The last politician to quote Pat Buchanan was Richard Nixon when Pat was penning speeches in a back room of the West Wing, but he didn’t give him credit — at least not in public. Sarah Palin has no hesitation giving credit where credit is due, however:
WALLACE: I know that three years is an eternity in politics. But how hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played — and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day. Say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do.
Really Sarah? Buchanan? War in Iran? Seriously? There are three distinct hooks we can hang our critical hat on in this one simple (for her) answer.
Note the cynical, almost casually callous way she invokes the notion of a war with a nation that has committed zero acts of aggression towards us, never in (modern) history started a war despite its bluster against the West and Israel, a sovereign nation of 74 million people, twice as many as California, and almost as large as Alaska. She thinks this is a political winner? Now? In the middle of two wars on either side of Iran? You and whose army Sarah? Never forget, war is just a game to neocons.
And that brings me to the second point. She has no original ideas, no thoughts of her own. Small wonder she is the darling of people like Bill Kristol. She’s an empty vessel, much like George W. Bush, so adverse to learning, to understanding how tings really work with no appreciation for history whatsoever that the warmongering cultists at the America Enterprise Institution can easily propagate her brain with tough sounding sloganeering containing little or no substance or foundation in reality. Turning our foreign policy over to the whims of Israel’s militant wing is the thematic backbone of neocon dogma. It’s like she’s the long lost third daughter of Dick Cheney.
Last … Pat Buchanan? Really? You’re admitting you crib notes from one of the most notorious xenophobes in American politics? A guy who ran for president more times than Jesse Jackson and lost in such spectacular fashion three cycles in a row? That Pat Buchanan, the paleoconservative Nixonite, culture warrior who, by the way, was one of the lonely few on the right who opposed the invasion of Iraq you incessantly cheer-lead for? Good strategy that.
This all assumes that Palin herself would advocate a war on Iraq if she were running for office. Or is she being almost too clever by half? She ain’t, and never will be a serious candidate. She’s a flirt, and will milk that to sell her brand, but that’s all. I’ll take her at her word that she is offering advice to President Obama, advice from someone dedicated to his failure, hoping he’s as stupid as she is and do something guaranteed to cut his term in office short — just like she did to her own stint as a chief executive.
