Dwight D. Eisenhower shows his admiration for General Robert E. Lee

General Robert E. Lee was… one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation.  He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle.  Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God.  Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history. 

From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul.  Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained. 

Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960

(As quoted by Pat Buchanan, "After Lee, It's Lincoln's Turn," December 18, 2020.)

Confederate Generals Lee and Jackson
1936-1937

Pat Buchanan on Lincoln's crimes against native Americans

A renaming committee of the San Francisco school district wants the Great Emancipator’s name removed from Lincoln High School for crimes against Native Americans. 

Our 16th president ordered the Navajo tribe off their Arizona lands into New Mexico, resulting in a forced march of 450 miles. He approved the hanging of 38 Dakota Indians who had fought in the Dakota War in Minnesota in 1862, the largest mass execution in U.S. history. 

Lincoln’s Homestead and Pacific Railway acts led to the loss of large swaths of tribal lands.

~ Patrick Buchanan, "After Lee, It's Lincoln's Turn," LewRockwell.com, December 18, 2020

Indian Hunting Buffalo
1898

Pat Buchanan on the toppling of statues

Portland’s statue of George Washington, the Father of his Country and the first president of the United States, the greatest man of his age, was toppled and desecrated.

[...]

In Portland also, a statue of Thomas Jefferson that stood at the entrance of a high school named for the author of the Declaration of Independence was torn down. In New York, city council members demanded that the Jefferson statue in city hall be removed.

Anticipating what was coming, the New York Museum of Natural History got the permission of city hall to have the giant statue of Theodore Roosevelt astride a horse, flanked by an African and a Native American, removed from the front of the museum.

What was wrong with the 80-year-old statue?

Said museum president Ellen Futter, the problem is its “hierarchical composition.” Only Roosevelt was mounted. With Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt all under attack, three of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore are now repudiated by the left.

Our Taliban have moved on, past Columbus and the Confederate generals, to dislodge and dishonor the Founding Fathers and their patriot sons.

~ Patrick J. Buchanan, "How Long Will the Vandals Run Amok?," LewRockwell.com, June 23, 2020

Pat Buchanan: Trump avoiding missile strike on Iran a "defining moment for his presidency"

Visualizing 150 Iranian dead from a missile strike that he had ordered, President Donald Trump recoiled and canceled the strike, a brave decision and defining moment for his presidency. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence had signed off on the strike on Iran as the right response to Tehran’s shootdown of a U.S. Global Hawk spy plane over the Gulf of Oman. The U.S. claims the drone was over international waters. Tehran says it was in Iranian territory. But while the loss of a $100 million drone is no small matter, no American pilot was lost, and retaliating by killing 150 Iranians would appear to be a disproportionate response.

[...]

We appear to be at a turning point in the Trump presidency. Does he want to run in 2020 as the president who led us into war with Iran, or as the anti-interventionist president who began to bring U.S. troops home from that region that has produced so many wars?

~ Patrick J. Buchanan, "Trump: War President or Anti-Interventionist?," LewRockwell.com, June 26, 2019

Pat Buchanan on Ronald Reagan protecting the auto industry

Bush may believe he has sinned against free-market principles, but he is following the path of his great free-market predecessor. Ronald Reagan, too, was not prepared to see Japan take down the U.S. auto industry, or steel industry, or computer chip industry, or Harley-Davidson.

Believing Japan was dumping to destroy U.S. companies, Reagan put patriotism before ideology and imposed quotas on Japanese imports. He, too, was castigated by the same commentariat that is berating Bush.

~ Patrick J. Buchanan, "George Bush, Protectionist," Townhall.com, December 26, 2008

Pat Buchanan on the auto bailout

Averting Chapter 11 for GM, which could lead to liquidation of the greatest manufacturing company in U.S. history -- cutting America out of the premier consumer market of the 21st century -- makes sense not only from the standpoint of politics, but economics, as well.

~ Patrick J. Buchanan, "George Bush, Protectionist," Townhall.com, December 26, 2008

Pat Buchanan on Winston Churchill

Churchill was the indispensable war leader who held on until Hitler committed his fatal blunders, invading Russia and declaring war on America.  He was also the man most responsible for Britain's fall from mistress of the greatest empire since Rome to an island dependency of the United States.

About the character of the Bolshevik regime in 1919 and Nazi regime in 1933, Churchill had been right. About British rearmament, he had been right.  But Churchill was also often disastrously wrong.

He led the West down a moral incline to its own barbarism by imposing a starvation blockade on Germany in 1914 and launching air terror against open cities in 1940.  These policies brought death to hundreds of thousands of women and children.

He was behind the greatest British military blunders in two wars: the Dardanelles disaster of 1915 and the Norwegian fiasco of 1940 that brought down Chamberlain and vaulted Churchill to power.

While excoriating Chamberlain for appeasing Hitler, Churchill's own appeasement of Stalin lasted longer and was even more egregious and costly, ensuring that the causes for which Britain sacrificed the empire – the freedom of Poland and preventing a hostile power from dominating Europe – were lost.

~ Patrick J. Buchanan, "Churchill’s Colossal Blunders," LewRockwell.com, May 24, 2008

2009