Professor Klinker of Hamilton College at Polysigh often asks why Patrick Buchanan is still on T.V. I think its because he is engaging and funny and has forgotten more about politics than most people will ever know. However, he has joined the "Churchill ruined the West by Fighting World War II" crowd. Victor David Hanson pulverizes him into a fine paste here.
The end of the Cold War scrambled the Right. Some of the isolationist Right that had been convinced by world Communism to abandon their "Fortress America" ways have now drifted back to their ancient faith and Pat is their leader.
Not content to attack current wars of liberation they now attempt to discredit even manifestly proper undertakings in the past. Just like the revisionist school of historians who were ever blaming Soviet aggression on "provocative" U.S. policy, this brand of conservative argues that Japan and Germany were "backed into a corner" or should have been allowed to fight the Soviets while everyone else stayed out. Now, they attacked China and Democratic France and Czechoslovakia long before the Soviets but logic is not the name of this game.
Anyway, I still love "Right From the Beginning" as a tremendous memoir but Buchanan has little to say on how we prosper and confront current problems. Letting geographically and diplomatically isolated democracies like Taiwan, South Korea and Israel fall while engaging in economic autarky is unlikely to enhance the position of the United States.
UPDATE: I will also add that Buchanan was for intevention to help Croatia in the Balakan war. So was I but I almost always think American intervention will improve things. He never does. My friend David Frum has the ultimate link on Buchanan (Liebken lives!) here from which my new title is taken (I would ask Dave to fix the links as the Producers film is fantastic):
"Hitler Could Dance the Pants off Churchill"
In the current NR, David Pryce Jones devotes an unnecessary amount of erudition to Patrick Buchanan's World War II book. Pryce Jones is the author of an outstanding study of Paris under German occupation. As for Buchanan ... well what has he got to say that Mel Brooks did not anticipate here 40 years ago?
06/16 09:01 PM
1 comment:
That was wacky, as JJV updated the post while I was reading it. When I came out the title had changed and the post was updated.
No need to fix the links as they are correct - JJV should look at them and figure out how that is done sometime.
My variation on the original title ran something like "Never bring a fire-sharpened stick to a phalanx battle" but the updated title is difficult to improve upon or, indeed, do much of anything with.
Also, would it be churlish of me to think that VDH ingested some of the paste a la Ralphie Wiggums? It would be churlish not to.
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