Congressman Bob Wexler of Florida, is spouting off venom that John McCain's choice of Sara Palin was done as a purposeful affront to Jews. Why? Because she supported Pat Buchanan in the republican primaries leading up to the 2000 election. For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know that I feel that Pat Buchanan is one of the most evil haters in the world today. He is not only an Anti-Semite, but he is Anti-Black and he feels that former KKK head David Duke swiped all his ideas.Wexler has it wrong on two points. First and most important, Sara Palin was one of the Committee Chairs for Steve Forbes during the 1999/2000 primaries. Second is that as an evangelical Christian, Sarah Palin is VERY pro-Israel. Take a look at the picture of her office taken during an interview a while ago...she has a freaking Israeli Flag in her office (video of the interview below). Of Course you expect Wexler to be confused, after all, he doesn't even know where he lives:
McCain Camp Denies that Sarah Palin was a Member of the Buchanan Brigades in the 1990s
A meme is developing out there among liberals that Gov. Sarah Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan in the 1990s, a charge that the McCain-Palin campaign strongly denies.
The evidence is the following, as first noticed by "The Nation": in an Associated Press story from July 17, 1999, titled, "Buchanan takes conservative message to Fairbanks."
"Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska….In Wasilla, Buchanan took some shots at the "Republican establishment," saying it was willing to cast aside conservative ideals in a zeal to ensure the nomination for Bush. 'I'm hoping the people of Alaska will disagree that we need a candidate anointed by Washington, D.C.,' he said to a group of three dozen supporters. Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage."
Palin wrote to the AP that her presence at the rally and her wearing a Buchanan button were merely ways to welcome Buchanan to Wasilla, not endorsements of his candidacy.......
...McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb writes: "Governor Palin has never worked for any effort to elect Pat Buchanan -- that assertion is completely false. As Mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin did attend an event with Mr. Buchanan in her home town where reports described her wearing a Buchanan for President button. She wore the button as a courtesy to Mr. Buchanan and in an effort to make him feel welcome during his visit, but immediately sent a letter to the editor of her local paper clarifying that the button should not have been interpreted as an endorsement of any kind."
Buchanan of course has a long history of quite questionable comments, particularly about Jews.
Rep. Bob Wexler, D-Florida, took the AP report, and said "John McCain's decision to select a vice presidential running mate that endorsed Pat Buchanan for president in 2000 is a direct affront to all Jewish Americans. Pat Buchanan is a Nazi sympathizer with a uniquely atrocious record on Israel, even going as far as to denounce bringing former Nazi soldiers to justice and praising Adolf Hitler for his 'great courage.' At a time when standing up for Israel's right to self-defense has never been more critical, John McCain has failed his first test of leadership and judgment by selecting a running mate who has aligned herself with a leading anti-Israel voice in American politics. It is frightening that John McCain would select someone one heartbeat away from the presidency who supported a man who embodies vitriolic anti-Israel sentiments."
The McCain campaign says that instead of supporting Buchanan -- or even McCain -- in 2000, Palin actually supported Steve Forbes.
And indeed, another AP story from August 7, 1999 -- one month after the Buchanan trip to Wasilla -- states that joining state sen. Mike Miller of Fairbanks on the Forbes campaign's Alaska "leadership committee will be Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin, and former state GOP chairman Pete Hallgren, who will serve as co-chairs."
3 comments:
Pat Buchanan is not a hater... He has been maligned, by many of the same people who are doing so now, to Governor Palin - and this was done for political reasons.
As for Governor Palin's support of Pat Buchanan - She decided to join the Forbes campaign in 1999/2000 (that was true of quite a few people, who had backed Buchanan, in the last election), but she most likely did support Pat Buchanan, in 1996.
