by Patrick J. Buchanan

“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state,” wrote Shakespeare. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, knows today whereof the bard spoke.

Rarely has a United States senator fallen so fast from grace or been so completely abandoned.

As the nation now knows, Craig was arrested in June in an airport men’s room in Minneapolis, charged with propositioning an undercover cop who was on duty there because the place had become notorious.

According to the officer, Craig, in the next stall, flashed known signals of a man seeking anonymous and immediate sex.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

As Americans anguish over how to extricate this country from Iraq without a disaster greater than what we now have, and without our friends suffering the fate of our friends in Cambodia and Vietnam, they had best brace themselves. This escalator is going up.

George Bush and his generals are laying out the case for a new war. And there has been no resistance offered either by a vacationing Congress or the major presidential candidates.

On CNN’s “Late Edition” Sunday, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, No. 2 commander in Iraq, said, “It is clear to me that (the Iranians) have been stepping up their support” for enemy fighters in Iraq.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

“After 34 years with LTV Steel, I was forced to retire because of a disability. Two years later, LTV filed bankruptcy. I lost a third of my pension, and my family lost their health care. Every day of my life, I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family, and I can’t afford to pay for her health care. What’s wrong with America, and what will you do to change it?”

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The execution-style murder of three African-American college students in Newark, N.J., forced to kneel and shot in the head – allegedly by an illegal alien from Peru who was out on bail for the serial rape of a 5-year-old – has the makings of a Willie Horton issue in 2008.

Newark, like New York, is a “sanctuary city,” where cops are not to ask criminal suspects if they are in the country legally. Mitt Romney has been hammering Rudy Giuliani on the issue, trashing his tough-cop resume by painting the mayor as den mother of the Big Apple’s playpen for illegal aliens.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

If one had to sum up the legacy of Karl Rove as political adviser to the 43rd president, it could probably be done in four words: tactical brilliance, strategic blindness.

Though George Bush was not given the natural gifts of a Ronald Reagan, his victories in Texas, followed by successive victories in the presidential contests of 2000 and 2004, put him in the history books alongside Reagan, who won California and the presidency twice.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Mitt Romney won his anticipated victory in the Iowa Straw Poll, with 32 percent and 4,500 votes, but fell short of expectations. Ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, with 18 percent, exceeded them, and is the man of the hour to the political press.

The results from Ames, and South Carolina’s decision to move its primary to Jan. 19, are fraught with portent for the GOP and the party’s hopes of holding the White House.

First, the turnout at Ames, with 14,000 voting, was modest, in comparison to 1999, when George Bush finished first with 7,500 votes out of 23,000 cast.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

If you were looking for a truce in the immigration wars once the Bush-Kennedy amnesty went down to defeat, look again.

Communities, cities, states are passing tough new laws to deal with the 12-20 million illegal aliens in our midst. Town likes Hazleton, Pa., and Farmers Branch, Texas, which sought to punish landlords who rent to and businesses that hire “undocumented workers,” have been hauled before federal judges by the ACLU. Arizona has passed a law to de-certify and close businesses caught hiring illegals twice. Protests have begun over removal of National Guard troops from the border.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

There was a time when events like the collapse of that bridge over the Mississippi would have been taken in stride.

Yes, it was a tragedy, a mature nation would have said, but like earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and bolts of lighting hitting folks on picnic grounds, these are “acts of God.” Even in a good life and a great country, bad things happen.

But today, there has be someone to blame, someone to be held accountable, someone who could have prevented it, someone whose head must go on a pike. And it is the job of the journalist to give us the guilty. And the modern journalist relishes nothing more than standing before a TV camera passing moral judgment on failed mortals.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

With Hillary Clinton’s lead growing, Barack Obama appears to be overreaching to keep the spotlight and highlight their differences.

His suggestion that sex education begin in kindergarten seems a great leap forward even for a liberal Democrat. While Barack says it must be “age-appropriate” sex education, one need not be Roger Ailes to imagine what the GOP oppo-research boys can do with this one.

In the CNN-YouTube debate, Barack, asked if he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea in his first year as president “without precondition,” blurted yes.