Not Recommended Reading

Some time ago I made the mistake of signing up for the Wingnut newsletter from Human Events, mainly to keep track of what crap Ann Coultergeist was spewing and to document the fall of her book prices to a buck. Long since relegated to my junk mail spam filters, I checked it out today and saw Pat Buchanan's latest column being promoted.

There's always been something peculiar about dear old Pat's xenophobic world-view, and when he's doing his thing live as a regular at MSNBC, he can appear quite rational, albeit bellicose if you're not paying attention. But in print, he's really something to behold.

Today, Buchanan makes the case that Britain and Poland were responsible for the horrors of World War II and the Soviet gulags. No really:

On March 31, 1939, Britain gave a blank check to Poland in its dispute with Germany over Danzig, a town of 350,000 Germans. Should war come, Britain would fight on Poland's side.

Poland refused to negotiate, Adolf Hitler attacked, and Britain declared war. After six years, the British Empire collapsed. Germany was burnt to ashes. Poland entered the slave quarters of Joseph Stalin's empire.

Really Pat? Are you really blaming Poland for WWII?

Pat's trying to make the case that we've given a similar "blank check" to Israel! His proof? They blew up a suspected nuclear facility in Syria last year and practiced come military exercises that could be interpreted as a dry run on Iran's nuke sites. From this he concludes in a feat of illogical paranoia only the truly self-absorbed could manage that we would defend Israel from becoming a victim of a war they started themselves with or without our approval.

I know . . . crazy. The problem is, that pretty close to reality.

Pat's worried that Israel might suck us into a war we don't want with Iran and that they need to be told not to start something we would have to finish. Leave alone the fact that we don't have a mutual defense pact with Israel like the one that sucked Germany into Austria's war on Serbia which precipitated WW One, or made the specific commitments Britain gave Poland just prior to the beginning to WWII -- given as a deterrent that unfortunately failed. The only recent US official who said an attack on Israel would be met with a devastating US response was candidate Hillary Clinton, and what Pat's considering is just the reverse, an attack by Israel on Iran just like the one's it made on Syria last year and Iraq over a decade ago.

And of course Buchanan presumes that unlike the previous surgical strikes that did not bring about a regional conflagration, this one would.

Sure, no doubt the white House green lighted Israel's moves against its neighbors in those prior incidents, and presumably would do so again. And whether or not we approve of a move by Israel on Iran in the future, if they do it we'll be blamed. That, and everybody knows Clinton was stating highly UN-official policy, yet accurately nonetheless.

So my question to Pat is, what frickin' difference would it make if we publicly told the Israelis "in unequivocal terms that the United States opposes any Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran, and will not assist but denounce any such
attack." They don't necessarily have to listen to us, and we might be saying something completely different in private -- and no one will believe us anyway if the shit hits the fan. Besides, we already set the precedent for "preventive" war when we conquered Iraq.

Geez, half the administration is Jonesin' for another fight before they're thrown out of Washington. Cheney and his minions make it clear they want to attack Iran sooner rather than later. Oliver North on Fox Noise made the case it would be a cake-walk, that an attack on Iran would be welcomed by their Sunni neighbors in Jordon, Saudi Arabia and throughout the region -- and not turn it into an erupting nightmare. North didn't even mention they would automatically close the Straights of Hormuz before the first plane returned to base, sending gas upwards of $20.00 a gallon in a day. Just another walk on the beach, that's what the neo-con propaganda machine wants you to believe.

Remember "bomb, bomb, bomb" McCain? He's cracking more so-called jokes about killing all the Iranians with cigarettes ... idiot.

Of course we would be blamed, and of course we would have to act. Who on earth would believe for one minute that if Israel started a fight with Iran it wasn't a joint effort whether we were in cahoots or not. And would it matter? If the Persian Gulf spigot were shut down, we'd be going to war anyway, no matter who provoked the conflict.

It's not that we gave Israel any sort of "blank check" to hold our foreign policy captive. It's that our entire world's economy is so tied up in the free flow of that black sludge, we would have no choice but to get involved. As much as we love our Israeli friends, our ridiculously huge military exists to protect the American way of life, and that means being able to count on filling up the family wagon without taking our a second mortgage.

We're not hostage to Israel. We're hostage to light sweet crude.

Buchucka-Upchuck

Watching the punditocracy try and fit this into their preconceived notions will be fun to watch.
That alone is enough reason to root for the underdogs. It's already started. Sometime over the weekend, Pat Buchanan saw his credibility wearing thin. He's always been about the money race, especially on the GOP side, insisting that Huckabee didn't have a chance going into Florida and the February 5th Mega-State primaries. He's said the same thing about John Edwards right along.

This morning on MSNBC, I saw him completely change his tune, laying out exactly how momentum alone can carry HuckABEE through to the nomination.

Buchanan's a believer now, and ignores Ron Paul's money bombs. This was quite out of character. When a veteran of the Nixon, Ford and Reagan White House can't figure out what's going on as the GOP coalition disintegrates any better than someone throwing chicken entrails against a wall as he backtracks on every bit of "wisdom" he's spouted about campaigning for president -- something's up.

Did he have some kind of epiphany? Did Karl Rove call him and share "The Math?" Or does he see his own failed attempt to buck the tide in 1996 as something akin to Huckamentum?

My guess, it's the latter. He most certainly has read New York Magazine's Huckabuchanan piece, and let his vanity overwhelm his pomposity.

It occurs to me that Pat's constant mantra that it's impossible to take anyone serious on either side unless they've got $50 million bucks to burn stems from his bitter experience at being a loser when he tried to grab the golden ring himself.

Huckabee’s brand of populism isn’t nearly as strident (read lunatic) as Buchanan’s. But to describe it as watery doesn’t do it justice. Huckabee’s posture on matters of taxing, trading, and even faith represent something shrewder: Buchananism minus the bombast, the paranoia, the out-front efforts to court the clenched-fist-and-camouflage crowd. And in this regard, the message and the messenger are the same—which could well make them more formidable, and no less disconcerting, than Buchanan and his gospel were in 1996.

See, it's not that Buchanan is nuttier than a fist full of cashews, at least according to Pat. He, like so many who attend the Court functions at Versailles on the Potomac refuses to ever question his world-view or competence. It's that he was outspent, not out campaigned or out thought by his competitors. He was robbed! And now he has a hero of his own to vindicate his trials and tribulations.

That's how he gets through the day, believing that his jingoistic xenophobia still resonates with more than a fraction of the general public and not just the wackos inhabiting the GOP base. Or worse, that it really is the best way for American to act. Mark my words, Buchanan will eventually take credit for any and all of Huckabee's success in the next six to eight weeks, having paved the way for the preacher from Hope, Arkansas.

And if Huckabee doesn't go all the way, it will (again) be all about the Benjamins.