Pat Buchanan

PAT BUCHANAN'S medication was making his head fuzzy. He was in a bad mood, the handler in charge of his book tour warned. Buchanan's new book, "The Death of the West," was No. 4 on the New York Times' nonfiction best-seller list last week. Not bad for almost 300 pages of rant about how the immigrant invasion of Europe and the United States is imperiling "our country and civilization. " Oh, and it was a terrible day in U.S. history when women started working outside the home.

PAT BUCHANAN is finally hip after all these years. The man who is legendary for advising Richard Nixon, appearing on "Crossfire" and running for president, told me that never before has he evoked the level of interest in a matter of public policy. I spent some time with him earlier this week after reading his new book, "State of Emergency," in which he pulls no punches in spelling out how the United States is being "invaded. " So worried is Buchanan that he says children born in 2006 will experience the "death of the West.

In his speech last week on the wretched plight of South Africa, President Reagan described one thing as "immoral and utterly repugnant. " What was it? Apartheid? Police brutality? Censorship? Wrong, wrong, wrong. What offended Reagan's sensibilities was the prospect of Western economic sanctions against the South African government. Apartheid, in the president's speech, was merely "morally wrong and politically unacceptable. " By Jove, methinks, this rings a bell. This speech reads like a collection of old Pat Buchanan columns - and why not?

America first, America foremost, America always. It's Pat Buchanan's best applause line, a gut-level pitch that has whipped crowds into a frenzy from New Hampshire to Texas to Iowa and propelled Buchanan to the first tier of GOP presidential candidates. But if Pat Buchanan is the face and voice of this popular dogma, Roger Milliken, a reclusive 79-year-old textile billionaire from South Carolina, is its soul and benefactor, its invisible guiding hand. As honed by Milliken and voiced by Buchanan, it's a world view denouncing global trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

With the kind of money Wall Street has, it's sometimes hard to remember that people with jobs in finance also vote. But vote they do, and today is the day that those who live in New York, including many of the leaders of finance and securities markets, get to put their fingers on actual ballots. It's safe to say that Pat Buchanan will bomb. "Pitchfork" Pat has regularly laced his speeches with jabs at AT&T and other large businesses for cutting jobs. He has attacked Goldman Sachs & Co. investment partnership, which Buchanan calls one of the main recipients of aid during the Mexican bailout.

According to his latest pronouncements, Patrick J. Buchanan is in the throes of determining his next contribution to the destiny of our Republic. At some time between now and the end of the month, the bellicose White House communications director must decide whether we deserve him as president. This is no joke! After spending much of his post-adolescence holding the coats of such gladiators as Spiro T. Agnew, Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Buchanan is now seriously considering the prospect of stepping into the big ring himself.

In the city where a president's assassination and its investigation helped make Arlen Specter a national figure, the Pennsylvania senator fired his single bullet of moderate Republicanism into an audience of independent voters and saw that sucker bounce all over the place. Specter was the last of three dozen speakers - including 10 Republican presidential suitors - who paid homage to Ross Perot and his followers by talking to them about issues at the Dallas Convention Center this weekend.

It was a few days after New Hampshire, and cabbie back in Washington was in a somber mood. "That fellow is a clever politician, no question about it," he said. "But people like that can be dangerous. " Since his words echoed my own thoughts about Pat Buchanan, I saw no need to interrupt. "You see what he's done," the cabbie continued. "He has done a great job of figuring out what ordinary people are unhappy about and then making that his message. But since he has no solution to their problems, he does the next best thing.

The housewife from St. Louis and the gay schoolteacher from San Diego saw each other as a threat to everything each holds dear. So they waved hands for emphasis and wagged fingers in scorn as a slight breeze wafted through the park where they thrashed out their competing views of America. Ruby Ingram, wearing seersucker shorts and red, white, and blue beaded earrings, had come to the pocket park near the convention center to join a rally for Pat Buchanan. A young man named Don, clad in jeans, an unbuttoned plaid vest, and a single silver hoop earring, had wandered over to argue.

It seems conservative columnist Pat Buchanan is preparing to challenge President Bush and his brand of moderate Republicanism in the 1992 New Hampshire primary. Yet things are not always what they seem. Buchanan's challenge to Bush is not really about 1992. It is about 1996. Its goal is not the presidency, but control of the conservative movement. And its principal target is not Bush's moderate Republicanism, but the heresy of neoconservatism. Barring a miracle, such as an economic collapse, Buchanan has no chance of taking the White House.

