September 5, 2008
PJB: Distant Drums at Sarah’s Party
by Patrick J. Buchanan
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The American Right has just died and gone to heaven.
Last night’s convention address by Sarah Palin here in St. Paul has confirmed the bold decision of John McCain to choose the Alaska governor as his co-pilot and united the Republican Party as it has not been since the second term of Ronald Reagan.
A wild enthusiasm for Sarah Palin has brought conservatives home to John McCain, and GOP leaders of all hues — from Fred Thompson to Mitt Romney to Mike Huckabee to Rudy Giuliani — to the rostrum to lacerate the liberal media for their five days of feral assaults on Sister Sarah.
The war the right lives for, against the people the right truly loathes — the liberal media elite who savagely “Bork” every true conservative who gets on the path to national power — has been reignited.
Positive polarization has been achieved. The Republican Party has been united and invigorated. The enthusiasm gap with the Democratic ticket has been closed. And the issues upon which the base loves to fight — the Culture War and Right to Life — are back on the table.
Palin’s beautifully crafted and delivered acceptance speech, after Rudy’s gleeful excoriations of the pretensions of Obama, will rank as a night to remember in convention history.
Yet, as the familiar battle lines form up for the delicious eight-week war that lies ahead, one hears a distant thunder. And the seriousness of the hour we are in comes home.
U.S. troops have crossed into Pakistan to attack Taliban and al-Qaida units in the privileged sanctuary of the tribal areas just across the border from Afghanistan. Have we just thrown a rock into the biggest hornet’s nest on earth?
How will the Pakistani government and people react to this U.S. incursion into their country to fight a war their own army has been reluctant to wage? How will the tribal peoples react? Will the weak new democratic regime, united only in its hatred of deposed President Musharraf, fall?
What is the future of this Islamic nation of 170 million, with its five-dozen nuclear weapons, that was once America’s great ally in South Asia, but is now seething with anti-Americanism?
In Afghanistan, the Taliban move closer to the capital Kabul as hardly a day goes by without U.S. armed forces being charged with the accidental killing of Afghan women and children. Is this even a winnable war, after seven years of fighting? And, if so, at what cost?
While the convention hears claims of victory in Iraq and an early return of U.S. troops, there are reports the Nouri al-Maliki regime, in collusion with Iran, wants the Americans out to settle accounts with the U.S.-sponsored Sunni militias and the Kurds over who rules in Baghdad and Kirkut.
Is the end of America’s long and costly war in Mesopotamia to be an Iraq incorporated into a Shia crescent led by Tehran?
Arnaud de Borchgrave reports that Israel, having supplied Mikheil Saakashvili’s army with weapons and training prior to his invasion of South Ossetia, had hoped to use Georgian airfields to fly strikes against Iran. The Russians are said to be furious and considering new military aid to Syria.
Now one reads of Dutch intelligence agents, who had infiltrated Iran’s nuclear program to sabotage it, being withdrawn, as the Dutch believe a U.S. strike on Iran may be imminent.
Vice President Cheney is in Tbilisi promising $1 billion in new aid, as Prime Minister Putin of Russia is asking why, if this aid is humanitarian, it is being brought into the Black Sea in U.S. warships.
In Moscow, President Medvedev and his foreign minister are talking of a Russian sphere of influence like the one the United States has demanded for two centuries with its Monroe Doctrine — a sphere from which all foreign military blocs and foreign troops are to be excluded.
This is a direct challenge to administration and neocon plans to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. John McCain may declare, “We are all Georgians now!” — but, are Americans, or Europeans, truly willing to go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia to keep Joseph Stalin’s birthplace under a regime led by an erratic hothead who launched what may be the dumbest war in history, which he lost within 24 hours?
In June of 1914, a powerful flotilla of the Royal Navy was anchored in the German port of Kiel on a friendly visit where British naval officers visited German warships on the invitation of Adm. Von Tirpitz, and the Kaiser himself inspected the great new British battleship George V, in the uniform of a British admiral.
The festive occasion was interrupted and ended by news of the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in the Balkans, where neither British nor Germans had vital interests.
