Posts on Pat Buchanan

The Right is always saying that candidates can and should bring their faith to the public square, but it seems like the more Barack Obama does it, the more he gets criticized.  

As we’ve noted several times in the past, for months right-wing activists like Rob Schenck have been declaring “Obama's Christianity woefully deficient” and demanding that Obama explain, in detail, the basic tenets of his faith so that the Right can judge just “how profound is the religious commitment that Barack Obama has made.”  Others have echoed that point, saying that Obama is not a “true Christian,”  that “there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement,” and that Obama’s faith “tramples on the historic teachings of Christianity and the Bible.”

These attacks culminated in a nearly unprecedented episode last week when James Dobson dedicated his radio program to disparaging Obama’s understanding of his Christian faith, which was followed up by a three-part video series in which Focus on the Family Vice President Tom Minnery accusing Obama of having everything from a “completely and utterly ridiculous understanding” of the role of religion in public life to holding sacrilegious views.  

And now that attacks on Obama’s faith have been given Dobson’s blessing, it seems as if every right-wing commentator cannot wait to pile on, with Pat Buchanan weighing in with his typically well-reasoned and insightful views: 

Obama, however, is now preaching a kumbaya Christianity where leaders who believe abortion is the killing of the innocent unborn are to set their convictions and cause aside in the name of ecumenical amity.

It is Dobson who, in his intolerance of perceived evil, seems in the tradition of the abolitionists, and Barack who appears more like the milquetoast believers of whom Christ said he would spit them out of his mouth because they were neither hot nor cold and whom Dante consigned to the deepest reaches of hell.

For his part, George Neumayr was no less splenetic:

The willfulness he casually assumes in the traditionally religious defines his own stance, as he cobbles together a sham Christianity from scratch that conveniently dovetails with the platform of the Democratic Party, then calls his vote-searching the reconciliation of "religion and politics."

And, of course, the folks at the Christian Defense Coalition could not let any opportunity pass to weigh in as well:

Senator Obama does not have the moral authority to address these issues while supporting the tragic killing of innocent children and diminishing of women through abortion.

 

"The question must be asked, how can one support faith and values while embracing policies that brutalize children and wound women?  Senator Obama cannot talk with integrity about his faith and social justice anymore than a segregationist or racist can talk about their faith, justice or equality with integrity.

And then there is Rick Scarborough of Vision America :

"Like my friend Jim Dobson, I was appalled by the Senator's remarks," Scarborough disclosed. "This speech showed Obama's real views on politics and religion. And, I can tell you, the presumptive Democratic nominee is no friend of Bible-believing Christians," Scarborough added.

Of course, Scarborough has spent the last week loudly complaining that a variety of evangelical leaders even agreed to meet with Obama earlier this month (probably because he wasn’t invited, though he has been trying to make it seem like he was) saying that doing so only confuses right-wing voters:    

Senator Obama (D-Illinois), the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, recently held meetings with prominent Christians, including Franklin Graham and Bishop T.D. Jakes. But Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America Action, says evangelical leaders send a confusing message when they meet with Obama.

 

"This is a man that has never seen an unborn fetus that he wouldn't abort," chides Scarborough. "While serving in the state legislature in the state of Illinois, [he] served on a committee that literally prevented a bipartisan piece of legislation which would have offered medical services to botched abortions," he points out.

 

Scarborough goes on to criticize Obama's stance on homosexuality. "He's radically pro-gay...even to legislating against sections of the Bible and preventing those of us who embrace those sections of the Bible from preaching biblical truth," he argues. "So I'm troubled by it."

A few voices on the Right have expressed partial praise for Barack Obama’s speech on race, but by and large, right-wing commentators have stuck to the script, picking over the parts where Obama mentioned the country’s racial wounds, excoriating him for failing to disavow affirmative action or liberal economic policies, and generally promoting the idea that Obama is some kind of Manchurian candidate who secretly hates both America and white people.

