Pat Buchanan Knows Soccer Exists!

US National Team Fan #1

There was a time when soccer’s existence in this country was ignored by those on the radical right. So, I’m not sure whether the fact that Pat Buchanan is now using the behavior of some soccer fans as an argument for his call to close the borders should be a source of celebration or disdain. Speaking on The Daily Show, right-winger (his political orientation, not his position on the field) Buchanan used the argument that “they (Mexicans) boo the American flag, the American team in the L.A. Coliseum … they cheer Osama in the stadiums there” in an attempt to bolster his argument that the newest immigrants need to be better assimilated into American society (or “beat the Mexican out of ‘em” in Jon Stewart’s words).

There is no doubt that behavior like such as booing any country’s national anthem (the incident Buchanan refers to happened in 1998 in a friendly between the US and Mexico) and Osama chanting deserves to be condemned. It would be great to have Buchanan seriously talking about stamping out bigotry in soccer. So should we next expect him to condemn Canadians for the after some Canucks who booed the American anthem in the World Junior Hockey Championships? Does he support the lawsuit filed by Latinos who said the US Soccer Federation wouldn’t sell them tickets to a game against Honduras? Surely not. Buchanan is simply using isolated examples of bigotry by some Mexican fans to promote his own (bigoted) agenda.

But let’s give credit where credit is due: at least Pat Buchanan knows soccer exists!