I first started paying attention to Patrick Buchanan back in 1990, when I read his bio-up-til-then, Right From the Beginning. In that book, Buchanan boasted how his overbearing father had instilled authoritarian beliefs into him from the cradle and - Buchanan was proud of this - he had never passed through any questioning stage of life that would make his views truly his own. There was almost nothing the man could have said about himself that would have caused me to respect him less.
Just to reinforce my disdain, Crooks and Liars has a video of Buchanan proudly declaring his contribution to America - making the Republican Party beholden to the two most divisive elements in the nation, racists and religious fundamentalists.
BUCHANAN: I‘ve helped put together two coalitions, one for Reagan, where it was basically Evangelical Christians and all these protestants down there who didn‘t like a lot of folks also. You‘ve got to bring them in. Also with Nixon, we brought the whole Wallace movement, whatever you say about it—at one point it was at 23 percent. He got 13 percent of the vote.
WALSH: That was a racist movement.
BUCHANAN: You call them all that.
Well, what would you call the followers of man whose most famous slogan was "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"? Hmmm?
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