Pat Buchanan and the Rome fantasy

I've just read Pat Buchanan's noteworthy anti-Bush piece, excerpted from his recent book. I always appreciate the sight of W taking hits from the right. Alas, Buchanan insisted upon including this groaner:

Then there are the ominous analogies to the Rome we read about in school: the decline of religion and morality, corruption of the commercial class, a debased and decadent culture. Many of America's oldest churches are emptying. The Catholic Church, the nation's largest, is riven with heresy, scandal, dissent and disbelief.

Oh, good Lord...not the Rome fantasy! Why do pious folks fixate on this delusional storyline?

Let us once again repeat a simple fact of history: When Rome fell, it had been Christian for hundreds of years.

Edward Gibbon, who wrote about the fall of Rome at (ahem!) some length, attributed the cause of the fall, at least in part, to the rise of Christianity. The Seutonian decadence you see in the movies -- the orgies of Messalina, the madness of Caligula, the believers tossed to the lions, Pompeii's naughty graffiti, and so on -- occurred much earlier, when the muscles of empire were young and Rome was invincible.

Buchanan is an educated man. He must have heard this history before. But like many Christians, he prefers to chuck reality in favor of the script in his head: "Fall to thy knees heathens, or thy nation shall fall as Rome fell!"