DAY OF RECKONING

Conservative stalwart Buchanan skewers the Republicans and the rich.

One rich Republican in particular: George Bush, for whom Buchanan clearly has no use. It is part of Bush’s agenda, writes the author, to sell the country down the river in the interest of “free trade,” making the United States an equal partner with Canada and Mexico in a North American version of the European Union. Those who favor such an outcome do not sit well with Buchanan: “Their agenda is about globalism, and it is about greed….The last obstacle standing in the way of the brave new world of the transnationals is the American people’s will to preserve the free, independent, sovereign, self-sufficient republic they inherited from their fathers and wish to hand down to their children.” Thus it is that Bush has not been an effective warrior against illegal immigration: “President Bush may not want the border secured because he wishes to see it erased one day, except as a line on a map.” Such a line of reasoning is reminiscent at times of the dark mutterings surrounding the Trilateral Commission in the ’70s, but Buchanan is insistent—and after a while it all starts sounding pretty sensible, even if his worries about gay marriage do not (and are not particularly germane). He is not especially worried about Iran, reasoning that any attack by that country “would trigger retaliation that could set Iran back decades.” He is more worried about foreign ownership of America, darkly hinting that the Japanese in particular are getting revenge for World War II by dismantling America’s automotive industry. In fact, he’s just worried about letting foreigners inside the walls, where the Bushies will put them to use tearing up the Constitution. Oh, and he clearly has no use for Islam either.

Vintage Buchanan: provocative, intelligent and not a little strange.