Why is it so hard for "Poor Old Pat" Buchanan to believe that pro-choice people might really hope to see fewer abortions?

It wasn't till this morning that I noticed the comments added to my post yesterday about Christopher Buckley's departure -- a slight step ahead of the wingnut lynch mob -- from National Review, the magazine created by his father, the late William F. Buckley Jr.

It was impossible for me to resist leading with the "sighful" quote Christopher recalled from "dear Pup" ("after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous"): 'You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.'” To which our old friend "Me" responded: "That was wasted effort. It can't be done."

Then commenter Matthew ventured: "His father was actually a horrible human being who is rotting in hell. If he likes his dad, he's probably a bad dude." And in fact Bill Buckley seemed to me quite a horrible human being. (One of my particular problems with Bill Buckley was his steadfast championing of classical music. Jeepers, that's not the kind of ally I'm looking for.) While it seems to me a bit strong to declare someone a bad dude for liking his dad, if we changed that to "If he's like his dad," I could hardly complain. And Christopher Buckley indeed seems quite a lot like old Bill -- even apart from the increasingly creepy physical resemblance.

I was happy to have these correctives, in case I may have been seen to be sentimentalizing Bill Buckley. My point, rather, is that his brand of conservatism, which was at least firmly attached to the real world, serves as a benchmark for how far into the loonosphere the present-day variant has traveled.

Which brings me to Pat Buchanan. I don't mean to link Poor Old Pat to the present-day conservative lunacy, but then, he never quite fit into the old Buckley-style lunacy. Our Pat has always been his own loon. Unless you want to count his even loonier sister, Bay. Myself, I try not to even think about Bay Buchanan.

Poor Old Pat has become especially important to one of his part-time employers, MSNBC, as MSNBC has cast its prime-time lot with two unabashedly liberal hosts, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Pat, of course, provides "balance."

One of the, er, surprising features of Rachel's show, which continues to shine, has been the semiregular feature "It's Pat," in which Rachel's "fake uncle" moans and whines about some issue of importance to the Right. (More often than not this has so far involved defending the Republican vice presidential candidate, Gov. Danger Moose.) Rachel to her credit fights back. Indeed, as AP television writer David Bauder notes in a really good piece that's ostensibly about the "odd couple" of Rachel and Pat, but in fact is more about Rachel and the show itself, with lots of excellent background material, including Rachel talking about how the show has developed and will continue to develop:

Maddow is something of a happy warrior compared to Olbermann's increasingly dark prince. The Rhodes Scholar can lap almost anyone intellectually without making you hate her for doing it.

"She's likeable," Griffin said. "She smiles, she has fun. She's interesting."

If Olbermann's show has a drumbeat that drives it, Maddow's "got a little bit of a symphony," he said.

She also doesn't back down from a fight. Olbermann's "Countdown" is well-written and meticulous, but he relies on guests who rarely disagree with him.

Maddow frequently brings on guests to argue with her, none more so than Buchanan.

He can exasperate her, and vice versa. To date, it hasn't become nasty.

Of course we understand why Rachel is saddled with Pat. Apart from the fact that MSNBC has him on the payroll, the network is surely conscious of the risk it's taking in turning its whole prime time over to Keith and her. Poor Old Pat is there to provide balance -- and to give him credit, even in his dotage he does a better job of it than, say, the "liberals" who supposedly provide "balance" on Fox News.

Nevertheless, our Pat -- with that whine that's amplified into a roar, one of the odder modes of vocal delivery I've heard -- drives me nuts in a way that not many TV talking heads have since, well, old Bill Buckley, with his exaggeratedly patrician drawl.

But sure enough, on the special post-debate wrap-up edition of Countdown last night, there were Rachel and Uncle Pat squaring off. Pat was arguing that Obama has gone so cautious that he has failed to seal the deal, even with voters who may have decided to vote for him -- and I certainly can't say I entirely disagree with this. If it weren't said in that screechy roar-whine, I might even want to ponder his claim that Obama isn't going to win any kind of "mandate" in this election. (Yes, yes, we know that Tiny George Bush didn't have any electoral mandate in his stolen election "victories" and that didn't stop him from ruling like an emperor. But that doesn't make it right!)

But Poor Old Pat said something that gave me pause. He was talking about Obama's practice in the debate of reining in his positions, "moving to the center." Again, this is something that generally speaking we liberals have been bitching about throughout the campaign. On the question of abortion, though, when Rachel pointed out that Obama had tried to find some area of accomodation by pointing out that he would like to see fewer abortions, Poor Old Pat dismissed this as "standard boilerplate."

Which stuck with me. Why is it so difficult for Poor Old Pat to believe? Has he been roped in by Young Johnny McCranky's characteristically lying rhetoric? Young Johnny loves to pretend that there's a "pro-abortion" faction, people who want to promote abortions until everybody's had one, or more. There may in fact be people who like abortion, but they keep themselves well hidden. What many of us are is pro-choice, believing that there are cases where abortion is the least objectionable solution and therefore ought to be available as a free choice.

I suppose it's important to the Right to believe that it has some kind of high moral ground. They're the ones who should be calling themselves "anti-abortion," which accurately states their position. Instead they call themselves "pro-life," which is one of the vilest lies in the history of the human race. With the single exception of fetuses, the anti-abortion crowd is, for the most part, as bloody-minded a party of death as has ever existed.

Is it because of all the lies the anti-abortion movement is built on that it's so hard for someone like Poor Old Pat to believe that, really and truly, Barack Obama -- and a lot of the rest of us -- would like to see as few abortions as possible? We would just like that decision to rest where we think it properly belongs: with the woman.

And of course any woman, or any man for that matter, who saw young Johnny put those "air quotes" around "the health" of a woman who seeks an abortion as a medical necessity -- perhaps the most shameful moment of the most shameful national political campaign I've witnessed -- it should be perfectly and permanently clear that the Crankyman ought never to be permitted any say of any kind at any time in any matter in any way relating to any woman's health.