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Right from the Beginning
by Patrick J. Buchanan
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$14.95 |
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$12.78 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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$2.17 (14%) |
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Paperback
Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc.
"Warm and self-deprecating, surprisingly witty, honest to a fault about his political views...Mr. Buchanan has a secret weapon: Charm." --The New York Times
| Customer Reviews: |
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| A Great Autobiography |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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"Right from the Beginning" is the enjoyable autobiography of Pat Buchanan. His account of growing up in the middle decades of the twentieth century in Washington, D.C. is a page-turner, and he stresses how growing up in the pre-Sixties era was much different from doing so afterward. Some of the anecdotes that Buchanan relays in the book are laugh-out-loud funny.
The book continues with Buchanan's path through college and graduate school to his days as an editorial writer in St. Louis. He tells the story of his hiring by Richard Nixon.
The closing section of the book concerns the political situation as Buchanan saw it when the book was published in 1988. He believed that the moral climate of the country was far more important than the state of the economy, and was an unceasing advocate, not of détente, but of the defeat of the Soviet Union.
Buchanan also has one of the best writing styles ever, and the fact that this book is still in print twenty years after it was published is indicative of how good it is.
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| One of a kind |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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The man is brilliant and an extremely talented writer and TV commentator. Another great asset this author has is a sense of humor. He does not take himself seriously. He is loyal to his friends in good times and bad. He does not apologize for his ethnic heritage,his deep love of his native land, his deep religious faith, his Jesuit education. He is a well rounded person. I am always impressed with his TV appearances in that he never raises his voice or tries to speak over another guest. His manners are genuine. We need more Pat Buchanans!
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| Pat's best yet. Before he became enamored with stupid 'judeo-Christain' gibberish |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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A very insightful and readable biography
of American perpetual Presidential Candi-
date Pat Buchanan, who used to be very
good on the McLaughlin Group. Buchanan
got my vote in 2000 when he ran on the
Reform Party tix and I was 4th District
Delegate in Ches., VA. Buchanan's troops
marched off with the matching funds, Buch-
anan started a silly Newsletter and a new
Third political party of hacks and started
using that stupid 'judeo-Christian' moniker
again. I threw in the towel on him after
trying to talk sense into his brainwashed
followers. His sorry Newsletter was always
late and I ordered a bumper sticker from
his website store and got his Amer. 1st
Party Newsletter instead. What a bunch of
idiots he has working for him! Poor old
guy. His follow-up books are not very good.
They all leave out the United Nations /N.W.O
connection to everything. How the mighty have
fallen. I can't beleive a man this intelligent
is involved in the Knights of Malta and his
heroes are Reagan [one of the worst Presidents
of all time] and Nixon [one of the worst men
ever in the Whitehouse. Can you believe that
Nixon had Joe Namath on his enemies list? JOE
NAMATH?!] What could have been...Sigh.
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| If only this man had been president |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Pat Buchanan has been labeled everything from dangerous to nazi. This book proves that he is just the opposite: a strongly principled man who wants what's best for his country. Buchanan explains his conservative beliefs within the framework of growing up the son of a devout Catholic scrapper and the student of tough Jesuit priests. Although he spent much of his childhood raising hell, his upbringing was about morals and care of the soul. In Buchanan's time, care of the soul meant defending American freedom from the encroachment of Leninist communism. He didn't hate the Russians, but the system of government that was devouring half the world's freedom. To the left-leaning critic who is undoubtedly screaming, "what about America devouring the other half": you're preaching to the choir. Buchanan has consistently asserted that we shouldn't be meddling in other countries' affairs. He recalls traveling to Japan and concluding that we were wrong to indiscriminately A-bomb the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He goes on to say that our president prodded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor so that he'd have an excuse to enter the war. That's hardly the voice of an imperialistic interventionist. Nor is Buchanan a cut-throat capitalist. At the end of the book, he talks about an America of morals being infinitely more desireable than an America of laurel-resting decadence. He observes that democracy is by itself an empty vessel that can be filled with evil intentions just as easily as it can with good intentions. The moral fiber of our people, says Buchanan, is what ultimately defines us. Compare our grandparents' generation to ours; Buchanan's point is painfully obvious. To recapture our country, Buchanan insists we recapture education, freedom of religion (rather than tacitly mandated secularism or cowtowing agnosticism), and the Supreme Court. No arguments from me. Some people have speculated that Buchanan is a closet white supremacist, an accusation which this book shoots down. Having grown up with two black maids, having recoiled at the treatment of a southern black man who couldn't enter a whites-only restaurant to mail a letter, and having a brother who speaks of dog-tagging an equal number of dead white and black Americans in Vietman, Buchanan clearly has no time for racial discrimination. He writes about welfare depriving black Americans of their dignity, and even suggests that an ammendment prohibiting racial discrimination be added to the US Constitution. Other than the pleasure of glimpsing into the life of a man I greatly respect, I took from this book many lessons about where our new and supposedly more advanced society fails. By deemphasizing personal responsibility and blaming our problems on society, we're creating a generation of excuse-makers and softies. By acquiescing to anybody's ideas and summarily treating all ideas as equal, we replace values with anything-goes. When people don't have something to believe in, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything. There are many more nuggets in this book.
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| Insightful Autobiography |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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Buchanan is straightforward in telling why he thinks what he thinks in this intimate portrayal of his developmental years. In the 1950s Washington, D. C. was not the metropolis it is today. Buchanan grew up in the nation's capital during a time of innocence and traditional family values. He describes the cultural influences he had in that era and how strong Christian values established his worldview. The impact individuals had on him, such as his dad, are discussed as he talks about the influence being more by example than rhetoric. He mentions sensing change in the air in the nation's collective viewpoint while in graduate school at Columbia University. Buchanan is a gifted writer. Books like this affirm the essence of what has become cliche, i.e., that truth is often more interesting than fiction.
Buchanan connects his personality with something larger than self, however as he links his life with the nation. He discusses where the country has been and the direction in which it is headed. He contrasts that with the social consensus found during the days of his boyhood. One senses that he feels that as others have passed the torch from one generation to the next, he feels responsible for making sure generations following him inherit a nation for which to be thankful.
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