But if Obama hoped to start a national conversation about race, he succeeded, in a way. Many right-wing commentators have proved willing to redirect their attacks on Obama to a discussion of their views on African Americans in general. Cal Thomas opined that “black people should be listening to” Bill Cosby, not Rev. Wright. Ann Coulter announced that she had had enough of blacks talking about racism:

But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people? …

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, "Isn't that cute?" As a post-racial American, I do not believe "the legacy of slavery" gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Unfortunately, the online videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church appear to be the first exposure some on the Right have had to blacks or the African American church. Human Events reporter Ericka Anderson admitted as much: “Those of us outside the black community lack any deep knowledge of black churches. The only black minister we are very familiar with was Martin Luther King, Jr.” Anderson added, “He never damned America.”

George Neumayr, editor of the Catholic World Report, was apparently scandalized by what he described as the “feverish” church-goers in the videos “hopping up and down like hyperactive children” as they follow their “buffoonish[],” “sashaying” pastor.

Perhaps we should leave the final word to Pat Buchanan, who has made a career out of claiming that “white America” is under constant threat from other ethnicities. Before Obama’s speech, Buchanan pined for the “Negroes” of the 1950s:

That Wright is a revered preacher in black America also tells us that, far from coming together, we Americans are further apart than we were in the 1950s, when Negroes could be described as Christian, conservative and patriotic. Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad did not speak for black America then. Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young and Dr. Martin Luther King did. But Jeremiah Wright makes Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown sound like the Mills Brothers.

After the speech, Buchanan was more blunt, writing that “Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.”

What is wrong with Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Was "white racism" really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said -- that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard.

Two years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other stretches of the Gulf Coast. At the time, the response by many on the Right was to blame the victims and/or social-service programs, and to take advantage of the “golden opportunity” to advance a far-right economic agenda. Remember Pat Buchanan, who criticized the “failure” of the “character and conduct” of the population of New Orleans, who “waited for the government to come save them” and “screamed into the cameras for help”? Then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) called for “tougher penalties” for those who were stranded when the storm hit and the city was flooded. Bill O’Reilly saw video footage of the tragedy as an ideal object lesson for young people: “If you refuse to learn, if you refuse to work hard, if you become addicted, if you live a gangsta-life, you will be poor and powerless just like many of those in New Orleans.” (Watch the video.)

As a number of right-wing activists—and presidential candidates—have pounced upon a tragic multiple-homicide in Newark as a rallying point for mobilizing anti-immigrant sentiment and pushing a mandate for local police to vigorously enforce immigration status violations, it’s no surprise to see Pat Buchanan join in denouncing so-called “sanctuary cities.” Buchanan, a host and frequent commentator on MSNBC, writes that the incident “has the makings of a Willie Horton issue in 2008”—a reference to an infamous racially-tinged attack ad used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

At this point, one would expect Buchanan to launch into a diatribe against Hispanic immigration, which he has blamed in part for “The Death of the West,” the title of his most recent book. But surprisingly, Buchanan takes a different turn: Jumping to a Washington Post article on a study showing that nearly half of murder victims are black, he complains that “[u]tterly absent” are “white victims.”

The real repository of racism in America -- manifest in violent interracial assault, rape and murder -- is to be found not in the white community, but the African-American community. In almost all interracial attacks, whites are the victims, not the victimizers.

According to the right-wing news website, WorldNetDaily, Fred Thompson has finally and “candidly” confirmed his membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, which WND says is sometimes referred to as the “‘shadow government’ organization of elites with a global agenda.” Earlier this week, Thompson was confronted and questioned by an activist during a campaign stop regarding his association with the Council, long a bete noir of activists who suspect the United Nations and other elites of scheming to destroy U.S. sovereignty.  The activist who confronted Thompson, and was eventually forcibly removed from the event, mentioned the Council’s supposed efforts to bring about the North American Union, the latest nightmare for Phyllis Schlafly and the black-helicopter crowd.

Thompson seemingly tried to defuse the situation with polite mush:

“I didn't know they were up to that… There are several conservatives over the years who have been members of the Council on Foreign Relations. I try to learn as much as I can from all viewpoints. I have been a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, one of the conservative thinks tanks in town, and enjoy having intellectual exercise and discussions whether I agree or not with anyone on any particular issue.”

