, or any other namby pamby word you pick, failing. It is there for the whole universe to see if you just open your eyes.

Buchanan continues:
Bush seeks to counter critics who warned him not to go in by associating them with the demonized and supposedly discredited patriots of the America First movement of 1940-41. His assault is not only non-credible, it borders on the desperate and pathetic.
Desperate and pathetic? Pat must be taking his rhetorical cues from the lefty blogosphere.

Here is Buchanan quoting Bush:
"By allowing radical Islam to work its will, by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself, we would signal to all that we no longer believe in our own ideals or even in our own courage," said Bush.

But what has done more to radicalize Islam than our invasion of Iraq? Who has done more to empower Islamic radicals than Bush with his clamor for elections across a region radicalized by our own policies? It is one thing to believe in ideals, another to be the prisoner of some democratist ideology.
Spot on Mr. Buchanan. Many times on this blog I have decried this administrations policies saying that they have strengthened our enemies. I never have drawn the dots together. Not only have our enemies been strengthened, but now the president is dead set on legitimizing them via democracy. The truth is that given the chance the Arab street will install our enemies into power. I am quite certain that the secretary of state and the rest of the administration would be shocked and bewildered at the results of any real popular election in this region. If we insist democracy is the way, which I do believe is a worthy goal in the long run, we should also insist on policies which give the world a favorable opinion of us. Otherwise I fear that many more nasty surprises will follow future elections. I do hope every time I go to this point going forward I will not have to credit Mr. Buchanan with authorship.

Buchanan finishes thusly:
If America is angry over what interventionism and free trade have wrought, George Bush cannot credibly blame isolationists or protectionists. These fellows have an alibi. They were nowhere near the scene of the crime.

It is George W. Bush who is running out of alibis.
George Bush had an alibi? If so, has it been declassified?

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