SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home "cho Was The Alien"

THE PLANK MAY 10, 2007

"cho Was The Alien"

BY TNR STAFF

Nothing much surprises me anymore regarding Pat Buchanan and immigration, but I do want to flag this particularly sick column he wrote on Seung-Hui Cho:

In stories about him, we learn he had no friends, rarely spoke, and was a loner, isolated from classmates and roommates. Cho was the alien in Hokie Nation. And to vent his rage at those with whom he could not communicate, he decided to kill in cold blood dozens of us. ... Before 1970, we were a people, a community, a country. Students would have said aloud of Cho: "Who is this guy? What's the matter with him?"

In other words, Cho murdered not because he was profoundly disturbed -- something his family knew even when he was a tot in Korea -- but because he was an "alien" here who "could not communicate." But the column gets worse, launching into a bizarre litany of all the criminals he can think of -- all the way back to '71! -- who were foreign-born. A much-shortened excerpt:

The 1993 bombers of the World Trade Center and the killers of 9-11 were all immigrants or illegals. ... John Lee Malvo, the Beltway Sniper, was flotsam from the Caribbean. Angel Resendez, the border-jumping rapist who killed at least nine women, was an illegal alien. ... When Chai Vang, a Hmong, was told by a party of Wisconsin hunters to vacate their deer stand, he shot six to death. Peter Odighizuwa, the gunman who killed the dean, a teacher and a student at the Appalachian School of Law, was a Nigerian. ... Juan Corona, who murdered 25 people in California to be ranked with the likes of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, was a Mexican.

No matter what you think about the consequences of immigration on the economy or even American culture, the crime complaint tends to be a dodge -- the foreign-born incarceration rate is lower than the native-born one, especially among Mexicans.

But maybe Pat Buchanan is onto something, using these kind of anecdotes to illustrate his point: I'm now very worried about the effect of the extended Buchanan family on the country. Douglas Buchanan murdered his father, stepmother, and two brothers. He was a Buchanan. Daymond Buchanan was a violent Hell's Angel; Joseph Buchanan was a porn fiend who slowed down his office network by clogging his work computer with naughty photos of animals. LAPD Officer Michael Buchanan was convicted of framing several Mexicans by claiming he was hit by their truck, when in fact he had merely fallen down.

Who are these people? What's the matter with them?

--Eve Fairbanks

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 20 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

20 comments

Wow. Talk about your skewed sample population. Pat seems to have failed basic study design. No mention of Timothy McVeigh? The Columbine killers? All those other kids who shot up their schools?

- drdannyu

May 10, 2007 at 3:53pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Buchanan only shows restraint in not belaboring the fact that Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were also "foreigners." Noticing a pattern here, America?!

- John Gould

May 10, 2007 at 4:04pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

nice touch with the bucahanans there, eve . . .

- cubana5000

May 10, 2007 at 4:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

What about Daisy Buchanan?

- mkren55

May 10, 2007 at 4:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

James Buchanan wasn't a very good president. And look at all the trouble caused by Daisy Buchanan!

- BryanRDC

May 10, 2007 at 4:09pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"But maybe Pat Buchanan is onto something" Actually, he is. We imported all those killers, and that could have been avoided. Stating the obvious is hardly sick, and this post is simply multiculturalist cant.

- deanpear

May 10, 2007 at 4:54pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

common sense indeed. We could kick out all of the foreigners, because we just know they are all going to kill us sooner or later. While we're at it, let's kick out all of the Americans who might kill someone else. And, since we won't know who that is until we invent a time machine, let's kick all Americans out.

- anonevent

May 10, 2007 at 5:21pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Yes, thats exactly what I implied.

- deanpear

May 10, 2007 at 5:23pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

One thing that immediately struck me about the VT killings was how diverse the victims were. After a second of research, I noticed victims who were born in Canada, Romania, India (2), China, Indonesia, Egypt, and Peru, along with a second-generation Lebanese student and several wounded students from other countries. I think Virginia Tech would have been a lesser institution without their many contributions, but apparently Pat Buchanan wishes they had never made it to America. Maybe that means he wishes those classrooms were full of native-born Americans for the killer to target. At least he's consistently "Americans first."

