Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203090197
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Rosenthal believes Buchanan has been able, with little challenge from politicians or the press, to make anti-Semitism an acceptable part of the mainstream of American politics. The charge may be premature and inflated, but Rosenthal is dead right to challenge the press.
Those journalists closest to Buchanan - fellow panelists on television talk shows - have difficulty seeing him whole. They know him as a warm, charming and hospitable man, and see nothing about him that suggests hostility toward individuals or groups.
That much doubtless is true. But to borrow a phrase Buchanan once crafted for Spiro Agnew, it also is "pusillanimous pussyfooting" around the point. Nowhere is it written that demagogues cannot be pleasant company, or that they cannot be sincere in their views.
As to Buchanan's record, even William Buckley, a pooh-bah of American conservatism, says Buchanan is "a gentile who [has] said things about Jews that could not reasonably be interpreted as other than anti-Semitic in tone and substance."
Buchanan disputes that judgment as being formed outside the context of what he has said. But this familiar defense doesn't square with his public utterances. During the Persian Gulf showdown with Saddam Hussein, for example, he said the impulse for war was coming from only two sources - the Israeli defense ministry and its "amen corner" in this country.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Buchanan contended that four key men, all with Jewish names, were leading the United States into war. The four were Rosenthal himself, former Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. This is the sort of patently false charge that characterized the character-assassination tactics of Joe McCarthy, the Wisconsin witch-hunter who remains one of Buchanan's heroes.
The charge connects with others revealing in Buchanan an obsession with matters repellent to Jews. He has defended repeatedly Nazis charged with being war criminals and sneered at the continuing pursuit of such by the Justice Department. If he is not anti-Semitic, he has no grounds for surprise that he is thought to be.
One trouble with that designation is that it defines too narrowly the range of his hostilities. Regarding immigration, he has said that the United States must decide whether it "will remain a white nation."
In a June 1990 column, he asked: "Who speaks for the Euro-Americans who founded the United States. Is it not time to take America back?" Very recently he has asked whether it would be easier for this country to assimilate "Englishmen or Zulus."
These questions leave no doubt that in Buchanan's mind there are deserving - and undeserving - Americans, and that race should figure in distinguishing one from the other.
To be sure, immigration policies are proper subjects for debate, but Buchanan's tone is all too reminiscent of George Wallace, whose Send-'Em-a-Message slogan Buchanan has adopted for his own use.
The tone of attack and confrontation has been consistent throughout his career. As a White House aide, he wanted Richard Nixon "to get political control of the IRS" and use it to change the political attitudes of tax-exempt foundations deemed to be promoting "social activism."
When Ronald Reagan was caught trading arms for hostages, as The Washington Post recalls, Buchanan urged the administration to put aside explanation or apology and "start firing from the upper floors."
George Bush arguably has invited the grief he is now receiving from Buchanan. But the latter also has a record that deserves a thorough airing: If he is to be the messenger, in other words, what is the message that transcends the group prejudice which mars his utterances? Not without reason did Buchanan become known as the pit bull of the Republican right wing.
Perry Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star in Norfolk.
by CNB