Buchanan: Obama Should Go To Sochi

Three-times-failed GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has written a World Net Daily column in which he calls on President Obama to attend the Sochi Olympics in solidarity against the recent terrorist attacks in Russia.

Vladimir Putin, who has his prestige fully invested in the Sochi games, would see this as a magnanimous gesture, a reaching out of America’s hand, to him and to Russia. What would be the downside? Those who have been calling for stiffing Putin and boycotting his Sochi games to protest Russia’s law prohibiting distribution of pro-homosexual propaganda to youth have already had their point made. In an in-your-face gesture, the U.S. delegation is headed by Billie Jean King, tennis legend and lesbian, who will travel to Sochi with gay athletes Brian Boitano, the ice skating gold medalist, and Caitlin Cahow, a two-time hockey medalist. “This is the grandest of snubs, to Putin and to Russia,” exults Chad Griffin of the Human Rights Campaign.

When it comes to the war on terror, we are in it together. If Russia’s end of the boat sinks, how long do we think ours will stay afloat? A quarter century ago, Ronald Reagan was being cheered as he strolled through Red Square. Is Putin responsible for the fact that the Russian people themselves no longer view America as a friend? Or did we, by pushing NATO onto Russia’s front porch and cutting her out of the Caspian Sea oil, contribute as well? And did not Americans collude with the oligarchs who, in the Boris Yeltsin years, looted Russia of much of her national wealth? Obama going to Sochi would turn a page, start a new chapter. Perhaps it would not be reciprocated. But what does Obama have to lose with such a brave and bold beau geste?

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Last month Buchanan praised France's neo-Nazi Manif Pour Tous for its anti-gay rallies. In August 2013, Buchanan declared that "Russia has it right" in their campaign against LGBT people. In April 2013, Buchanan called for Christians to commit civil disobedience against LGBT rights. Also last April, Buchanan declared that America deserves a fate as "the next Sodom and Gomorrah" for allowing same-sex marriage. In 2012 Buchanan claimed that "militant gay activists" had gotten him fired from his commentator gig on MSNBC, a charge backed by the Family Research Council. In 2010, Buchanan declared that there are too many Jews on the Supreme Court.