Day of Reckoning

How Hubris, Ideology and Greed Are Tearing America Apart
Patrick J. Buchanan
ISBN-13: 978-0-12-37696-3
ISBN-10: 0-312-37696-0

When I saw this book by Pat Buchanan on the new book shelf at the library I knew I had something to really chew on. Here was my chance to give that paleocoservative cave man one right between the eyes. Who can forget how Buchanan single handedly torpedoed George H. W. Bush's second term candidacy at the 1992 Republican convention in Dallas? Who is not still angry about the things he said to Michael Kinsly week after week on Crossfire? Well, Pat Buchanan is pretty tame compared to the conservatives we have running the show today. Buchanan calls the the Bush II administration a failure because of it's hubris and ideological policymaking. In a chapter he calls "The Gospel of George Bush," he lambastes the notion that America can or should "end tyranny in our world," or spread democracy to every nation. He calls the invasion of Iraq the greatest mistake in American history. I'm with you Pat. Oh, it's hard to write that. How can I be agreeing with this guy?

Domestically Buchanan sees America drifting toward a union with Canada and Mexico, where we will lose our national identity - or the division of America where we will lose the southwest to the Mexicans, he's not sure which. Now we're talking! That's the Pat Buchanan I remember! He hits all the high notes, except that he never mentions the Trilateral Commission. Usually the Trilateral Commission is behind all these world government plots.

Buchanan feels the we need to close our borders to immigrants from Latin America, who speak another language, don't look like us and refuse to assimilate. He says, "Yet were an American to propose an immigration policy to keep the United States predominantly Christian and European -the rational behind the immigration act of 1924 - he or she would be denounced as a racist, a xenophobe, and un-American." Well, yeah, Pat. That would cover the bill.

What he fails to remember is the history of immigration in this country. Millions of people came here from China, Italy, Eastern Europe, Germany, Scandinavia in successive waves. Each time there were Pat Buchanans there eager to nail the gate shut and each time, in about three generations, the immigrants assimilated, made our country culturally richer and joined the Buchanans of the world to decry the coming of the next wave. Of course the Scandinavians brought lutefisk, which nearly poisoned the entire upper midwest, or at least made it smell bad. I'm allowed to say that, just like Buchanan is allowed to sing "No Irish Need Apply." If he remembers the words.