- patbryant

May 10, 2007 at 5:58pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"We imported all those killers, and that could have been avoided." Really? And how, pray, could it have been avoided? Those specific killings, mind you. (Please spare me the tautology that, if you don't let immigrants enter the country, you won't have killer immigrants, which is no less dense than the reductio ad absurdum that anonevent describes.) What protections on immigration would you suggest? Mandatory mental health checks for all immigrants? (Cho's family were in the country legally, mind you.) If you think that Buchanan's ugly little cherry picking makes sense, then tell me how you would enact sensible policy. Or are you simply xenophobic, and thus simply want all foreigners out of the country, period?

- drdannyu

May 10, 2007 at 7:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

there is tons of this xenophobic cowardly garbage out there and there always has been - this post could have been written anywhere between 1800 and now, verbatim. Better to have it stated openly and appropriately mocked than to have it hidden. Tiny people need their scapegoats, it's human nature.

- Wandreycer1

May 10, 2007 at 8:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Well, danny, perhaps some of the killing cited in the column (and maybe all) could have been avoided with a sound immigration policy. In fact, as you note, an adequate mental health screening for all immigrants would be excellent policy . However, referring to Buchanan's column as "sick" is unctuous liberal bull, and that was the point of my post. Buchanan simply points out that the Virginia Tech killer, and many recent killers, happen to be immigrants (both legal & illegal). In fact, the student visa program is replete with islamo-fascist applicants who would love nothing more than to come into this country and commit homicide. Writing about the deficiencies in our immigration policies hardly makes Buchanan "sick". Referring to him as such as a result of todays column is a gross exaggeration. The VT killings were sick, having a public discourse about the causes of the killing is constructive.

- deanpear

May 10, 2007 at 8:56pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

You know, there are 15 pages of comments listed under your ID. Please, for your own sake, get an F'ing life. You post on these boards all day and night.

- deanpear

May 10, 2007 at 9:01pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Wandrey adds intelligence and class to this forum when she posts. Rather than ask her to leave, you might emulate her. Your earlier posts on this thread are hopefully not indicative of your capabilities. Neil

- purcellneil

May 10, 2007 at 10:54pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I'm surprised that Buchanan still gets his column published. After his masterpiece of Holocaust denial in 1990 -- where he proclaimed that inmates there could not have been killed by diesel exhaust, since such exhaust was not toxic enough to kill people -- he would have been considered radioactive. Guess not.

- caaggies

May 11, 2007 at 12:06am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Buchanan was talking about Treblinka.

- caaggies

May 11, 2007 at 12:10am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I thought the silliest comment I was going to read today was over at The American Prospect about trade, but...noooooo! dean-o, how exactly are we going to screen for killers, ex ante among immigrants? It's not like Cho was bonkers before he came here--he emigrated to the US as a child. Are you arguing that there is some systemic failure in our immigration system? America is letting in an unusual number of immigrants who go nuts and kill? What exactly is deficient in our immigration policy? What is this common factor that is going to allow you to screen who will kill and who won't? (hint: being a "foreigner" doesn't count! C'mon, now, that's cheating!) It is also very silly, and as Ms. Fairbanks pointed out, more than a little messed up. And you never answered Dr.Dan's question. "A sound immigration policy," isn't an answer because we aren't handing out visas to crazy people nor are we importing large numbers of killers. What is it about our policy that is letting these (identifiable!) killers through?

- cspaley

May 11, 2007 at 1:40am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Actually, there are a few immigrants whom Buchanan has defended. Specifically, those accused of having been Nazis. Those he likes. But some Jose' Sixpack who just wants to make a better life for himself and his family, HE's a threat to America.

- nancyirving

May 11, 2007 at 4:13am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

After all, an immigration system that weeded out mentally-disturbed people who might easily develop into amoral sociopaths could have kept out Henry Kissinger.

- boneill

May 11, 2007 at 5:01pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Buchanan claims in his article that immigration makes us less of a community, and implies that murders committed by the American-born can be blamed on immigrants. In his narrative, we were all a nice, tightly knit society where we all looked out for each other. Then those damn immigrants came and ruined everything. What a load of delusional, utopian crap. I really liked Pat Bryant's post. A lot of America's edge in the scientific and business world today comes from the fact that smart people from around the world come here to work and study. Immigrants are extremely disproportionately represented in the sciences and engineering, Koreans more so than almost any group. One Seung-Hui Cho does not even remotely balance the good done by other Korean immigrants.

- WillPastor

May 11, 2007 at 6:14pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close