Six weeks later, the two nations had plunged into the bloodiest war in history. Today, as Republicans celebrate the last hours of a hugely successful convention, and Democrats seethe at the hiding they took, are we as a nation drifting inexorably for new confrontations and larger and wider wars?
Who is minding the store, as we party in St. Paul?
Tags: Afghanistan, Iran, John McCain, Pakistan, Russia, Sarah Palin
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Pat, my liege, you must be conflicted. Sara might be good, but you know McNuts would be a total disaster. Do you want him anywhere near the nuclear button?
Pakistan should be the big concern of the Neocon/AIPAC cabal, not Iran. This proud Indo-European country could get so pissed off at the US/Israel Axis that it may one day try to lob a few nukes at the land of Zion.
Conservatism will have died all right especially if McCain the RINO (Republican In Name Only) wins. If he loses then there is a good chance that the RINO’s like McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mel Martinez, Chuck Hagel, etc. will be flushed from the Party like a bad bowel movement.
The only up side of a McCain Presidency is if he dies and Palin gets in there before the Neocon machine ruins her. This would probably need to happen well within the first year otherwise I would not root and cheer to much because you are rooting for the end of true conservatism.
Sorry we have to lose, but the imposters have to go!
I truly enjoyed hearing Gov Palin’s speech. As Pat has stated, she has reignited the Republican base.
In fact, one could say we now have Sarah GiuliRombee; who could have known that so many factions could have joined together?
McCain and Palin are a great political match. McCain has the stability and maturity of a former naval commander (yet an independent streak that applied properly could get us out of this rut we’re in); and, Palin has tremendous spirit, enthusiasm and industry that could benefit by the FOCUS McCain could give her.
Her naysayers from Alaska mostly complain of her retribution towards those that did not tow her political line. A bit immature, but I think McCain (and particularly Cindy) can teach her how to make needed changes without impaling the opposition.
I am now looking forward to Election Day 2008.
That’s what I was thinking when this Georgia thing erupted the night of the opening ceremonies, with Bush and Putin sitting next to each other in the Bird’s Nest, seeming to be like friends, how WWI was ignited by an even smaller event.
That made me think, “Maybe I should vote Obama” because I knew that McCain was as much or even more of a Warhawk, “Bomber” than Bush/Cheney. Even though he cosmetically “divorced” himself from his party last night, his foreign policy is no different or even right of this Administration. I think people should realize that.
Palin has energized me too. I want so much to feel like I did in the 80’s with Reagan. But Reagan wouldn’t be pursuing this dangerous foreign policy. He left the door open so Russia could peacefully decide to change. Things seemed so exciting in the early 90’s. How have they come to this?
People want to know why the market went down so hard yesterday. I think it was Cheney in Georgia and the realization of events in Afgan/Pakistan. And the realization that there is no good candidate on either side to deal with these situations.
The nation yearns for a real JFK or Reagan, but we only have two people posing as these figures.
If I were about to undergo a very risky brain surgery, and was told that my surgeon was not available and going to replaced by an affirmative action resident doctor — that is, one who was shooed into med school depite having grades that would have disqualified him if he were white — I would be more than just worried for my life.
Every single American faces exactly the same life-and-death news with Barrack Hussein Obama, most especially in times like these.
I agree that Palin was the star of the convention, but I am afraid I can’t see her selection as more than a calculated attempt to win back social conservatives.
McCain’s attitude towards Russia and Iran is genuinely dangerous. In matters of foreign policy, Palin is simply an empty vessel, ready to be filled by the same neo-con philosopher kings who flit around the Bush administration.
There was no substance to McCain’s speech, aside from threatening hints towards Russia. Pandering to social conservatives while continuing the policies of the last 7 years is not a viable strategy for the Republican party or the USA.
While I almost never disagree with you. Pat, on foreign policy, as an independent, I was turned off by the Sarah Palin speech. While Both Palin and Giuliani’s speeches were ruthless attacks of his lack of experience, his so-called elitism and offered the routine accusations of unpatriotism, neither speech attacked him on the issues. This may have been ample fodder for the party’s base, but may prove to have done little to persuade the undecided’s. And perhaps even done more harm than good.
