CNN's Wolf Blitzer entered the Situation Room to talk about a provocatively written book with its author. Not Scott McClellan! No, no. Pat Buchanan! Buchanan's new book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World is about how Churchill, uhm...fought a war with Hitler that was terribly unnecessary and that bad things have flowed ever forth from that terrible decision. See, by Buchanan's reckoning, Hitler was totally anti-Semitic. But if Britain had just let Hitler take Poland, instead of giving them a guarantee of protection, Nazi Germany would have never expanded their aggression westward, and they would have only killed some of the Jews, which hardly sounds like a Holocaust, now, does it?
The reasoning is straight-up crazy town delusional, with Buchanan suggesting that Hitler's toxic anti-Semitism can be analyzed as a thing apart from his genocidal impulses, and which relies on a revisionist telling of the Wannsee Conference in which the Final Solution was motivated at a time when "Hitler was looking defeat in the face." Buchanan basically believes that "What Hitler did was a monstrous crime...But it was a war crime. Had there been no war there would have been no Holocaust in my judgment."
Provocative stuff! So naturally, Wolf Blitzer held off asking Buchanan anything about his loon-faced, wince-worthy nonsense until he was almost "out of time." Instead, Blitzer sought comparisons between Buchanan and Scott McClellan, let Buchanan say some absolutely incorrect things about Iraq ("Maliki has taken down Sadr in Basra and in Sadr City.") without mentioning that, in fact, the opposite was true, and even field a question from an "i-Reporter" who was wondering what Buchanan thought about the idea of forming a North American Union, similar to the EU (which, if you have even a dim awareness of who Pat Buchanan is and what he stands for, ensures that you already know the answer to that question).
Anyway, Blitzer finally got around to challenging Buchanan on his weirdo Hilter apologia, but since nobody at CNN actually restrained Buchanan and forcibly trepanned him in order to release whatever pressure's been crushing his cerebrum all these years, the segment ended with the certainty that Buchanan would continue to shamble across America spouting his braindead vampire ideas, the end.
[WATCH.]
BLITZER: Joining us now from our studios in New York is Pat Buchanan. He is the author of a brand-new book entitled Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Pat, thank you for joining us. You make the case there would have been no Hitler, no World War II, would have been no Holocaust albeit, in effect, for Winston Churchill. What's the point?
BUCHANAN: Well the point of this is obviously Hitler came out of World War I and the tearing apart of Germany. What I am saying is, had Britain not given an insane war guarantee to Poland and then go on the war on behalf of a Poland it could not save, I don't think there would have been any war in Europe. I don't think there would have been a war against the Western democracy. At the very least, all the Jews of Western Europe would have survived. That's basically one of the cases we make.
BLITZER: Here's what you write on page 421. Let me read it to you. "Rather than follow the wisdom of conservative men like Kennen, Eisenhower and Reagan, we began to emulate every folly of imperial Britain in her plunge from power. With all our braying about being the indispensible nation and 'bring 'em on' braggadoccio, we exhibited an imperial hubris the whole world came to detest." You're implying that the same mistakes that Churchill made, you suggest he made between World War I and World War II, President Bush has been making now?
BUCHANAN: That's right, Wolf. I'm saying basically the blunders the British made in alienating allies, in pushing enemies together or rivals together and turning them into enemies, in cutting off alliances, giving war guarantees they could not defend, the United States has been emulating itself, just has Britain gave a foolish war guarantee to Poland it could not honor and did not honor in the end, the United States is giving war guarantees to Poland, the Baltic republics, the NATO war guarantee to Ukraine, and to Georgia. Secondly, the United States is engaging in wars I think are unnecessary wars.
BLITZER: You speak specifically about the war in Iraq which you think has been a horrible blunder.
BUCHANAN: I think the war in Iraq was quite clearly an unnecessary war. Saddam Hussein did not attack us, did not threaten us, did not want war with us, and we went to war with him to deprive him of weapons he did not have.
BLITZER: You would agree --
BUCHANAN: It was an unnecessary war.
BLITZER: You agree with Scott McClellan who in his new book writes, "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary and the Iraq war was not necessary." It's not shocking to hear you say that. It is pretty shocking to hear a former White House Press Secretary imply, suggest that 4,000 American troops, $600 billion, $700 billion have been squandered for nothing.
