Michael Pollak wrote:
> I've always assumed he was. Everyone I respect seems to think he is.
> And just a second ago
>
> on Sat, 20 Nov 1999, Max B. Sawicky wrote:
>
> > What's really grounds for criticism are any explicit references, or
> > the jew-baiting we have seen coming from Buchanan.
>
> But a couple of weeks ago, George Szamuely (the paleoconservative library-
> book hoarder who has a weekly column in the New York Press) wrote a
> spirited defense of Buchanan that on its face seemed plausible. I'm
> perfectly willing to believe that this plausibility is an artifact of
> selectivity and half truths. And Buchanan has lot going against him even
> if he isn't an antisemite. Still, I'd feel less cognitive dissonance if
> someone more knowledgeable could blow it out of the water.
>
> Michael
>
> Pat & the Pod
>
> George Szamuely
>
> "Is Patrick Buchanan an anti-Semite?" Thus the opening sentence of Norman
> Podhoretz's page-long screed in Oct. 25's _Wall Street Journal_. The
> answer, about 1000 words later, is no surprise. Yes, Buchanan has indeed
> "become an anti-Semite."
>
> One wonders why Podhoretz even bothered writing the article. That
> "Buchanan is an anti-Semite" is by now a cliche. For this, we largely
> have Podhoretz to thank. Back in January 1991, _Commentary_ -- the
> magazine Podhoretz edited for 35 years -- published an article, "Patrick
> J. Buchanan and the Jews," by Joshua Muravchik. It was here that for the
> first time a case was made against Buchanan accusing him of
> "anti-Semitism." Though it seemed extraordinary that for more than 25
> years -- until Muravchik came along, in fact -- a man as outspoken as
> Buchanan could have succeeded in concealing from the rest of the world his
> rabid "anti-Semitism," in no time at all the _Commentary_ insights became
> conventional wisdom: Buchanan was an "anti-Semite."
>
> The charge of "anti-Semitism" is an extremely serious one. Webster's
> defines "anti-Semitism" as "hostility toward or discrimination against
> Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group." Has Pat Buchanan
> demonstrated "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a
> religious, ethnic, or racial group?" His many Jewish friends say no. This
> cuts no ice with Podhoretz. He dismisses the "some of his best friends
> [are] Jews" claims as the "traditional . . . apology" for anti-Semites.
> However, Podhoretz fails to name any anti-Semite whose best friends really
> were Jews. One would have thought Buchanan's Jewish friends are in the
> best position to know whether his friendship is genuine or not.
>
> This is how the anti-Buchanan method works. Surmise, suggestion and
> insinuation take the place of facts. Where are the clear statements by
> Buchanan that are readily identifiable as "anti-Semitic?" Where is guff
> about the _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_, the Jewish World Conspiracy,
> rootless cosmopolitans? What we get instead are snippets of sentences
> pulled form his voluminous writings and innumerable tv appearances.
> Taken out of context, their meaning distorted, they are then all mixed up
> together in the hope that the resulting stew will be sufficiently toxic.
>
> In his _Journal_ article Podhoretz offered a number of examples of the
> method. I will cite only two. Like many others before him, Podhoretz
> refers to a pat column in which Buchanan is supposed to have lavished
> praise on Hitler. Buchanan describes Hitler as "an individual of great
> courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War . . . [a] genius.' However,
> what Buchanan really said in this 1977 column was, "Though Hitler was
> indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction
> would commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great
> courage, a solider's soldier . . ." etc. Significantly, the word "genius"
> appears somewhat later an in a different context. Buchanan says,
> "[Hitler's] genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character
> flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the
> statesmen who stood in his path."
>
> Buchanan wrote this column to attack the policy of "appeasement."
> Indeed, throughout the column he sounds a lot like Podhoretz: "Men like
> Chamberlain and Daladier needed a moral justification for their acts of
> weakness and betrayal . . . Almost alone among European statesmen,
> Churchill saw that -- under the guise of restoring Germany to her rightful
> place among nations -- Hitler was marching along the road toward a New
> Order where Western civilization would not survive. The vision lacking in
> the statesmen of '37 appears lacking as well in the men of '77."
