Marcus Epstein

June 06, 2008

In my review of John Lukacs review of Pat Buchanan’s The Unnecessary War in the American Conservative, I wrote, 

All of Pat?s book have been savaged by both the liberal and ?conservative? establishment, and he has weathered the storm. In the past, they were able to preface their attacks with ?Even Bill Buckley?? Now they can say ?Even his own magazine??

According to plan, James Kirchick of Ron Paul Letters fame opens his piece “From Pitchfork Pat to Brownshirt Buchanan” in The New Republic by using Lukacs’s review to go after Pat:

In the latest issue of The American Conservative, the Old Right magazine founded by Taki Theodoracopulos and Pat Buchanan, historian John Lukacs reviews Buchanan’s latest book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World (yes, it’s actually called that). The review is absolutely devastating, and the least that can be said of Buchanan is that he would exemplify the sort of editorial freedom in which a writer could compare him unfavorably to David Irving within the pages of his own magazine (that Buchanan might fancy a favorable comparison to Irving is beside the point). I know few editors who would publish a harsh critique of a book authored by someone on his masthead.

For good measure, Kirchick adds, “the greatest indictment of Buchanan … came from one of his mentors, Bill Buckley … In his magisterial, book-length essay, In Search of Anti-Semitism.”

I rest my case.