18 September 2001
Pat Buchanan and the Isolationist Fringe
Not wanting to be upstaged by fellow trivial Presidential candidate Harry Browne, Patrick Buchanan penned an op-ed today placing him among the isolationist Left/Libertarian fringe. He even joins some of the really wacky fringe in critiquing American empire, a topic that I have addressed in a slightly different context here.
As a classical liberal who goes conservative on foreign policy, I tend to vote Republican more than anything -- and for that reason, I'm glad Patrick Buchanan, like James Jeffords, is now somebody else's problem! And I'm more than a little amused that the leftist L.A. Times ran the op-ed, of course identifying Pat Buchanan as chairman of a "conservative" foundation.
One thing (among many things, really) that George Bush does not get enough credit for is driving Patrick Buchanan out of the GOP. Buchanan's primary campaign in 1992 wounded elder Bush mortally and his Houston GOP convention speech (which bumped Reagan out of prime time, incidentally) didn't help elder Bush. Even in 1996 Buchanan's negatives certainly didn't help Republicans. That George W. Bush drove him out of the GOP to the goofy Perot Reform organization in 2000 was a significant accomplishment politically, and his hate, vitriole, isolationism, and occasional anti-Semitism are certainly not missed.
[Posted @ 11:35 PM CST]
