I thank Neil for recalling the Buchanan lynching that followed the 1996 New Hampshire primary victory. It was a template for why America could and would, by 2008, ultimately disappear as a serious political and economical power.
Coming off the GOP's stunning 1994 House recapture, "conservatives" (which included yours truly at the time) were on a tear. We expected success at every turn. We had the Klintonovich collective on the run and the "people" were experiencing the "reawakening" of a new Reaganesque consciousness, ripe with hope for gutting gub'mint and the return of the "citizen legislator."
Pat was going to go all the way and on January 20, 1997, immediately after taking the oath of office, turn to the man he had defeated and place him and his loveless bride, Bruno, under arrest. After which high comedy, he'd commandeer a DC Police car and drive down and arrest the first abortionist he could find at work in a local clinic.
Five days later, appeared ABC's infamous "log cabin" background with David Brinkley and George Will, foreground.
At first, Will appeared dyspeptic or malarial. A fan (until that morning), I was actually concerned for the health of one of my favorite columnists. Having spent my career working hard at "dressing British, looking Irish (not hard when you have relatives in County Cork) and thinking Yiddish", I was particularly keen on such micro-details and there was something definitely wrong with Ol' George. Even Brinkley, although not surprisingly, looked as if he had the vapors, as well.
Shortly, once Will had made his first strafing run on Buchanan, I began to develop symptoms of what Evelyn Waugh once described as a form of "African tummy" myself.
What I witnessed had no immediate explanation!
It was like watching a movie in which John Wayne morphed into an Indian scout and took to scalping Maureen O'Hara - live and in color!
That was the day I decided to burn my GOP membership card and use George Will editorials as wicks to light my smokes.
It was also the day I had my second "awakening" of the year - the GOP must be destroyed down to the subatomic particle level before any meaningful change will, if ever, come about in American government.
Until Bp. Paprocki also realizes that the Dolanites and other stalactites that line the cave in which the USCCCP Comintern hibernates are, to him, what George Will once was to Pat Buchanan, he will be in for a frightful ride.