By Patrick J. Buchanan – March 29, 2002

On the first Holy Thursday, the night before He was crucified, Jesus sat down with the 12 and turned water and wine into his own flesh and blood. That first Last Supper was a Jewish seder.

This is the communal meal to commemorate the Passover, the night when the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the Jews – who had marked their doors with the blood of a lamb – and went on to destroy the firstborn son of every Egyptian including pharaoh’s own. After that first Passover, the Jews, led by Moses, fled Egypt for the Promised Land. And so the night is commemorated.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – March 26, 2002

With President Bush’s pledge to ratchet up U.S. foreign aid by 50 percent over three years, can someone explain to me again the difference between a compassionate conservative and a Clintonian liberal?

Over 40 years, more than $1 trillion has been extracted from U.S. taxpayers and shipped off in foreign aid, much of it to despots who have wasted or stolen it. Across Africa and the Islamic world, poverty and despotism are more deeply embedded than in the Kennedy-Johnson era, when foreign aid was a new and bold idea.

Patrick J. Buchanan – March 22, 2002

“Your words can be interpreted in such ways that they hurt national resolve,” thundered William J. Bennett at Jimmy Carter’s remark that President Bush’s “axis of evil” phrase was unhelpful.

Imputing a near lack of patriotism to war critics, Bennett that day launched his Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, AVOT. Mission: Stalk and shame the war critics. “Our goal,” said Bennett, “is to fortify public opinion in the war against terrorism.”

Patrick J. Buchanan – March 20, 2002

With the Catholic Church reeling from its exploding scandal of pedophile priests, the enemies of Tradition believe they have found an opening through which to drive their latest “reforms.”

According to The Washington Post, the archdiocesan paper of Boston, the Pilot, editorialized Friday that “the church needs an open discussion of the number of gay priests, the exclusion of women from the priesthood and what to do about celibacy.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan – March 18, 2002

The Bush amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, rushed through the House Tuesday night, will undermine both the rule of law and the moral authority of the United States in the world.

As the world knows, U.S. immigration laws are being daily mocked and violated. No one is certain exactly how many scofflaws and gate-crashers are here. Estimates run as high as 11 million – or as many illegal aliens in this country as there are people in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – March 12, 2002

Stepping back from the abyss of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, Americans and Russians took away separate lessons.

To JFK’s inner circle, the lesson was: Never again can we tread so close to the brink of Armageddon. To the Soviets, the lesson was: Never again will we leave ourselves in a position where we have to back down before U.S. superiority in a nuclear face-off. After 1962, Moscow began a 20-year buildup of nuclear weapons that gave the Soviet Union an arsenal as awesome as that of the United States.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – March 8, 2002

In slamming 30 percent tariffs on imported steel, President Bush did more than keep his word to U.S. steelworkers. He sent a Reaganite message to the world: “I’m a free trader, but I put America first.”

Just as Ronald Reagan imposed quotas on steel being dumped in the United States in the 1980s, Bush has decided that U.S. national interests and America’s steel industry will not be the next sacrificial lambs thrown up on the altar of the Global Economy.

by Patrick J. Buchanan – March 5, 2002

Despite Sen. Trent Lott’s demand that we all fall in behind the commander in chief, the Senate has a constitutional duty to debate the wider war the president has begun to pursue.

Far from being unpatriotic, such a debate is the quintessence of patriotism. In World War II, patriots argued the wisdom of FDR’s “Europe-First” policy that left our men on Corregidor to the mercy of the butchers of Bataan. And U.S. generals wrangled ferociously with Churchill over where and when to invade Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan – March 1, 2002

“I believe condoms [are] part of the solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis, and I encourage their use by young people who are sexually active. You’ve got to protect yourself. … Forget about taboos, forget about conservative ideas. … It’s the lives of young people that are put at risk by unsafe sex, and therefore protect yourself.”

This ringing endorsement of condoms, given to the world’s young via MTV by Colin Powell, has probably doomed any chance he had to be on a Republican ticket. But the general probably does not care, for he obviously believes he was speaking the truth.