Word: buchananism
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...onetime White House speechwriter for Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon, Buchanan, 47, has no trouble distinguishing Right from wrong in his own mind. While speaking at White House meetings, he often busily draws little boxes, as if he were sorting the facts into tidy little ideological compartments. Says Tom Braden, a liberal columnist and Buchanan's former sparring partner in radio and TV debate: "Pat always polarizes an issue. He never sees shades; he's plain black and white...
...year ago, when he abandoned his lucrative ($400,000 a year) perch as a syndicated columnist and commentator to take on the $75,000-a-year job of overseeing speechwriting and press relations for the White House, Buchanan was expected to give the Republican right a voice that would carry straight to the Oval Office. But more often than not he was trumped by moderates, particularly National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who favored compromise with Congress and the Soviet Union. Buchanan's shaky start disappointed the true believers, but he professed to be unfazed. After all, he would assure friends...
...patience was rewarded when McFarlane resigned from the White House last December and was replaced by Admiral John Poindexter. Buchanan and the new National Security Adviser became allies on most foreign policy questions. Buchanan has benefited as well from Chief of Staff Don Regan's recent willingness to loosen, at least slightly, his tight control over the White House staff. One former Reagan aide frets that Buchanan "reinforces Regan's worst instincts. Don has a tendency to be confrontational. On contra aid, I'm sure Pat has him all revved...
Most important, Buchanan is in sync with Ronald Reagan's core convictions. The President's State of the Union address in early February, with its embrace of family, freedom and free enterprise, showed Buchanan's hand. He was able to overcome the objections of White House pragmatists who urged that the speech be more programmatic and less ideological. (Purists allied with Buchanan derisively refer to Regan's more moderate staffers as "Twinkies" and "the mice...
...Buchanan puts no stock in the theories espoused by earlier Reagan aides like Treasury Secretary James Baker, who saw presidential prestige as a precious commodity to be expended frugally. "Presidential capital is something that can be constantly replenished," Buchanan asserted in an interview with TIME last week. "When the President goes to the wall and gives everything to win, he's strengthened for the next battle, not weakened." But what of the risk that a strategy of confrontation on aid to the contras will cost Reagan a resounding defeat? Buchanan is unconcerned. "You're strengthened by your defeats," he says...