BUCHANAN: You've got to ask why Scott McClellan did not resign, for Heaven's sakes. He said basically that the Bush White House and the others were propagandizing for war. Cherry picking information. Making the case as a prosecutor would for a war in which Scott McClellan did not believe. I would wonder why a man would participate in something like that if he disbelieved in the cause and in the war, Wolf. I can't explain that. I haven't read his book. But I have read what he said.
BLITZER: John McCain says the United States will never surrender in Iraq. He wants to win. Can the United States do what McCain says?
BUCHANAN: I think it's possible, Wolf. There's no question about it. The surge has worked. Maliki has taken down Sadr in Basra and in Sadr City. There's a possibility you could have a Shia government which could deal with the Sunnis and could get dominance over the South of Iraq. I say it's possible. It may be probable. I'm not certain. I do think it's far more possible now than it was in 2006 when the Iraq report came in saying we were losing the war and catastrophe impended. It doesn't impend right now.
BLITZER: We asked our viewers to send in some i-Reports. We told them you were going to be on the show. We asked them if they had any questions. This would be a good way to pose their questions. We got this i-report from John Carol. He says he plans to vote for Obama. Listen to his question.
CAROL: I wanted to hear your thoughts an idea I had to allow every Canadian, U.S., and Mexican citizen the right to work in any of these three countries. A NAFTA labor union that would match to some degree the European Union.
BLITZER: The point being you live in Europe, if you're a member of the EU you can work in any of those countries, he says we should do the same thing in North America.
BUCHANAN: Those European countries against the will of many of their people, Wolf, because they are not being allowed to vote as in Britain are surrendering their national sovereignty, their independence. That fella's a Canadian as I understand it. But Americans fought and died in 1775 to 1881 in enormous numbers to make us a sovereign, independent, free republic forever. I do believe in free trade with Canada. I don't agree with the NAFTA agreement. But I do insist and most Americans will insist we maintain our sovereignty, our independence, our unique culture, language and borders.
BLITZER: Let me get back to the book now because we're almost out of time. But I want you to explain the notion that you have that Hitler would have never come to power, there would have been anti-semitism, to be sure, but there wouldn't have been the extermination of 6 million Jews. Because that's going to cause a lot of controversy, this notion you have that, that, in effect, Churchill was responsible for the chain of events that led to the Holocaust.
BUCHANAN: Churchill was not -- Chamberlain made the decision to give the war guarantee to Poland. Here's my view. I've read and studied Hitler. He did not want war with the British Empire. He admired it, respected it, he never wanted war with it. He wanted to make an ally of it. Had Chamberlain at the goading of Churchill not given a war guarantee to Poland, Britain would not have had to go to war on behalf of Poland. It's because Britain declared on Germany, that Germany came west. That's the reason Germany had basically hostages of everybody in Western Europe from the --
BLITZER: Hitler had plans of exterminating the Jews in the '30s, a lot earlier.
BUCHANAN: Wolf, I have not seen any plans of extermination. Hitler went genocidal after the invasion of Russia was broken down in Russia, after he declared war on the United States, and he was looking defeat in the face. It was at that point that the Wannsee Conference was held, Wolf. as you know, that was in January of 1942.
BLITZER: What about all the anti-Semitic laws? Kristalnacht? All those Jews who were rounded up in Germany starting in the 1930s.
BUCHANAN: Look, there's no doubt Hitler was anti-Semitic from the time even before he wrote Mein Kampf. What we're talking about, when you mention the Holocaust, for Heaven's sakes, is genocide. We're not talking about anti-Semitism, there was anti-Semitism in Poland for those years. The Nuremberg Laws were in 1935, they were dreadful. As a consequence half the Jews had left Germany before Kristalnacht, which was in November 1938. Another half fled after that. They were outside Germany when the curtain fell. What Hitler did was a monstrous crime, Wolf. But it was a war crime. Had there been no war there would have been no Holocaust in my judgment.
BLITZER: Pat Buchanan has written a provocative book. Thanks very much for joining us.
BUCHANAN: Thank you as always, Wolf.