THE PAST FEW weeks have been a busy time for media critics. Recently, several high-profile people and organizations have been swept into media firestorms because of offensive remarks made in public. Conservative MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan was fired for making anti-Semitic and anti-black comments in his bizarre new book, Suicide of a Superpower , an apocalyptic lamentation on the death of white-male Christian hegemony. Hip-hop magazine XXL was blasted for posting a video on its website by rapper Too Short offering advice to young boys about how to sexually exploit and abuse young girls.

THE BOY WAS 8, maybe 9. He was perched on his grandfather's knee, listening to the old man talk about life. "You know, Frank," Frank Slattery said to his grandson, who shared his name, "sometimes you have to do what you have to do. " Wasn't poetry, but it was wisdom all the same. The boy absorbed his grandfather's guidance and buried it somewhere deep inside. It wasn't until recently that Frank Slattery the grandson realized just how much those words had meant to him, how their implied sense of right and wrong had carried him through a David-and-Goliath battle that he fought against the federal government over the former Philadelphia Saving Fund Society - a battle that he finally won earlier this year, 18 years after it began.

NEW YORK - Pat Buchanan said that he didn't mean to slur President Obama by referring to him as "your boy" during a discussion with Al Sharpton. The former GOP presidential candidate and current MSNBC analyst appeared on "Morning Joe" yesterday to explain remarks he made on that network's Sharpton show 12 hours earlier. They were discussing Obama's political strength when Buchanan said that "your boy" had caved in past negotiations and was likely to do so again. "My what?"

RE MICHAEL Smerconish's column on Pat Buchanan and immigration: He wrote, "Witness how many seek to dismiss Buchanan's analysis as the work of a white guy uncomfortable with the realization that his kind is losing its dominance and control. Or they try to label him a racist or xenophobe. " There must be truth in the accusation since Smerconish admits that one of Buchanan's concerns is that "By 2050, the U.S. population of European descent will be a minority, as it is today in California, Texas, and New Mexico.

PAT BUCHANAN is finally hip after all these years. The man who is legendary for advising Richard Nixon, appearing on "Crossfire" and running for president, told me that never before has he evoked the level of interest in a matter of public policy. I spent some time with him earlier this week after reading his new book, "State of Emergency," in which he pulls no punches in spelling out how the United States is being "invaded. " So worried is Buchanan that he says children born in 2006 will experience the "death of the West.

Batten down the hatches. The war of words is under way, and it can be ugly. In fact, tolerance may have become the first homeland casualty in the war against Iraq. Many of us have become intolerant. In some cases, pure bigotry substitutes for rational behavior and the great American tradition of open debate. In locker rooms, classes, supermarkets and other public places, people are debating this war until they are red in the face and dry in the mouth. This is a good thing.

On this the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, John Dean seems to have egg on his face, while Pat Buchanan has a new group of sleuths who think he was Deep Throat. Dean, ex-White House counsel for Richard Nixon, had promised to reveal the identity of Deep Throat in an e-book supposed to be published today by Salon.com, but because of denials, and threats of lawsuits, publication has been delayed. The identity of the government official who slipped information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post has intrigued professional and amateur historians for three decades.

PAT BUCHANAN'S medication was making his head fuzzy. He was in a bad mood, the handler in charge of his book tour warned. Buchanan's new book, "The Death of the West," was No. 4 on the New York Times' nonfiction best-seller list last week. Not bad for almost 300 pages of rant about how the immigrant invasion of Europe and the United States is imperiling "our country and civilization. " Oh, and it was a terrible day in U.S. history when women started working outside the home.

Guess who is paying for the presidential campaigns? You are. This year, the federal government spent approximately $147.6 million in tax dollars on presidential candidates. These are not "matching funds. " It is actually a federal grant from the general fund. Taxpayers can choose whether to check a box on their tax forms that allocates $3 each to the presidential fund. That $3 is not an extra tax some people choose to pay. It permits the government to give that much of the general fund to presidential candidates.

In August 1992, Pat Buchanan stood before assembled delegates at the Republican National Convention in Houston - only six months after nearly defeating President George Bush in that year's New Hampshire primary - and proclaimed a "cultural war" in the United States. Enthusiastic conservative supporters cheered while Buchanan exhorted them to "take back our cities and take back our culture and take back our country. " Art was a fighting word in those days. What a difference a decade makes.