Judicial Watch - Because no one is above the law!

An Interview With Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan has been a senior advisor to many presidents, syndicated columnist and founding father of three of the most enduring political talk shows in television history -- NBC's McLaughlin Group, CNN's Capitol Gain, and Crossfire. He's also the author of five books and his latest one, "The Death of The West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Nation, Our Country and Civilization." It's a blockbuster, number seven on the New York Time's best seller list, and number four on Amazon.com's list. Tom Fitton and Larry Klayman recently visited with Mr. Buchanan to talk about his new book and Judicial Watch’s efforts to clean up corruption. An edited transcript follows.

TOM FITTON: So, Pat you’ve got a new book out there, and it's got quite an intriguing title (The Death of the West). What can folks expect to find in it that isn’t normally presented by the establishment class in this town?

PAT BUCHANAN: Well, quite simply, there's not a single western country in which the birth rate will enable it to survive in its present form through the middle of this century. Every single western country is dying. Every single European country is dying, except for one: Moslem Albania. In my research, I couldn't find a single western country with a birthrate that will enable it to stay alive through the end of the century, and I couldn't find a single Islamic country where the birth rate wasn't exploding.

FITTON: When you say dying, what do you mean? They're going to be outvoted in democratic elections?

BUCHANAN: No, they're just dying out. European peoples in their countries. Let's take an example in Europe. In the middle of this century, Spain and Italy are each going to lose about 17 or 18 million. They will just disappear. I think, for western civilization unless they must turn the birthrate around. But it's been going down for 25-30 years, so I don't see that happening.

KLAYMAN: What’s the solution? It seems to me that it has a program to increase birth rates by the native populations is probably something that's not in the offing, but it seems inculcating folks as they come in with western values and civilization, might be something that is achievable.

BUCHANAN: The best recommendation I can make is really to a moratorium on legal immigration, secondly halt illegal immigration cold even if it means putting American troops on the border. I don't think it would mean that, but if we have to, I would. Second, repatriate people who broke in line and broke the law and broke into our country, but next get the melting pot working again by teaching children from first grade on the English language by immersion, teach 'em American History in every single grade and year, teach 'em about their country and its institutions and its history and its heroes and so that, as they grow up, we can all become again one nation and one people.

KLAYMAN: How do you size up the current administration and the way they're approaching this dilemma.

BUCHANAN: I think Mr. Bush is all wet on it. He was about to give a massive amnesty which basically rewards illegality, it rewards massive lawbreaking with citizenship.

KLAYMAN: And in the meantime, the terrorists are amongst us. I mean, we've let them in and they live amongst us.

BUCHANAN: The enemy is inside the gates for the first time since Andy Jackson drove the British out of New Orleans.

FITTON: On the subject of the Bush Adminstration, Pat, what do you think of the recent controversy surrounding Vice President Cheney's task force? They're refusing to release any documents related to it, partially due to the possible political fallout. They’ve already admitted that Enron executives were in attendance.

BUCHANAN: I think if the Congress wants the documents, the Congress should sue him or subpoena the documents and take it to the Supreme Court.

FITTON: If it were a fight between Congress, the officers, say, a Senate subpoena and, and the White House, where would you come down?

BUCHANAN: Now, I don't know the history of the court decisions as well as you fellows, but I would say this: if Congress subpoenaed them, or a legitimate committee of Congress subpoenaed them, then the President, if he's going to defy them, should take it to the Supreme Court and abide by the Supreme Court decision. Let me also say this about Enron. I've been here a long time. I was in the Watergate White House and I was in the Iran Contra White House. My thinking from everything I've seen, is that the Bush people dropped this guy, Lay, like a cheap date. You know, bam, right out of the car, you know? The guy gave them all this money and no kiss goodnight.

KLAYMAN: But you know, Pat, there's an interesting flip side of that. It's not necessarily doing something, but it may be not doing something because once the government knew what was going on, there was a delay before the criminal investigation was started. I mean, do you think that if you and I were in the situation of Lay, they wouldn't have been busting through our door the next day?

BUCHANAN: That reminds me of a story that relates to one of your cases. After the '96 campaign, I went to Paris and they had a party for me. Henry Kissinger, who I’d worked with in the White House, came up to me and said, "Patrick, do you think if they found us with 866 FBI files in our White House, we could have gotten away with attributing it to bureaucratic error?" You know, the Nixon White House, and we just howled, because, you know, Chuck Colson, I think, went to prison for one of 'em. One file. That is an absurdity.

KLAYMAN: We have our report, The Judicial Watch 2002 State of The Union report, you can get it off our internet site at JudicialWatch.org and, regrettably, we have to go through the performance of this Bush Administration when it comes to enforcing the rule of law in a political context and it hasn't been a very good record. We had hoped that they would be our partner, but they haven't shown that.

BUCHANAN: Well, let me ask you, why are they continuing, and basically defending the Clintonite bureaucracy?

KLAYMAN: It's identical.

FITTON: They're still defending the FBI files case you mentioned earlier from the Clinton Administration. They're saying that there was no violation of the Privacy Act when they sent over 800 or thousands of FBI files.

BUCHANAN: Why are they doing it?

KLAYMAN: Well, I think they're doing it because it's institutional courtesy, so to speak. What Bill O'Reilly says, "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. We're part of the elite here in Washington and, frankly, you Democrats who now control the Senate, if you don't go after me in any serious way, you can have your hearings and get TV time and whatever, but don't really draw any blood, we won't go after you." I think they've reached an agreement.

BUCHANAN: They've reached a deal, huh?

FITTON: The corruption issue was presumably one of the reasons George Bush got elected in the first place, at least that's what Al Gore says. Yet, Republicans seem to me are in the habit of refusing to follow through on issues that have popular support, especially among their own supporters. The immigration issue you talk about at length in your book is a good example. Why is that, in your view?

BUCHANAN: That’s why I'm not a Republican anymore.

FITTON: What's the political calculus they're making?

BUCHANAN: Well, the political calculus with immigration is they're afraid that they'll be called names if they enforce the laws of the United States. They're fearful that they will lose the Hispanic vote if they crack down on immigration across the border from Mexico and so they sit there and let this country be invaded. Knowing I was going to lose the election, I preferred Bush to Gore, but on issue after issue, I simply no longer agree with the leadership class in the Republican Party. And so I'm not going to defend them.