AAKASH
Check out the link in this post an read the stuff that buchanan said and tell me he wasnt a hater
Thank you for your response. I understand why many people take this viewpoint, but I wanted to offer my opinion, on this subject. I actually have been following the public career and statements of Mr. Buchanan, and others, since I was 10 (something that I discussed with his former Crossfire foil Juan Williams, now with Fox News, after he was finished filming that night, at the recent Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
I remember coming across an insightful column by the great Jane Chastain, my freshman year of college. In that piece, she said that Pat Buchanan "has more words on record than almost any man alive."
Any "bold thinker" who has been writing (columns and books), and speaking (radio, television, and public oratory), has naturally created an unbelievable amount of smear fodder, for when the time is right (i.e. - politically beneficial). The same could be done to just about any 'movement leader', in the disciplines of philosophy, law, history, theology, economics, or politics.
One reason that there is so much fodder from Buchanan is that he started so early... At just 23, he became the youngest editorial writer for a major American newspaper in United States history.
What is very indicative is that many of these widely-touted "quotations" from Pat did not cause much (if any) controversy at the time they were written, as the viewers then could see them, in their original context. After the fact however, when Pat became a candidate for President, and threatened the Establishment of the Republican, and Democrat, political parties, people sifted through the volumes of verbiage he had generated, over the past several decades, and carefully trimmed segments of his prose and speech. Oftentimes, they don't even use full sentences, but those darn ellipses... ... ...
It is from observing these inaccurate (but politically-beneficial) smear tactics, that one learns to become more discerning.
I am short on time right now, but I will address a few of the quotes provided in that entry.
On the Holocaust:
Pat has never denied the Holocaust, or its severity. His family members fought in World War II, and one of his most prominent public-figure supporters, in his last presidential bid (2000) was the famous government scientist and inventor (and "father of the neutron bomb") Dr. Samuel Cohen. [Dr. Cohen is a WWII veteran who worked on the Manhattan Project, and he is one of the descendants of Aaron (the brother of Moses).
In his 1996 run for the presidency (the same one for which Governor Palin was a likely supporter), two (of the four, I presume) National Co-Chairmen of his campaign were Orthodox Rabbis.
Congregational Rabbi Aryeh Spero:
"I've known Pat Buchanan now for about three or four years. Not through his writings, but one on one. Man to man. Face to face. He has been one of the most genuine, decent and warm human beings I know. I deal with people all the time. I can smell someone who is anti-Semitic. Pat Buchanan is like a rose."
[Press conference, Feb. 28, 1996
In those cases in which Pat made statements about the Holocaust, he was questioning the testimony and evidence against John Demjanjuk, who had been convicted of being the infamous "Ivan the Terrible" death camp SS guard.
Buchanan asserted that his conviction was based on mistaken identity, and questioned certain aspects of that trial. The Israeli Supreme Court, perhaps in part due to the commentary and analysis of people like Pat, determined that Demjanjuk's identification as "Ivan the Terrible" was, in fact, mistaken.
Hitler quote:
This is why it is vital not to excerpt, without reading the whole piece. Also, isn't it interesting that when that article was published (in 1977), it resulted in no controversy whatsoever?
Even when Pat Buchanan was later appointed senior advisor to President Ronald Reagan, and then as White House Communications Director, did it not provoke controversy. [President Reagan writes Buchanan]
The reason why that writing on Hitler caused no controversy in 1977 is because when it was published, people could read the entire article.
When they did, they could see that it was actually a book review and analysis, of Pulitzer-Prize winning historian John Toland's biography of Hitler.
I did read the entire article, during that freshman year, and I could clearly see that it was not a 'pro-Hitler' article. The author has explained that he was warning against tyrants like Hitler, who use the types of characteristics and tactics that Pat describes, to get themselves into positions in which they can commit horrific atrocities.
And this particular excerpt is even more inaccurate than most, as it wrongly capitalizes that first word - That excerpt actually begins mid-sentence. The actual beginning of that sentence is:
"Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also..."
In the past, when people would misuse this article excerpt, to make it appear to portray the opposite intent of which it really did, they would at least begin at the start of that sentence (which itself is misleading). The fact that they don't even do that anymore shows how far from accuracy and balance we've come.
