27 September 2001
Pat Buchanan, Neocons, and Israel
Patrick Buchanan is some piece of work.
On 18 September, he penned an LA Times op-ed perfectly in line with his isolationist tendencies and the isolationist tendencies of the Libertarian/Left fringe. He even managed to work in a reference to America as "empire," an assertion as ignorant as it is currently popular with the Libertarian/Left fringe. Indeed, I would wager that had the LA Times incorrectly identified the author of the op-ed as Harry Browne (another trivial Presidential candidate from the 2000 elections), nary an eyebrow would have been raised. Isolationism makes for strange bedfellows.
In today's op-ed, Buchanan is on familiar turf. He writes of the "neoconservative" establishment and its call for Bush to place higher priority on the war on terrorism than on coalition-building related to the same. Buchanan identifies this as a "neocon" phenomenon, despite the fact that it is overwhelmingly the position of virtually the entire CONSERVATIVE defense establishment, ranging from people like Richard Perle (an old Reagan cold warrior whom Buchanan does mention) to Paul Wolfowitz (if press reports are to be believed -- and I do believe them) to Doug Feith (Undersecretary for Policy) to, presumably, JD Crouch (Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy) to William F. Buckley! One of Buchanan's favorite tactics is to label those with whom he disagrees on foreign policy as Neocons, but it's not a terribly effective tactic given that Buchanan for a while now has been completely outside mainstream conservative foreign policy thinking broadly construed -- part of the reason he was forced to bolt to the Perot party.
Buchanan is on even more familiar turf, however, when he suggests the condition of neocon support for Bush:
Buchanan couldn't resist another favorite tactic. Conservatives (not just neocons, although he tries to portray them as a fringe) are really just interested in prosecuting Israel's war! It would be a real laugher, if it weren't another sad episode in Buchanan's long antipathy towards Israel. Some would go so far as to suggest an antipathy towards all Jews. William F. Buckley raised that question forcefully in his 1980s essay "In Search of Anti-Semitism" only to equivocate in the end, concluding that Buchanan's comments often SEEMED anti-Semitic but that a long friendship with Buchanan suggested otherwise.
Certainly, comments like "Israel's war" seem misplaced and misguided, even if they are not motivated by anti-Semitism. But then, we've come to expect comments like that from Buchanan. As I've written previously, I'm glad he is no longer the problem of Republicans or Conservatives. The Perot/Reform wackos deserve him.
[Posted @ 09:49 AM CST]