People who have joined the Obama camp are well aware that Obama has little legislative accomplishment to tout and are not concerned with this so called “elitism” nor largely overblown accusations unpatriotism. The Obamicans are followers for one of two reasons: either he has truly inspired them or they are issues voters who are looking for an economic plan, a healthcare plan, and a reasonable strategy to end this war. As an independent myself, while I am not thrilled with the price tag associated with many of Obama’s domestic plans, nor am I jumping with glee at the idea of having a rookie lead us through a war that could become World War III, McCain offers nothing but more war and no economic or health care plan to mention - at least not in his convention.
Republicans seem to have decided that they must defeat Obama by attacking him on style over substance. They must reduce his speeches to nothing more than empty rhetoric, and make a mockery of his experience or lack there of. That they did. But as they slammed him with insult after insult, the tone became incindiary and nasty, and some lines even sounded like school-yard jabs.
This sort of character assassination may backlash when it is directed at a candidate who has made a grass-roots ascendancy and brought down one of the biggest political machines in democratic history based entirely on one attribute, his personal appeal. We all know he didn’t beat Hillary on the issues and he didn’t beat her on experience either. This man has gravity and can speak to peoples’ hearts. It is hard to successfully attack such a phenomenon of a candidate on style when that is the very thing that draws people to him in droves. Furthermore, the attacks on Obama’s experience became unconvincing when the veteran opponent and his compatriots had little substance to offer.
As an independent, (who hates this war and has a lot of health care problems), the McCain convention speeches failed to answer the important questions that could have won my vote. How are you going to fix healthcare, how are you going to fix the economy, and how are you going to end this war.
It is funny however to watch the Dimwits reduced to the futility of spreading lies about Palin. This woman really has them running scared. It is as if they think she will pull her mask off and Karl Rove will be behind it as crap runs down their leg.
I will not for any reason ever vote for McAmnesty but I am ordering my custom made bumpersticker.
PALIN
(Screw McCain)
A lot of people have been really inspired and roused by Sarah’s speech at the convention. Very few know that the speech was written by Matthew Scully over a week ago for an unknown male nominee. The speech was hurriedly modified and customized just hours before Palin delivered it. The difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull ? Lipstick! Cindy McCain supposedly came up with that line.
As far as VP choice:
McCain shot himself in the foot with the “inexperience” issue. Obama shot himself in the foot with the “change” issue. Idiots or politically savvy?
I’m voting Obama. He’s left of McCain, but the Republicans don’t deserve to win this one. Maybe an Obama presidency will highlight the failed policies of the neocons.
I could go on and on about McCain’s childish campaign. On point after another I can attest that Obama would not stoop so low. “Change we can believei in!” At the very least, Obama has changed the way presidential elections are run.
We survived Carter, Obama can’t be much worse.
BTW:
Thanks dprato. You stated the issues far better than I.
You wanna bet. Carter wasn’t a Muslim!
Sleep tight with that hand on the button. You had better look before you leap. I saw an Obama bumper sticker in what appeared to be Arabic on the road today. Scary stuff…..
You Americans just make me laugh. Some woman delievers a speech written for her and you go nutso at it. And what is it with all these vulgar, hysterical displays for presidential candidates as if they are rock-stars? Just an absolute joke. You people have absolutely no dignity nor sense of good taste.
Pat, a pig with lipstick is still a pig.
Count me as one Main Street conservative who’s not falling for McCain’s ruse. Palin is McCain’s cynical attempt to secure the social conservative vote he needs. The TV preachers can drool all over themselves, but once McCain is elected it’s business as usual for the GOP — continued outsourcing of American jobs and needless foreign wars.
Love Your Commentary! Whatever happened t the guy that Liberals Loved to Hate?