But his association with the Council may fuel the suspicions of anti-immigrant activists who have also latched onto the North American Union as a plot to dissolve the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada.  Thompson has previously been condemned by VDARE, an anti-immigration group that has been accused of publishing white nationalist authors, but is also associated with notable commentators such as Pat Buchanan and Michelle Malkin. WorldNetDaily columnist Jerome Corsi, of Swift Boat fame and co-author, along with Jim Gilchrist, of Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders, has been perhaps the most outspoken in attacking Thompson. Corsi, calls Thompson a “red herring” being peddled to conservatives even though, asserts Corsi, he is “not a conservative.”

“If you continue to believe that the illegal alien invasion is the biggest threat to America, you will never understand that there is something far more dangerous to our country called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” said Daneen Peterson at a small rally in Washington, D.C. last Friday. Peterson explained that “the overwhelming human tsunami of illegal aliens and MS-13 gang members” will cause “complete anarchy,” which in turn will “allow the shadow government to step forward and visibly take over this country. They will use martial law to install a fascist One World Order, dictatorial government in plain sight instead of operating clandestinely as they do now."

Peterson’s warning is familiar to a significant faction of the anti-immigrant movement, who believe that President Bush, an obscure college professor, and the Council on Foreign Relations are secretly plotting to create a European Union-style government in North America. While the supposedly well-advanced march to a “North American Union,” featuring a new flag and a unified “Amero” currency, has not been taken seriously outside of far-right and nativist web sites and news sources, the theory has had major backing from “Swift Vet” co-author Jerome Corsi, CNN host Lou Dobbs, Phyllis Schlafly, Judicial Watch, Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid, right-wing news site WorldNetDaily.com, long-shot Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, and the grandfather of right-wing conspiracy-mongering, the John Birch Society.

And while Peterson called the immigration debate a “diversion” from the “North American Union” scheme, many activists see them as of a piece: Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia), who has introduced a resolution to oppose the vaporous plot, has also stated that immigration reform is just the first step: “It will lead us on a path to likely have a North American currency, will further break down the borders between our countries, and it really undermines the concept of the United States of America in favor of something called North America.”

Echoing other anti-immigrant politicians and activists, Pat Buchanan claims the most recent delay to Senate passage of comprehensive immigration reform is “one of the great uprisings of modern politics” in which “Middle America rose up and body-slammed the national establishment.” But he warns, in true Buchanan style, that the bill’s “authors and backers will never quit” because their real motive is the establishment of a U.S.-Mexico-Canada sovereign entity controlled by “global corporation[s] and the transnational elite” and leading, ultimately, “the death of the American republic.”

For this legislation is part of a larger agenda of a large slice of America's economic and political elite.

What is that agenda?

They have a vision of a world where not only capital and goods but people move freely across borders. Indeed, borders disappear. It is a vision of a "deep integration" of the United States, Canada and Mexico in a North American Union, modeled on the European Union and tied together by superhighways and railroads, where crossing from Mexico into the United States would be as easy as crossing from Virginia into Maryland. It is about the merger of nations into larger transnational entitles and, ultimately, global governance.

Previously, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Virginia) made the connection between the current immigration bill and the mythical “North American Union” plot. Howard Phillips –  chairman of the Conservative Caucus and at one time an influential activist on the Right – also declared the bill part of such a “dastardly scheme.” Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly has similarly tried to tie the bill to the "North American Union."

Rep. Tom Tancredo already had little to no chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination and he certainly won’t be getting support from too many Senate Republicans now that he is threatening to destroy them if they vote for immigration reform:

Presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo said today he will work against fellow Republicans who support an immigration bill he considers a sellout.

Tancredo aides said the campaign would start a petition drive and volunteer network to help voters campaign against senators who support the White House-backed immigration plan. The bill, which provides a pathway to citizenship to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, has split Republicans in Congress.

The Colorado congressman announced his "Save America Campaign" hours before he and nine other candidates were to meet for the first Republican debate in the state with the earliest presidential primary.

In announcing his “Save America Campaign,” Tancredo warns that the immigration reform bill “will destroy America” and is urging supporters to petition/threaten their senators:

I demand Republican Senators stand up to George W. Bush, the Hispanic lobby and the corporate special interests and stand up for America.

I specifically demand you oppose the Kennedy-McCain-Bush amnesty bill or any other legislation that gives temporary or permanent legal status to illegal immigrants.

