This TNR posting is supposed to be a review of Buchannan's latest WWII book where Pat makes the claim that WWII should not have been fought and that the chief culprit for creating an unnecessary war was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Buchanan levels a healthy dose of criticism on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, too. Instead of a serious book review, though, and in stark violation of the old Internet rule that calling someone a Nazi pretty much ends any serious debate, Kirchick wildly went for Pat's throat. The TNR headline says it all, too: "From Pitchfork Pat to Brownshirt Buchanan."
Now, don't get me wrong, like William F. Buckley, I am not prepared to say that Pat Buchanan is necessarily innocent of all the charges that Kirchick hurls at him in this TNR "book review," but Kirchick's vitriol just seems a bit over-the-top in its tone and seems to lack any serious claim to being a real book review.
The first half of Kirchick's piece seems to lead the reader into thinking a serious discussion of where Pat Buchanan was off base in his latest WWII book was in the offing. But then Kirchick seems to lose his mind spitting venom. But, to be sure, most of the first half of the piece is not actually based on Kirchick's own words, but those of another writer. Kirchick abruptly ends the serious part of the review by announcing helpfully that what the reader will next read are his words and not that of the writer he had previously been echoing.
Far be it from me to speculate about Lukacs's hesitance to question Buchanan's inclinations. Perhaps he'll allow me to do so in his stead.
So, with that announcement, any actual substance is now to be eclipsed by Kirchick's vitriol.
In once dense paragraph, Kirchick nearly calls Pat Buchanan every name in the book:
Now, it's possible that, based upon a good faith reading of history, Pat Buchanan really does believe that the Nazi conquest of Europe would have been better for America (Buchanan argues that had the US remained uninvolved, Germany would have defeated the Soviet Union and thus spared the world the horrors of international communism) than what actually happened during the years 1941-1945. Or maybe Pat Buchanan simply has a place in his heart for ethnic nationalists and brown shirts. Sympathy for racists and authoritarians runs in his family, after all, his father was a fan of General Franco and Joseph McCarthy who told his sons they should be proud to be the descendants of Mississippi Confederates. In his political career, Buchanan had ample opportunity to elucidate his own animus towards minorities throughout his work for Richard Nixon and later as a fringe presidential candidate in 1992 and 1996, issuing dire warnings about the brown hordes banging on America's gates. There was something more than a desire to be provocative in his defense of various Nazi war criminals in the 1990s, as well as his assertions that "diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody" and that some Holocaust survivors engage in "group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics." Yet it was claims about American Jews goading the United States into war with Iraq (the first time) that generated the greatest indictment of Buchanan, which came from one of his mentors, Bill Buckley. In his magisterial, book-length essay, "In Search of Anti-Semitism," the recently departed founder of National Review concluded, "I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination, the military build-up for the Gulf War, amounted to anti-Semitism."
Wow. The most egregious part is where Kirchick basically calls Buchanan a Nazi because his father was one! Sins of the father visited on the son? This is a mere ad hominem attack and not a serious hook to hang a serious argument upon. But there he goes, doing it anyway.
So much for expecting a book review!
Kirchick ends up on a completely different subject than the book review he seemed to be starting out with.
How is it that Pat Buchanan enjoys so much mainstream credibility as of late (he is a near-constant appearance on MSNBC)? ... Rather, I believe that the subtle mainstreaming of Pat Buchanan is owed to his strident America First-ism, which is unfortunately gaining new currency due to an unpopular war. The popularity of Ron Paul -- who carried the mantle of Pat Buchanan in this presidential race -- exemplified this disturbing trend inward.
There's a head spinner, eh? We go from a pretty good review of a book to Kirchick claiming that thinking about America first is somehow a bad thing merely because Buchanan and Ron Paul might exhibit such a tendency?
I got news for Kirchick, if some Americans spent as much time thinking of America as they did the UN, Europe and the delicate feelings of terrorists the world over, we'd be a nation better off! Far from "America First-ism" being a "disturbing trend" we need more of it in this country today.
Anyway, I guess we can for sure tell that Kirchick is no fan of Pat Buchanan's but does Kirchick know anything about history? That shall remain a mystery apparently.
(photo credit: http://bloggingheads.tv/)