Let me first adjust a common mis-conception and mis-calculation: Hillary’s 18 Million votes were not all women. I am a Black, Ivy-League Educated, registered Democrat and Hillary supporter. While I allow that Obama is eligible to run, he is not qualified (experience and preparation-wise) to be President. I’ve always believed that Minorities and Women had to be twice as good and perform twice as well to break barriers, while Obama seems to be an Affirmative Action of the worse kind. I am still undecided but I recognize two critical things: (a) my vote for Palin is a vote for Hillary 2012 and (b) Obama could actually lose this thing in spite of the trends and issues in his favor.
Second, look at the actions, not the words. While expressing Confidence in the outcome and dismissing the Palin Effect, the Obama Campaign is dispatching female surrogates to try to counter it. After first belittling the experience of McCain’s VP choice who would be a “heartbeat” away from the Presidency, they decided to try to focus their fire on McCain, realizing that an experience comparison between Obama and Palin actually diminishes Obama. (BTW, I’m sure that Palin will continue her experience assault for the same reason.) (And, let’s not forget Kerry’s choice of John Edwards as VP candidate.)The experience factor provides cover rationale for what otherwise would be called the Bradley Effect. Obama’s campaign is astute enough to recognize this. And in the latest Obama refinement/flip-flop?, he says the surge was a Success. The seven (7) houses ridicule was a waste of time and actually back-fired as so many of the people in Obama’s support group of high-income, highly educated elites have multiple residences and proud of it.
Third: Isn’t it interesting that the only parties calling for Gov Palin to speak to the Media are the Media and, perhaps, the Obama campaign? I think it would be Brilliant for the McCain campaign to keep her under wraps (so to speak) until the VP Debate. The allure and celebrity will continue while the focus on that Debate will build, the expectations on her performance versus the King of Foreign Policy Expertise will be low, Biden will not know what to expect, and — the Best Part — The Media will grow increasingly frustrated, resentful and invasive, swelling the potential backlash should she end up kicking Butt. Of course, the option to pursue this isolationist strategy depends on the Polls. If they stay close, or are ahead, they can afford to.
Obama is being “Experience-boated”! How can you counteract that? Who needs 527’s when you can fry him with the truth?
Hey, Snowplow,
You know what we call you - a crab in the barrel. So you hate yourself so much (your blackness)that you want another Bush administration. Mr. Obama has twice the brain power as Mc Bush and that Palin gal. Try reading the academic accomplishments of these people. McBush graduates fourth from the bottom of his class and was the real case for affirmative action for the powerful with his admission into the Naval Academy - his dad and grand dad were naval admirals. Bush was also admitted to Yale because of his Dad. Neither had the grades to get in on their own. They actually took the spots of more deserving people who could have made more of a difference in their lives and positive impact on their country than these two ne’er do wells. No one talks about that type of affirmative action. So you want to consider another D+ student running this country - count me out. That’s a decision only an idiot would make. This Palin chick took 5 schools and six years to get out of college. We’re really cooking with brain power now. George Bush had gubernatorial executive experience and look where this country is now (highest jobless rate in history and gas prices). If you were truly for Hillary then you wouldn’t hesitate to vote for the person that more closely mirrors her positions on the issues. Did you notice all the lies the republicans were spouting out about obama and even lying about the so called accomplishments of Palin. All her accomplishment lies have been debunked, but maybe you love having people lie to you like Bush and Cheney, because that is exactly what you will get with this republican crew. I hope your blackness serves you well when you try to curry favor with these Republicans - did you see the overwhelming number of Blacks in the crowd -not! Wake up and smell the coffee dude or are you named “Snow”plow for a reason. I like OREOS too.
What the Libs don’t get is that we are not ‘excited about her personality’ - what we are excited about is that she embodies conservatism and has taken the traditional family to a whole new level. While still keeping it intact.
She’s a working mom that has not abandoned her family, nor her principles. And, most important, DAD is playing his role — he’s involved with her and the kids — as a family unit.
So, they are doing everything together and helping one another. Her kids are great, the older ones help with the younger ones and, they all seem to love the youngest one. (He is adorable, isn’t he?)
If Sarah feels called to serve her country in this very unique way (as VP); she certainly will not be able to do it with her husband on board completely.
And he seems to have signed on.
This could be a great adventure for the country, I wish them many blessings and successes.
