And he showed plenty of gall. The former conservative commentator unearthed all the demons that the right-wing culture club couldn't talk about in the kinder, gentler convention fashioned by George W. Bush. Gays, immigrants and the United Nations were all on the menu, and Buchanan dug in his pitchfork like a starving man.

Of homosexuality, Buchanan told the crowd that it had once been considered "the love that dare not speak its name," giving Bob Jones students a likely unfamiliar dose of Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas. "If you watch the talk shows all over America," he continued, "it is the love that will not shut up."

At one point, he sounded almost compassionate speaking about the third world poverty conditions in Mexico -- before warning in the next breath of thousands of lawless immigrants charging the border. Buchanan's solution: Pull troops away from United Nations missions abroad and put them "where they belong, on the borders of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona."

Wresting American armies from the evil clutches of world government wouldn't be the end of his plans to put the U.N. back in its place. Buchanan also promised to evict U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his meddling friends from American soil within a year of assuming the presidency. "If you have trouble leaving," Buchanan said he would tell Annan, "we'll send up 10,000 Marines to help you pack."

But the star villain was something closer to home than the United Nations or Mexican immigrants or even homosexuals. It was the federal judiciary. "They have dethroned our God," Buchanan railed, blasting the Supreme Court for such sins as striking down partial-birth abortion bans and forbidding prayers over the public address system during public school football games.

Some of the more grave offenses had less specific forces behind them. "They" were to blame for abolishing Easter, taking Nathan Hale out of history textbooks (all of them?) and smearing George Washington for owning slaves. "They" called Christopher Columbus a "genocidal racist" and blasted the movie "The Patriot" for being gun-happy.

In this year of mushy, toothless rhetoric, there was something shocking about Buchanan's call to arms, though it's nothing he hasn't said before. His remarks were a retread for his infamous "Cultural War" address to the Republican Convention in 1992. He admitted as much, and half-bragged that the speech had brought an end to uncensored remarks at political conventions.

It's no wonder that Buchanan still pines for the old days when he was a Republican. Back before he had won a nomination anywhere, before he'd received millions of dollars from the Federal Election Commission, people paid more attention to him. When Bush the First and Bob Dole worried that their conservative bona fides were lacking, Buchanan could get a party-sponsored podium and a gaggle of reporters every time he opened his mouth.

Salon News A Salon-eye view of the day's news, with investigative reports, analysis and interviews with newsmakers.