He's not liked on this board, but FYI, plus additional comment by yours truly.

[Ithaca-37]

And I'm referring to Pat Buchanan, who responds to a Capitol Hill pundit suggesting that Obama might attack Iran to gain traction for a 2012 re-election.  Buchanan makes a hash of the suggestion (see below), but he fails to grasp what I consider to be the most powerful argument:  It's quite common for hard leftists to quietly admire hard dictators, and in that spirit, I'm convinced that Obama genuinely admires the Iranians in general and Ach-My-Dinner-Jacket in particular.

http://townhall.com/columnists/PatBuchanan/2010/11/02/broders_brainstorm/page/full/

Pat Buchanan
Broder's Brainstorm
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Sign-Up  Though Obama "may lose control of Congress," says columnist David Broder, he "can still storm back to win a second term in 2012."

How does Broder suggest Obama go about it?

"Look back at FDR and the Great Depression. What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II."

Conceding the prospect of a new war is "frightening," Broder goes on to list the rich rewards of Obama's emulating FDR.

"With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, (Obama) can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve...

"(T)he nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history."

Cynicism aside, what is wrong with Broder's analysis?

First, how exactly are "preparations for war" on Iran going to improve our economy when two actual wars costing $1 trillion have left us in the deepest recession since the 1930s?

Were those wars just not big enough?

If war is good for the economy, why is this nation, at war for a decade, growing at 2 percent, while China, which invests in rogue regimes rather than bomb them, is booming?

Moreover, any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be carried out by air and missile strikes from ships and planes already in the U.S. arsenal. We would not need the tens of thousands of ships, tanks, guns, and planes we needed in WWII, or the 12 million men under arms.

The first result of a U.S. strike would be to pull Iran's oil off the world market. If Iran responded by mining the Gulf or sinking a tanker, oil would go to $300 a barrel and gasoline to $10 a gallon. Does Broder think that would give a nice boost to the U.S. and world economy?

Japan's attack at Pearl Harbor united us in rage and resolve. Should we attack Iran's nuclear facilities, when its nuclear program is supported by both sides of that divided country, we would likely unite Iranians in patriotic anger and convince any doubters that Teheran must acquire nuclear weapons to deter us.

We would then have to invade Iran to win the war, as that would be the only sure way to remove a regime that would be hell-bent on revenge through terror and every other means.

Memo to Broder: We don't have the troops to invade Iran, which is three times as large as Iraq.

And as Obama's "preparations for war" are under way, how does Broder propose we defend our diplomats and civilians in Lebanon, who are a cab ride from Hezbollah in south Beirut?

Broder says, "Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century."

But a threat to whom?

Iran's next-door neighbor Turkey does not see Iran as a threat. Indeed, Turkey's prime minister got Teheran to agree to trade half its low-enriched uranium to the West for fuel rods for a reactor that makes medical isotopes. It was America that slapped away the offer.

Iraq's leaders make regular treks to Teheran for advice in forming a new government. Our man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, admits to getting "bags of cash" from Iran. Syria has excellent relations with Teheran. Lebanon just hosted President Ahmadinejad.

If the neighbors can live with Iran, why are we, with 5,000 nuclear weapons, 6,000 miles away, so fearful?

Israel calls Iran "an existential threat."

But Israel has 200 nukes and the planes, subs and missiles to deliver them, while U.N. inspectors claim Iran has not diverted any of its low-enriched uranium for conversion to weapons grade.

Should it do so, say U.S. officials, we would have a year's notice before Iran could even test a device, let alone build a bomb.

We are told Ahmadinejad is a madman, a religious fanatic, a Hitler who would die happy, even if Iran were incinerated, if only he could explode a nuclear bomb on Israel or the United States.

But when Israel attacked Iran's ally Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2008, Ahmadinejad did nothing. Does that sound like Hitler?

When was the last time Iran started a war with anyone?

America has deterred Stalin, Mao and Kim Jong-Il, all men with nuclear arsenals and far more frightening than Ahmadinejad, who is well into his second term, unpopular, with an economy in shambles. Moreover, Ahmadinejad does not make the war-or-peace decision for Iran.

If Obama prepares for war and Iran refuses to back down, how many U.S. dead and wounded would Broder consider a fair price to pay for a second term for his "enduringly superior" leader?

[Rubystars]

It's not that we "don't like him". He's a Nazi and we HATE Nazis.

[mord]

I hate the Huffington 'Bolshevik' Post  but here is a good article on Oberfuhrer Buchanan 





http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/12/pat-buchanans-holocaust-d_n_202224.html 








 

On these pages today, Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel of the World Jewish Congress and adjunct professor of law at Cornell re-posts an article that previously ran in the New York Daily News, describing the extent to which Pat Buchanan is "enabling Holocaust deniers."

    In a March 17, 1990, syndicated column, Buchanan wrote that it would have been impossible for Jews to die in the gas chambers of the Treblinka death camp, and referred to a "so-called Holocaust survivor syndrome," which he described as involving "group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics."

In another column, Rosensaft notes that Buchanan once likened convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk to Jesus Christ:

    In his syndicated column of April 17, 2009, Buchanan not only called Demjanjuk "the sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany's sins," but he wrote that the "spirit" behind the U.S. Justice Department's efforts to bring Demjanjuk to justice is "the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago."

Rosensaft also cites the presence of an ongoing discussion of the Holocaust on Buchanan.org, which is replete with both denialists ("I would like to see some rebuttal from Holocaust believers. Let's see some pictures of those gas chambers or those big cremation ovens. I'll tell you right now -- THEY DON'T EXIST. The same blinded people that believe that the Germans intentionally killed Jews -- also believe the myth of the Anne Frank Diary.") and, frankly, Nazi sympathizers ("Regarding Corrie ten Boom, the heroic Dutch Christian woman who risked her life to help Jews during World War II...People need to realize that what the Ten Booms did was engage in an illegal activity helping hide people and support the 'resistance movement.').

All of which leads to to this question:

    Two years ago, Don Imus was unceremoniously dumped by MSNBC after making racially insensitive remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.


    Buchanan's sponsorship of a Holocaust denial forum is at least as offensive. Isn't it?

When I spoke to Rosensaft about the matter this morning, he made it clear that it was an issue of hypocrisy: "If these had been the comments of Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly, there's no doubt that MSNBC would have criticized them for it...Keith Olbermann would have made Buchanan the 'Worst Person in the World.'" I think that there's little doubt that this is true. Rosensaft added, "If this were about another nationality or ethnicity, it would be different. I can't imagine that Chris Matthews or Mike Barnicle would stay silent in the face of slurs directed at Irish-Americans, or Joe Scarborough at southern Americans, or Mika Brzezinski at Polish Catholics."

An excellent point! It's worth remembering that a week after Don Imus insulted the Rutgers Womens Basketball team by calling them "nappy-headed hos" Steve Capus of MSNBC took the extraordinary step of cutting ties with Imus and his show. Yet Buchanan's support for Holocaust denialism is ever-present, ongoing, and -- as his Demjanjuk piece indicates -- very strongly stated. Yet NBC has done diddly-poo in response. Perhaps they should!

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

I can guarantee you that Fag Buchanus (ys"vz) is at least as pro-Iran as Barack Hitler Osama, whom he voted for in 2008.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

PS: Mord, don't forget that Buchanus is likely a butt-blasting homosexual.