Otherwise I will oppose and actively work for your defeat in your next election.

Pat Buchanan, who is currently coaching Mitt Romney on the issue of immigration, is likewise on the rampage:

Bush's attack on the motives and character of conservatives tell us it is Goldwater-Rockefeller time again -- time to split the blanket. Conservatives need to declare their independence of Bush and to repudiate Bushism as the philosophy of their movement and party.

…

The damage Bush has done to his party is beginning to rival that of Herbert Hoover. If the Clintons were doing this, would conservatives be mute? Time to lock and load.

Meanwhile, Grassfire.org has announced that it will soon begin running new “Where’s The Fence?” ads:

The initial media buy includes national airings on Fox News and CNN along with regional broadcasts in seven states identified by Grassfire as key to this week’s amnesty vote: Arizona (Kyl and McCain), Georgia (Isakson and Chambliss), Kansas (Brownback), Mississippi (Lott), North Carolina (Burr), Texas (Cornyn and Hutchinson), and Virginia (Warner and Webb). A total of seven ads will be airing -- the national (generic) version along with six customized versions featuring key senators who have supported amnesty or have expressed support for this year’s amnesty bill.

Immigration reform is sharply dividing the Republican electorate, as right-wing activists and commentators take increasingly harsh pot-shots at President Bush and other Republican supporters of a comprehensive reform bill being considered in the Senate. Dissent in the ranks over the issue was blamed when the Republican National Committee laid off its entire telemarketing staff last week. And pressure is high among presidential candidates who otherwise agree on most issues: In particular, John McCain, a sponsor of the Senate bill, has been duking it out with Mitt Romney, whom McCain accuses of being newly hardline in his stance on immigration.

According to the American Spectator, Romney has been taking tips from staunchly anti-immigration commentator Pat Buchanan:

If former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suddenly sounds tougher and pithier on immigration issues, thank pundit and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan for it. According to Romney insiders, the man who has flip-flopped on immigration sat down privately with Buchanan late last week to discuss the issue.

Buchanan, of course, is a long-time proponent of the view that Mexican immigrants are causing the “death of the West.” What kind of political advice is Romney taking from Buchanan? The former insurgent presidential candidate has recently warned Republicans that “pandering” to Hispanics has cost them white votes, and just two weeks ago he wrote of the current immigration bill,

What is happening to us? An immigrant invasion of the United States from the Third World, as America's white majority is no longer even reproducing itself. Since Roe v. Wade, America has aborted 45 million of her children. And Asia, Africa and Latin America have sent 45 million of their children to inherit the estate the aborted American children never saw. God is not mocked.

And white America is in flight.

Perhaps Romney feels that by embracing Pat Buchanan-style nativist sentiment, he can occupy the narrow political space currently owned by Rep. Tom Tancredo – the GOP’s one-issue anti-immigrant candidate whose campaign is run by Buchanan’s sister Bay. While Tancredo is picking up a small number of fervent supporters, polls show him mired at one percent.

“America is now risking national suicide. … If a path to citizenship becomes law, nothing will stop the next invasion,” warns Patrick Buchanan on the immigration bill being consider in the Senate. Puzzling over the country’s changing demographics, he continues,

What is happening to us? An immigrant invasion of the United States from the Third World, as America's white majority is no longer even reproducing itself. Since Roe v. Wade, America has aborted 45 million of her children. And Asia, Africa and Latin America have sent 45 million of their children to inherit the estate the aborted American children never saw. God is not mocked.

And white America is in flight.

“The Dark Side of Diversity.”

Cites GOP “unanimity” on judges. DeLay: Decision “uniting conservatives around the country.”

Some on the Right voiced criticism of radio host Don Imus, whose slur against the Rutgers women’s basketball team led to his firing from CBS radio and MSNBC. Jerry Falwell, who was frequently mocked on the show, called Imus’s comments “the most demeaning thing possible.” “He has built his career on saying outrageous, indecent, racist, even blasphemous things,” wrote Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, adding that Imus also targeted Focus founder Dobson. Michael Steele, the former Senate candidate and new chairman of Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC, said Imus should be fired and criticized John McCain for supporting the talker.

