STINKING TO HIGH HEAVEN

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The river of American politics has been dirty enough as it flowed through time. But it has been refreshed from time to time by that part of the American conscience that insists politics be a higher calling than it ever really is in practice. The ideal insists on a certain decorum of language in the mainstream and flushes out the rhetoric that does not belong there. It tends to flush out the rhetorician as well.

But here is the problem: Buchanan's candidacy occurs in the context of what might be called the Great Nineties Conflation, wherein too many elements of American life (politics, moralism, journalism, sports, crime and the justice system, to name some) have merged with one another to form a sort of metaphysical entertainment conglomerate. The O.J. Simpson trial will be remembered as a classic of the conflation. Rush Limbaugh, whom some credit with the Republicans' 1994 electoral deluge, is a prototype; his material is relentlessly political-cultural, and he describes himself as an entertainer. For years after Buchanan left government, he made his living as an entertainer-provocateur in the comparatively new genre of loudmouth political television. Now he is running for President.

Where are the borders between those roles? In the great conflation, by what standards is a controversialist-politician to be judged? Hence the further problem: Does Pat Buchanan mean what he says, or is he merely putting on a great show of fire breathing and machete work to stir up the audience, as he was paid to do on Crossfire? Does it matter whether he means what he says? The question may be as silly as trying to judge the intentions of an adolescent who strikes matches one after another and tosses them toward piles of dry leaves to see if they will catch--a dangerous but curiously speculative game.

A fire, once lighted, has a life of its own. So does rhetoric that inflames people and encourages hate. It is curious that candidate Buchanan, protector of the family, acts like a man who is trying to burn down the house.