Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan (/bjuːˈkænɨn/; born November 2, 1938) is an American conservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician, and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior advisor to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election. He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a foundation named The American Cause. He has been published in Human Events, National Review, The Nation and Rolling Stone. He was a political commentator on the MSNBC cable network, including the show Morning Joe until February 2012. Buchanan is a regular on The McLaughlin Group and now appears on Fox News. Buchanan was born in Washington, D.C., a son of William Baldwin Buchanan (Virginia, August 13, 1905 -- Washington, D.C., January 1988), a partner in an accounting firm, and his wife Catherine Elizabeth (Crum) Buchanan (Charleroi, Washington County, Pennsylvania, December 23, 1911 -- Oakton, Fairfax County, Virginia, September 18, 1995), a nurse and a homemaker.[2][3] Buchanan had six brothers (Brian, Henry, James, John, Thomas, and William Jr.) and two sisters (Kathleen Theresa and Angela Marie, nicknamed Bay).[4] Bay served as U.S. Treasurer under Ronald Reagan. His father was of English, Irish, and Scottish descent, and his mother was of German ancestry.[2][5] He had a great-grandfather who fought in the American Civil War in the Confederate Army, which is why he is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans[6] and admires Robert E. Lee.[7] Of his southern roots, Buchanan has written: I have family roots in the South, in Mississippi. When the Civil War came, Cyrus Baldwin enlisted and did not survive Vicksburg. William Buchanan of Okolona, who would marry Baldwin's daughter, fought at Atlanta and was captured by General Sherman. William Baldwin Buchanan was the name given to my father and by him to my late brother. As a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I have been to their gatherings. I spoke at the 2001 SCV convention in Lafayette, LA. The Military Order of the Stars and Bars presented me with a battle flag and a wooden canteen like the ones my ancestors carried.[8] Buchanan was born into a Catholic family and attended Catholic schools, including the Jesuit-run Gonzaga College High School. As a student at Georgetown University, he was in ROTC but did not complete the program. He received his draft notice after he graduated in 1960. However, the District of Columbia draft board exempted Buchanan from military service because of reactive arthritis, classifying him as 4-F. He received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1962, writing his thesis on the expanding trade between Canada and Cuba. Buchanan joined the St. Louis Globe-Democrat at age 23. During the first year of the United States embargo against Cuba in 1961, Canada--Cuba trade tripled. The Globe-Democrat published a rewrite of Buchanan's Columbia master's project under the eight-column banner "Canada sells to Red Cuba — And Prospers" eight weeks after Buchanan started at the paper. According to Buchanan's memoir Right from the Beginning, this article was a career milestone. However, Buchanan later said the embargo strengthened the communist regime and he turned against it.[9] Buchanan was promoted to assistant editorial page editor in 1964 and supported Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign. However, the Globe-Democrat did not endorse Goldwater and Buchanan speculated there was a clandestine agreement between the paper and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Buchanan recalled: "The conservative movement has always advanced from its defeats... I can't think of a single conservative who was sorry about the Goldwater campaign."[7] According to the foreword (written by Pat Buchanan) in the most recent edition of Conscience of a Conservative, Buchanan was a member of the Young Americans for Freedom and wrote press releases for that organization. He served as an executive assistant in the Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander, and Mitchell law offices in New York City in 1965. The next year, he was the first adviser hired by Nixon's presidential campaign;[10] he worked primarily as an opposition researcher. For his speeches aimed at dedicated supporters, he was soon nicknamed "Mr. Inside." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_buchanan

• published: 19 Mar 2014
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