But many right-wing commentators defended Imus or used the controversy to push their own agendas. Quite a few decided to attack Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as “race hucksters” (columnist David Limbaugh) or “nappy-headed demagogues” (Yale Kramer for the American Spectator). Mychal Massie, a spokesman for the right-wing Project 21, described the firing of Imus as a “lynching” and accused Jackson, Sharpton, and other Imus critics as “race-baiters” who “are today fomenting unrest and belching racial bile.”

Others used the opportunity to change the subject to their own issues and suggested that Imus critics are hypocritical for not making the same connections. John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute charged that “Imus’s insensitive remarks pale especially in comparison to disparaging comments and cruel recommendations made time and again by leaders of environmental groups.” Alveda King, director of African-American outreach for Frank Pavone’s Priests for Life and a frequent religious-right speaker, declared in a press release, “Yes, Don Imus's apologies are necessary. But I demand the same from every public figure who has ever said that babies in the womb are not persons.”

And a few commentators and activists have suggested that critics of Imus are ignoring “anti-Christian” references in the media. Catholic League President Bill Donohue complained about the lack of interest in his campaign against a Manhattan boutique hotel’s display of a “chocolate Jesus” sculpture and concluded, “In other words, Catholic bashing is humorous and an exercise in liberty. Racism is awful. Bigotry, then, is neither good nor bad—it just depends who the target is.” Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas also decried a supposed “double standard”:

Why aren't these keepers of the First Amendment flame coming to the defense of Don Imus? It's because they have a double standard. Evangelical Christians, practicing Roman Catholics, politically conservative Republicans, home-schoolers and others not in favor among the liberal elite are frequent targets for the left. Anything may be said about them, and frequently is. But if someone insults the left's "protected classes," be they African-Americans, homosexuals or to a lesser extent, adherents to the religion of "global warming," they must be silenced and punished.

According to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, “The message of the ongoing Imus scandal is simple: verbal offenses against anyone other than conservatives or Christians or Jews, will be treated as crimes, and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are the judge and jury.” And Star Parker, author of “Uncle Sam’s Plantation,” warned that Congress is considering extending violent-hate-crimes protections to gays and wrote, “With the passage of this so-called hate-crime bill, pastors will be intimidated to condemn homosexual behavior from their pulpits. Is this the freedom we want?”

Finally, a few right-wing commentators tried to make Imus a symbol of white-male victimhood. MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan decried the “Imus Lynch Party,” writing, “The issue here is not the word Imus used. The issue is who Imus is -- a white man, who used a term about black women only black folks are permitted to use with impunity and immunity.” In a Human Events column, Mac Johnson declared that “Apologizing to Al Sharpton Was Imus’s True Racist Act” and speculated,

Now think about how stupid and racist all this is. Were Chris Rock, in the heat of a comedic diatribe, to call someone, say, a “limp-haired slut” what would he do next? Would he ask to go on David Duke’s radio show so that Duke could accept an apology on behalf of all “white people” and then issue a suitable penance? (“Donate to my charity, Chris! You don’t look sorry enough yet.”) Somehow, I don’t think so.

And Rebecca Hagelin, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, attacked “the tentacles of radical feminist thought” that she claims are “poisoning the image” of white males through the media and Title IX sports programs. “The white, Anglo-Saxon male, the young teenage guy, is probably the most discriminated against kid on the face of the earth right now,” she declared on “The O’Reilly Factor.”

See comments on the Imus controversy by People For the American Way Foundation staff and by founder Norman Lear here.

Religious-right activists continue to voice their enthusiastic support for recent comments by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that gays should not be allowed to serve openly in the military because homosexuality is “immoral.” While some make specious arguments about the military value of a ban on gays in the armed forces, most of these activists incorporate Gen. Peter Pace’s remarks into their larger “culture war” against gays in all walks of life.

Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition asserts that being gay is “incompatible with effective military service,” writing that “Sodomy is one of those behaviors that has been considered dissolute and a danger to military cohesiveness and readiness. … we do not want a ‘Brokeback Mountain’ military.” A form letter from Vision America argues that allowing gays to serve openly would weaken the military because “Ultimately our security is in God's hands. To ensure his aid, we must remain obedient to his law.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins warns that backers of letting gays serve want to "turn the military into a laboratory for their liberal social ideas."