Why we need Pat Buchanan and other honest conservatives

On Meet the Press, Republican Pat Buchanan debated Natan Sharansky, "A dissident in the USSR, Sharansky was jailed for nine years for challenging Soviet policies. During that time he reinforced his moral conviction that democracy is essential to both protecting human rights and maintaining global peace and security."

Although Bush invaded Iraq before reading it, he has admitted that his foreign policy is shaped – or refined – by Sharansky's book, The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny. Bush said,

"If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy read Natan Sharansky's book `The Case for Democracy.' ... It's a great book .... I think it will...explain a lot of the decisions that...you've seen made and will continue to see made."

Sharansky's book argues that "Tyranny, whether in the Soviet Union or the Middle East, must always be made to bow before democracy," and he applauds Bush's preemptivism.

Tim Russert, host of Meet The Press, noted that the Russian defense minister "was tired of being lectured about the United States and democracy. He said 'Democracy is not a potato that you can transplant from one kitchen garden to another.' " Russert later quoted from Buchanan's recent article in The American Conservative wherein he wrote

"The president now plans to hector and badger foreign leaders on the progress each is making toward attaining U.S. standards of democracy. ... This is a formula for `Bring-it-on!' collisions with every autocratic regime on earth, including virtually every African and Arab ruler, all the `outposts of tyranny' named by Secretary of State Rice, most of the nations of Central Asia, China and Russia. This is a prescription for endless war."

Russert then asked Buchanan to comment on this prescription for endless war. Buchanan – remember, one of the most conservative Americans – said this:

“Certainly it is. Look, the United States of America ... has always been free and always been secure. There have been despotisms from time immemorial. There are 22 Arab states, not one of which is democratic, and the United States has not been threatened by any of them since the Barbary pirates.

“In my judgment, what happened on 9/11 was a result of interventionism. Interventionism is the cause of terror. It is not a cure for terror. The idea that the president of the United States, as he said in his inaugural, is going to help democratic institutions in every region in every nation on earth is a formula for permanent war, Tim. And look, the president of the United States has no constitutional authority to do this. Where in the Constitution do we get the right to intervene in the internal affairs of countries that do not threaten us and do not attack us? If they don't, their internal politics are their own business. As Quincy Adams says, "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the champion of freedom everywhere, but the vindicator only of her own."

Here is the complete John Quincy Adams quote:

"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her (America's) heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

I'm a passionate liberal. I disagree with Buchanan on many things, but not with this brand of conservatism. He may be an isolationist and just toning it down a bit for a ramp-up to another bid for the presidency – although such a "disloyal" attitude is unlikely to attract the necessary money.

The following is a piece of irony that weighs a ton: Faced with the current crop of insane neocons in power (or as my friend David Bankston describes them, "men of low character"), I've grown nostalgic for the conservatives of the pre-Clinton era, the conservatives of the Kennedy and Eisenhower years and beyond. Goldwater excepted, these gentlemen would be appalled by Bush and his crowd, and many true conservatives living today are – or should be – as well. I'm content with Buchanan's existence on the political scene, and I'm content with the debates on economic theory and Social Security; both sides make points that are hardly inarguable and will be forever unprovable in such an enormously complex country as ours. Trickle down and small government works no better than tax-and-spend and big government; each side resorts to the other's strategies sooner or later as circumstances change. Republicans can tax like hell and Democrats can be hawks when faced with self-preservation. Nader is of course right that there's little if any difference between the two parties in the long run. Our "democracy" is really a republic in which we've elected people to represent our interests, and that is done through compromises that are all too often shady and, as benefits the whole, regressive. None of this works terribly well, but we swallow it until we see the truth, then we deride the representatives of this style of government in the way they deserve.

But now it's George W. Bush, and Richard Perle's derision of "clever diplomacy" in favor of "total war." Imagination is dead, or undervalued to insignificance. Okay, it's Clinton's fault for neutering the CIA's ability to properly vet questionable sources. Okay, it’s Cheney’s fault for hounding the CIA into submission. Okay, they just told Bush what he wanted to hear. Whatever. But liberals need Pat Buchanan and more like him, because he fears "decisions you've seen made and will continue to see made." Buchanan's loyalty is to what he believes is best for our country, and I can't believe that his remarks are self-serving. He's rich, but he's unlikely to get much richer talking like this, and that, my friends, is rare indeed.