Is Pat Buchanan Anti-Semitic?

None of this is likely to hurt his campaign much. Reporters who enjoy seeing him act out their Walter Mittyish fantasies-like him personally and have already lent him respectability with an absurd amount of TV exposure. Buchanan's attack last week on "the professional political class of both parties in Washington" was preposterous. He has lived all but four of his 53 years in Washington and is a card-carrying member of the political-media establishment. The same clubbiness he attacks may keep him from being properly garroted by his old columns.

In his article, Buckley recalls driving back with Murray Kempton from the 1969 funeral of Westbrook Pegler, a venomous columnist who was a hero to Buchanan's father. "I had a letter yesterday from Peg," Kempton said. "I knew he was sick. He wrote seven pages and didn't once mention [Israeli Prime Minister] David Ben-Gurion." Pat Buchanan is not quite in that league. Then again, Westbrook Pegler never ran for president.

© 1991