councilor.org
| Source | Louis Proyect |
| Date | 99/09/01/11:21 |
| From The Nation, September 20, 1999 (http://www.thenation.com/) Buchanan Breaks Ranks In Washington, a city in which (to borrow a phrase from Virginia Woolf) all is gossip, corruption and chatter, the end-of-summer buzz has been about Pat Buchanan and whether he'll bolt the Republicans to seek the Reform Party presidential nomination. It is now clear--based on interviews with leading conservatives, Buchananites and Reform leaders of the Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura factions--that Buchanan is only millimeters away from announcing his bid to take over the Reform Party. What's more, Minnesota Governor Ventura and his people, who oppose making Buchanan the Reform standard-bearer, are completely unprepared to deny him the nomination. Here's why: Two days after the GOP presidential straw poll in Ames, Iowa--at which Buchanan delivered a slashing attack on the Republican establishment for selling out on everything from NAFTA and trade with China to Kosovo, abortion and immigration--the conservative columnist and TV commentator convened a meeting of his top advisers to discuss his future. Those joining the brainstorming at Buchanan's McLean, Virginia, home included his sister Bay, campaign director Jay Townsend, treasurer Scott MacKenzie and two wealthy Buchananites: former Reagan Customs Commissioner William von Raab and South Carolinabased textile baron Roger Milliken (who participated by speakerphone). With the exception of the candidate's wife, who kept her counsel, the recommendation was unanimous: Buchanan should go third-party and seek the Reform nomination. Three days later, an e-mail went out to Reformers soliciting support for a Reform Party Draft Committee for Buchanan, with von Raab as chairman. . . === The Buchanan "movement" bears investigation not only in light of this possible initiative, but also with respect to the content of his newly published "A Republic, not an Empire", which I browsed through last evening on the shelves of B&N. If you did not know who the author was, and opened up to the chapter on the Spanish-American War, you would swear that he was a left-wing radical. It describes the war as a search for plunder and quotes people like Blaine and Cleveland to this very effect. The Booklist review on amazon.com says: "The companion to Buchanan's excellent book on the usually soporific topic of trade policy, The Great Betrayal , shows the columnist-broadcaster-presidential candidate still in top form. A Republic is his foreign policy book, in which he criticizes both current approaches--the new Wilsonism of President Clinton and the king-of-the-mountainism, so to speak, of most Republicans. As he sees it, these approaches invite trouble by requiring the U.S. to dominate the world, which he considers impossible and undesirable. It is impossible because Americans won't tolerate "another Vietnam" and don't intend to provide the military resources to make good on global commitments. . ." |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho