He ran in 1996 as a New Jersey horse-country libertarian. He mocked the religious right, refused to talk the talk on abortion. This time out, he s campaigning as if he were reared in the Bible Belt, not the manse country of the Garden State. He s gotten religion on abortion, and he s come out for a new gimmick to push prayer into public schools. This is an idea worthy of the propagandists of North Korea or the old Soviet Union.
Authenticity is much in demand, but short in supply.
John McCain, the fierce and earnest advocate of campaign finance reform, pockets gobs of cash from the special interests he decries, claiming he has to play by the current rules of the corrupt game. Buchanan say what you want about his hateful rhetoric and demagogic tribalism used to be, at least, an authentic ideas man, one who preached absolutist and fundamentalist values. Now he s just another situationalist. He does, alas, appear much too eager to carpet bomb North Korea. With all his hubris, there s not much room for hypocrisy.