Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 'Thanks, Pat' A regard for the social graces would dictate that president- elect Bill Clinton's stack of thank-you notes include a special compliment to the one Republican, besides George Bush, who con- tributed substantially to the Democrats' recapture of the White House this year. That person, by acclamation, is Pat Buchanan. To be sure, at the end it was Clinton and Ross Perot who delivered the finishing strokes to the Bush administration. But to give credit where it's due, it was Pat Buchanan who softened up the president early on and, through his pounding and chisel- ing, did the most to weaken the Bush presidency by defining it as a failure. Sure, Buchanan made nasty in Houston against the Clintons; everybody knows he can be a nasty man. But only the worst kind of Democratic ingrate would forget that it was Buchanan who first flooded the airwaves with the message that George Bush had turned his back and walked away from people who'd placed their trust and confidence in him. Remember these words?: "It was not some liberal Democrat who declared, 'Read my lips, no new taxes,' then broke his word." That, of course, was Pat Buchanan talking about the president last December, as he entered the Republican primaries against the incumbent. "We Republicans can no longer say it is all the liberals' fault," he continued. "It was not Congress alone who set off the greatest spending spree in 60 years, running up the largest deficits in modern his- tory." Buchanan later ridiculed the president as "Marco Polo" for his frequent foreign trips - pure leaven for George Bush's negatives. And lest we forget, it was Buchanan who gave Democrats some of their best lines this fall. Sample: Bush "presided over the greatest explosion of government spending and taxation in histo- ry." Or how about Buchanan's put-down of Dan Quayle when the vice president rushed to his boss's defense? "I don't want to be charged with child abuse." But most of all, it was the basic Buchanan message about George Bush's indifference to the nation's economic plight and his ques- tion, "Can we afford four more years of broken promises?" that helped many voters who were once considered safely in the Repub- lican camp to break with George Bush. By the time the GOP pri- maries ended, nearly 3 million voters had decided that a politi- cal neophyte was a better bet than their president. Buchanan used more than unkind words to sap the Bush presiden- cy. The Bush-Quayle primary committee spent more than $37 million through August, a good portion of which was used to guarantee victories over Buchanan in more than 30 Republican contests. Bush, who earlier had never uttered Buchanan's name, was forced to take him on in a bunch of early GOP primaries, diverting pre- cious cash and attention from his Democratic challengers, who wisely used the respite to get their act together. But literally nothing Pat Buchanan had done up until that moment quite readied the Democrats for the magnificent gift he bestowed upon them in the Houston Astrodome last August. It was supposed to be George Bush's moment, the time for his revival and redefin- ition - his convention, his turn. In an effort to show the right wing that Bush and Buchanan were still pals and ideological soul-mates despite their dustup in the primaries, a prime time slot on opening night was given to Buchanan, who in turn delivered himself of The Speech. It is hard to imagine a more galvanizing event in this political season. By the time that bit of ugliness was over, apathetic Democrats, pro-choice Republican women, people of all colors and religious persuasions, feminists, gays and lesbians, angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven had accepted it as their bounden duty and service to separate George Bush from the White House for the rest of his natural life. (And still, there are some doubting Democrats who believe there is no God.) All that is why the president-elect is in Buchanan's debt. So if not for himself then at least for those who believed it really was time for the Bush administration to go, how about a note to Buchanan saying, "Thanks, Pat, we really needed that."