Every time I see Pat Buchanan on C.N.N. I get the creeps. He hates Hispanics although they are mostly very pious adherents of his religion, Roman Catholicism. Some day a prince of the church will rebuke him and deny him communion. He also hates the Jews and Israel, the state that incarnates the nation which first gave substance to the idea of peoplehood itself. And, of course, as a corollary of this antipathy he has enormous passion for their enemies. The Palestinians, for example. But his weirdest soft-spot is for Nazis, particular Nazis, the most vicious Nazis. Pat has a strong stomach. How strong is his C.N.N. audience?
Like the war criminal John Demjanjuk. Buchanan has compared Demjanjuk to Jesus Christ, twice in one article: He is a "sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany's sins." The spirit behind his persecution "...is the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago." Buchanan has also called the butcher of Sobibor, from which only a tiny number emerged alive, "An American Dreyfus." Sacrilege in the first two instances; nuttiness in the third.
Two articles make a devastating case against Buchanan. No, not as a war criminal. But as an apologist for war criminals. The first is by Michael Moynihan of Reason Magazine. The second is on Ron Radosh's Friday blog.