Pat Buchanan, who has transformed over the years from one of the more eloquent advocates of traditional conservatism to a reactionary isolationist and mercantilist with whom I seldom agree (although I still find him quite engaging), has reluctantly endorsed the re-election of President Bush in the lastest American Conservative.
If Bush loses, his conversion to neoconservatism, the Arian heresy of the American Right, will have killed his presidency. Yet, in the contest between Bush and Kerry, I am compelled to endorse the president of the United States. Why? Because, while Bush and Kerry are both wrong on Iraq, Sharon, NAFTA, the WTO, open borders, affirmative action, amnesty, free trade, foreign aid, and Big Government, Bush is right on taxes, judges, sovereignty, and values. Kerry is right on nothing.
While Buchanan can muster little zeal for Bush, he has no problem lowering his musket and letting Kerry have it:
With Kerry as president, William Rehnquist could be succeeded as chief justice by Hillary Clinton. Every associate justice Kerry named would be cut from the same bolt of cloth as Warren, Brennan, Douglas, Blackmun, and Ginsburg. Should Kerry win, the courts will remain a battering ram of social revolution and the conservative drive in Congress to restrict the jurisdiction of all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, will die an early death.
I cannot endorse the candidate of Michael Moore, George Soros, and Barbra Streisand, nor endorse a course of action that would put this political windsurfer into the presidency, no matter how deep our disagreement with the fiscal, foreign, immigration, and trade policies of George W. Bush.
As Barry Goldwater said in 1960, in urging conservatives to set aside their grievances and unite behind the establishment party of Eisenhower, Rockefeller, and Lodge, the Republican Party is our home. It is our only hope. If an authentic conservatism rooted in the values of faith, family, community, and country is ever again to become the guiding light of national policy, it will have to come through a Republican administration.
The Democratic Party of Kerry, Edwards, Clinton & Clinton is a lost cause: secularist, socialist, and statist to the core. What of the third-party candidates? While Ralph Nader is a man of principle and political courage, he is of the populist Left. We are of the Right.
Buchanan concludes with a rallying cry for passionate dissenters everywhere:
There is a final reason I support George W. Bush. A presidential election is a Hatfield-McCoy thing, a tribal affair. No matter the quarrels inside the family, when the shooting starts, you come home to your own. When the Redcoats approached New Orleans to sunder the Union and Jackson was stacking cotton bales and calling for help from any quarter, the pirate Lafitte wrote to the governor of Louisiana to ask permission to fight alongside his old countrymen. “The Black Sheep wants to come home,†Lafitte pleaded.
It̢۪s time to come home.
Buchanan’s gift for rhetoric is unsurpassed. It’s a shame that it’s so seldom used for good these days. But, as with Lafitte, one doesn’t turn away help when the battle’s raging. Welcome home, Pat, even though we all know your visit will be short.
Update: Leopold Stotch notes in the comments below that, “This endorsement will seem insignificant to many, but Buchanan has a strong and loyal following — which means his support for Bush could translate into several thousand votes in key states.” Quite right. Buchanan has already demonstrated the ability to draw heavily among elderly Jewish voters in Florida, for example.
