August 14, 2000

THE BUCHANAN MOMENT

As the confetti fell, and the last phrases of Buchanan's acceptance speech echoed against the rafters of the Long Beach Convention Center, the near universal hiss from pundits on both the left and the right rose up like a chorus of cicadas. Pat's appearance on Meet the Press with the obnoxious Tim Russert is typical of what we must come to expect: here is the only presidential candidate talking about the vital foreign policy issues – the uniquely presidential issues – that will concern the next chief executive of the United States, and what does Russert ask him? What else but the Liberty Lobby?!

THE USUAL CRAP

It seems that the Liberty Lobby – a minuscule racist and anti-Semitic organization run by the lunatic Willis Carto – has been publishing literature in the name of an organization they call "Americans for Buchanan" without Pat's knowledge or consent. What about these guys, Russert wanted to know. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Russert averred, has linked the Buchanan campaign to this nutball group – so whaddaya have to say about that, Pat?

TIM RUSSERT, GRAND INQUISITOR

It never fails. Here we are about to go to war with Serbia over Montenegro or perhaps bomb the shit out of Iraq once again, and this is practically the first question out of Russert's mouth – as if PJB is somehow responsible for the moral and political hygiene of every weirdo and wacko who invokes his name! How many times does the Buchanan campaign have to repudiate these people?

ROTHBARD WAS RIGHT

Pat's answer was magnificent: he cited the trenchant comment on "my dear departed friend, the late Murray N. Rothbard" who characterized the ADL as the advance guard of "the Smear Bund" – as indeed they are. Furthermore, he definitively repudiated racists and "haters," saying "we don't want you!" Is that going to be good enough for Russert and our echo chamber media? Of course not. They don't want to talk about the real issues in this campaign – indeed they will do anything to avoid taking up the essential foreign policy issues which are literally a matter of life and death for people the world over: and so just as Pat's last appearance on "Meet the Press" was dominated by Russert's attempt to paint Buchanan as the second coming of Hitler, so this one was almost like a repeat. What I want to know is why Tim even bothered showing up in person: he could have slept in Sunday morning. All he had to do was play the tape of his last interview, and nobody would have known the difference. . . .

WHY WE FIGHT

Why is Pat doing this? It is a question that we hear continually from the Bushies, and their media shills: the domesticated "conservative" intellectuals and publicists who retail RNC news releases instead of writing something original, and the rank-and-file GOP activists who will swallow anything – even Colin Powell lecturing them on the virtues of affirmative action – so long as it's labeled "Republican." Pat addresses them in the opening lines of his blockbuster speech:

"For years, my friends, we have all heard that familiar taunt: "Don't worry about them; they have nowhere else to go." Well, guess what? We have somewhere else to go. At long last, we have a home of our own. As for those homeless conservatives, who were locked up in the basement at the big Bush Family Reunion in Philadelphia, all I can say is: ‘Folks, come on over; there is plenty of room in Reform.'"

LOOKING BEYOND NOVEMBER

Looking beyond the range-of-the-moment, beyond November, Buchanan is fighting to preserve the conservative movement as an organized political force. The Republican Party, for its part, would just as soon celebrate the extinction of conservatism as an effective force on the national stage, bury it in the wave of political correctness and pandering that promises to dominate American politics in the new millennium. After all, the role of the Right in the GOP has always been to lick the envelopes, do the precinct work, get out the troops – and shut up until after Election Day. Buchanan's great achievement is to end this charade – for good.

NEVER AGAIN

Never again will we have to stand by and just take what is handed to us by the mandarins of "moderation." Never again will we have to work our fingers to the bone for the sake of party "leaders" who take our loyalty for granted. Never again will we have to swallow hard, and pull the lever for the lesser of the two evils. Buchanan is building a national party – a new home for conservatives and all those who will not give up our old Republic without a fight.

REFORM AND THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

It is a party that is solid at its base, sound in its basic ideology, and clear on the nature of its tasks and the strategy required to achieve its goals. The people I met in Long Beach were and are some of the finest, most dedicated activists I have met in more than 20 years of activism. I was continually amazed at their receptivity to the ideas we have been fighting for since the birth of this website more than a year ago: here, foreign policy issues are front and center. As the speakers held forth from the podium, the biggest cheers from this crowd were provoked by condemnations of the New World Order, foreign intervention, and the globalist agenda of our regnant elites. In his acceptance speech, Pat called for the withdrawal of our troops from Europe and Asia, from Kosovo to Okinawa:

"Talk about the arrogance of power. George III could not have said it better. Friends, I am ashamed to say it, but we have begun to behave like the haughty British empire our fathers rose up against and threw out of this country. That, then, is what our party, our campaign, and our cause are all about. We are Americans who say with our fathers: To hell with empire; we want our country back. . . .

"Friends, I am called many names. Isolationist is one of the sweeter ones. But the truth is: We are not isolationists. We do not want to isolate America from the world. We Americans come from all countries and continents, and want to trade with and travel with all countries, and have commercial, cultural, and diplomatic contact with every nation on earth. But we will no longer squander the blood of our soldiers fighting other countries' wars or the wealth of our people paying other countries' bills. The Cold War is over; it is time to bring America's troops home to the United States where they belong -- and end foreign aid. And when I step out on that inaugural stand to take the oath -- when my hand goes up, their New World Order comes crashing down."

GOING WILD

The crowd went absolutely wild! People stood on their chairs and cheered their lungs out, waving placards, and then – erupting from the depth their deepest desires, like a subterranean stream bursting through to the surface – the cry went up:

"Bring them home! Bring them home! Bring them home!"

The troops, the commitments, the billions in "foreign aid" and bribes – bring them home! Bring them home! The crowd roared, as one, and Pat himself, up there on the podium, took up the chant that rose to the ceiling like a prayer, an invocation before God and man:

"Bring them home!"

A BUCHANAN MOMENT

It was a Buchanan moment, a Reform Party moment – a moment that will be remembered, when the history of this election and this era is written, as a turning point not only for conservatives but for all Americans. This week, emerging from a long and bloody struggle, a movement was born. We are not to be stopped by the Tim Russerts, the pontificating pundits, the Smear Bund,or the mandarins of both "major" parties – and this is Buchanan's great achievement.

Read previous dispatches from the Reform Party convention

Sticking it to CNN
8/12/00

Buchananism or Barbarism
8/11/00

Ezola Foster for Veep; Halloween in August
8/11/00

Long Beach – My Battleground
8/10/00 PM

With Buchanan in Long Beach: The Inside Story
8/10/00

Text-only printable version of this article

Read previous dispatches from the Reform Party convention

The Buchanan Moment
8/14/00

Sticking it to CNN
8/12/00

Buchananism or Barbarism
8/11/00

Ezola Foster for Veep; Halloween in August
8/11/00

Long Beach – My Battleground
8/10/00 PM

With Buchanan in Long Beach: The Inside Story
8/10/00

 

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Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996). He is an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, in Auburn, Alabama, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Libertarian Studies, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (forthcoming from Prometheus Books).

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