On "Racial Segregation":
That excerpt has so many ellipses... I'm not going to parse it verbatim, but I will say that, in that part of the book, Buchanan was actually criticizing the prevailing racial attitudes and practices that people had, at the time. The word "Negroes" is in quotation marks, in the book, as Pat was noting that that's the term people used back then.
The fact that the standard quote-attacks that people have used, against Buchanan, include references to the widely-appreciated Right from the Beginning, should be a red flag indicator, that something is wrong. When that book as published (1990), it received rave reviews, by people such as then-President George Herbert Walker Bush, former President Richard Nixon, and commentators from across the political spectrum, as well as from publications ranging from National Review and the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post and New York Times.
I remember, when skimming the book eight years ago, Buchanan's mention of being at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech," at the March on Washington:
"No one there was unmoved. I knew I had just heard from a few feet away one of the memorable addresses in American history. What made King's oration so powerful and affecting was that it was a passionate appeal to the best in America, delivered without rancor or malice or warning of retribution for past wrongs." (Page 303)
[Watch Dr. King's speech here.]
In his acceptance speech at the 2000 Reform Party Nation Convention, Pat remarked:
"You know, I go back a long way, I knew the old leaders of the civil rights movement: Roy Wilkins, Dr. King, Dr. Abernethy. I knew 'em when I was a very young man. I didn't always agree with them, and I didn't always agree with their tactics, but I respected them."
and
"You know, I was a few feet away from Dr. Martin Luther King, when he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. I was there with my brother. I was in Philadelphia, Mississippi, before they pulled the bodies of those civil rights workers out of that earthen dam in 1964."
That nominating convention was historic, as Pat chose Mrs. Ezola Foster as his running mate - This is, to date, the one and only time in history that an African-American has been nominted for Vice-President of the United States by a nationally-recognized and federally-funded political party.
When he announced this decision, some actual anti-black racists denounced him... But Pat stood his ground.
One more polemic (as it just passed 1:00 AM):
The David Duke quote (which is also referenced, in this current entry):
Even though I was in 5th grade, I still remember what was going on at that time (and have also done research into this, more-recently). David Duke, who had succeeded in getting elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives, and then somehow succeeded in making it into the runoff, for Governor, chose to enter the Republican nomination race for President. What he had done, during these years, was to attempt to portray himself as a mainstream candidate, and distance himself from his past.
During his campaign that year, and in later years as well, Buchanan has overwhelmingly been critical of David Duke. I remember during that 1992 election season, Pat attacked David Duke for being a white supremacist, and emphasized that he [Buchanan] believed that the races were equal. What he was attacking Duke for, in that statement, was Duke was attempting to put himself into the mainstream, by copying the arguments of others... Pat was protesting Duke (who he labeled as a hater) trying to make himself sound better, by disguising his wrongful motives, ideas, and agendas in mainstream rhetoric.
National Review stated the same thing - and in that front section of their magazine, in which they list updates and commentary from the latest news items, they warned against wrongful efforts to link Buchanan and Duke.
Buchanan received the endorsement of prominent conservative, Republican, and other elected officials, leaders, and organizations, during his three runs for the Presidency.
It was also during that time that, in fear of the potential political impact his candidacy could have, on the Establishment Republicans, and others, that his political opponents carefully trimmed his past writings, speeches, and statements, to make them say things that they did not intend. That is what unfortunately happens, in the contemporary public-policy and governmental arena, and it continues to be done, to the current candidates, such as U.S. Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin.
It will likely be this way, for a long time to come.
(Thank you for taking the time to read my response, to part of that blog entry.)
[One more thing: In place of a "poor man's trackback" (or perhaps, as a fulfillment of one), I wanted to note that I referenced this excellent entry at your site, in my 'annotated lyrical poem' on Barack Obama. ;-) ]
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