>
> Now, one could say that Buchana has changed his view of Chamberlain.
> However, by no stretch of the imagination could the piece be described as
> "soft on Hitler." Yet how many people will take the trouble to dig up a
> column from more than 20 years ago and see for themselves what Buchanan
> actually said?
>
> Podhoretz makes another familiar charge against Buchanan. Writing about
> the Gulf War, he describes the time that Buchanan allegedly listed "four
> prominent Jews who thought war might be necessary. Almost immediately . .
> . he counterpoised them with 'kids with names like McAllister, Murphy,
> Gonzales and Leroy Brown," who would actually do the fighting if these
> Jews had their way." According to Podhoretz, this "juxtaposition of the
> prominent Jewish figures who favored the war with the non-Jewish 'kids'
> who would be sent to die in the Persian Gulf" was a "traditional
> anti-Semitic canard."
>
> "When it came to digging up anti-Semitic filth from the foul swamps where
> it was buried," Podhoretz concludes, "Mr. Buchanan was deterred neither by
> facts nor by the stench arising out of his exhumations." Them's strong
> words! They would have great force if Buchanan had actually said what he
> is supposed to have said.
>
> In the first place, Buchanan never counterpoised "four prominent Jews"
> with kids "who would actually do the fighting." Buchanan's comments come
> from two different columns. It is the editors of the British magazine
> _The Economist_ that he contrasts with the 'kids.' He is what Buchanan
> actually said: "The civilized world must win this fight," the editors [of
> _The Economist_] thunder. But, if it comes to war, it will not be the
> 'civilized world' humping up that bloody road to Baghdad; it will be
> American kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy
> Brown." It is obvious from the context that Buchanan is having a go at
> the Brits, not the Jews.
>
> As for the other column, the one in which he upbraided A.M. Rosenthal,
> Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle and Henry Kissinger -- the "four
> prominent Jews," to use Podhoretz's phraseology -- for their enthusiasm
> for war on Iraq, nowhere did Buchanan suggest that their advocacy had
> something to do with their being Jewish. Podhoretz fails to mention,
> moreover, that one of the culprits Buchanan listed was _The Wall Street
> Journal_.
>
> Quoting approvingly from the 1991 _Commentary_ article, Podhoretz then
> suggests that Buchanan was a dove during the Gulf War only because of "his
> animus against Israel." For the last 10 years, Buchanan as been a "dove"
> during every single U.S. engagement abroad. Podhoretz knows this well.
> So how can he continue to stand by this judgment?
>
> How can he claim that Buchanan defended John Demjanjuk out of eagerness to
> champion "the cause of almost anyone accused of participating actively in
> Hitler's genocidal campaign against the Jews?" Where is the evidence?
> Buchanan was not defending the man's alleged actions. He was defending
> him from the charge that he was the Treblinka guard Ivan the Terrible -- a
> stance that the Israeli Supreme Court eventually vindicated.
>
> Podhoretz alleges that Buchanan "lent his weight to some of the
> preposterous claims of . . . those who believe either that the Holocaust
> never occurred or that 'the Jews' have wildly exaggerated the number of
> lives it claimed." But he is unable to quote a single sentence by Buchanan
> that expresses any skepticism about the Holocaust.
>
> Our system of justice is based on the principle that the more serious the
> charge, the higher should be the standard of proof. Yet people toss
> around words like "anti-Semitic" and "racist" with cheerful abandon.
> Proffering evidence is unnecessary. Eery hack simply quotes every other
> hack. Besides, once we know a man is "anti-Semitic," whatever he says or
> does will always manifest his "anti-Semitism." The effect is to rule
> certain people and certain positions out of serious consideration.
>
> Worse, the poison and bitterness that such words carry increasingly ensure
> that just about every issue is now off the table. The former editor of
> _Commentary_ is normally, and rightly, among the loudest to denounce the
> promiscuous deployment of the "racist" barb. It is a shame that he is not
> as vigilant when it comes to the toxic "anti-Semitic" slur.
>
> <end>
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu