Pat Buchanan: Obama Gets "A" for Cabinet Choices

Raring and ready to go, Pat Buchanan, one of America’s leading conservative voices, chatted with the I-Man this morning about President-Elect Barack Obama’s appointments, the historical nature of Obama’s presidency, and why the Congress should be trusted to run nothing.

After accusing Buchanan, a regular contributor on MSNBC, of being drunk for defending Alan Colmes’s decision to leave Hannity & Colmes, Imus asked his guest for an overview on Obama’s progress thus far.

"I gotta give him a real A for this, and almost an A plus, quite frankly," Buchanan said. "He’s really disabused most of us of the notion that he would maybe try to govern from the left—he’s clearly moved down the center."

Buchanan went on to praise nearly every pick Obama has made for his cabinet: Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury Secretary, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State, Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, and General Jim Jones as National Security Advisor, to name just a few.

"I think Obama told us the truth when he said that he wants to be a transformational president: that he will be the force for change, he will make the decisions, and he’s providing himself with tremendous cover in the cabinet," Buchanan said thoughtfully.

Specifically on the issue of Iraq, Buchanan said that marching out people like Jones and Clinton to make the case for withdrawal is "a pretty smart thing." Also smart, in Buchanan’s opinion, was both Michelle and Barack Obama’s decision not to draw attention to the fact that Obama will be this country’s first African-American president, because it wouldn’t have helped win any votes. He added that Obama’s election is historic, and that it could have only happened in America.

"You can toss in all our sins and crimes and all the rest of it," he said. "In no other nation on Earth have people of color reached the level of achievement and accomplishment and income and all the rest that they’ve achieved in the United States of America."

Imus agreed, adding, "Please notify me when another industrial nation elects somebody who represents 13 percent of the population."

Buchanan then ominously said he things that the "big thing" coming is Iran because the country is moving toward uranium enrichment, and the likely next Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is not the complacent type.

"He’s not going to go along with any American initiative and I think he’s going to be demanding military action, if he’s not initiating it himself," Buchanan asserted.

Rounding up the conversation with the topic of the auto industry, Buchanan became suddenly and irrationally irritated at the very mention of a member of Congress calling for Rick Wagoner’s firing at General Motors.

"Who the hell are Congress to manage any of those guys?" Buchanan blasted. "They can’t control the borders, they can’t win the wars, they vote us into unnecessary wars, they can’t balance a budget, they didn’t see this coming, they missed their oversight responsibilities. And these guys are going to run an auto industry?"

Adding that he and his wife both drive American-made vehicles, Buchanan said that the loss of a manufacturing business like the automobile industry is a dangerous sign.

"You give away manufacturing, all your manufacturing, that’s the beginning of the end of your country," he said.

Happy Monday!