Correction to above statement:
She certainly will not be able to do it WITHOUT her husband on board completely.
The monstrous and unstoppable war psychology is now firmly embedded in both the parties and has become part of their DNA.
Its hard to believe Palin will be able to bring any change let alone a real and permanent one.
So if Buchanan is a Nazi sympathizer, how come he is taking the side of Russia? Generally Nazi sympathizers are stuck in 1939 and in 1939 Germany is the arch-rival of Russia (USSR).
Shouldn’t a Nazi sympathizer be saying, “GO GO GEORGIA!”
Hitler would have said, “GO GO GEORGIA,” anything to weaken Russia.
> If he loses then there is a good chance that the RINO’s…will be flushed from the Party….
Sky, I wish I could believe that that is true.
A future struggle for the soul of the GOP–if indeed it still has one (and the enthusiasm for Palin seems to indicate that it does)–won’t have much success if the GOP is by then a corpse, no? You tell me.
The damage that Obama would do the country is too great a risk to take…even as I barely believe my own words, with Cheney lobbying for a Polish War Guarantee for Georgia, and McCain with his spin on JFK’s Berlin speech…. Ack!
And illegal immigration. Now I’ve made myself depressed.
I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, since I live in California, vis. the Electoral College. Might as well just inkablot a protest vote.
Michael
I think the volatility in Georgian situation and Middle East overall is susceptible to things like this:
<
Of the MOSSAD, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: “Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”
U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study
by Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times
September 10, 2001 14:32 EDT
Edition: 2 Section: A Page: A1
Let’s see…
Alaskans dislike our Constitutional Government and espouse separatist views and yet gladly accept a yearly Federal payment for each resident and hold the record for the most government earmarks per capita in the US…
Gee, what do you call someone like that?
Oh, I know - a NeoCon.
Palin is the top Neocon in a Neocon State.
1. I hate the Republicans.
2. I hate the Iraq war.
3. I firmly believe that Obama will get crushed by McCain in November.
4. McCain WILL get my vote.
5. I hate the way the DNC apportioned delegates. The fix was in.
6. Obama got more delegates from Idaho than Clinton got from Ohio and Texas combined. She won both of those 2 big states.
7. Michigan and Florida did not count until it was too late. Again big wins for Clinton.
8. She received more electoral votes and more popular votes than did Obama. She won all the big blue states (except IL).
9. The DNC must be destroyed in its present state so that it can be rebuilt by 2012.
10. Hillary will be back in 2012. She gave a great speech for Obama. No one can blame her for Obama’s upcoming landslide loss. You could see the “buyers’ remorse among the audience. Most of them know that Hillary won the nomination and is the best candidate. She would have beaten McCain.
I don’t really see a big difference between Hillary and Obama.
No matter what they do, short of changing their platform, the Democrats are never going to get the majority vote in this country.
IF they eliminate their “pro-choice” platform and come out with one truly in keeping with civil rights, particularly if they took the issue and made it clear that the RIGHT to LIFE is the FIRST Right (among which ALL the others are built on) . . .and you KNOW that won’t happen.
But, if they did . . .they would win landslide elections from here on out and crush the Republican Party — forcing It to reformat itself.
Hi Pat, as you know I’m a big fan of your views and writing and love Bay, she has introduced me to one of your very kind nephews too. However, the world is not often friendly like this anymore, I miss it too! My point is that if Gov. Palin was NOT under the wing of Zionism and Israeli politics do you think Palin would have ever come this far, this fast? With the control that Israeli’s have in American government, from what I read, she must have passed their tests long ago. I could really be proud of her if she would declair her independance in public and stand firm for America. Do you see any chance for this? It may be the ONLY way to bring real peace to the Middle East.
Matthias Flacius Illyricus said:
I have been a fan of this site for a while now Mr. Buchanan, but never written, however, this Palin business leaves me befuddled.
Why not a firm denounciation of the pick of Palin Mr. Buchanan? Since when could a paleocon even consider a woman in such a position, let alone a woman who has FIVE children she should be caring for. I don’t get it? How can paleocons even consider such a candidate even in view of some of her laudable views?