The hottest issue in the pundit community is whether Republican presidential candidate (and former pundit) Patrick Buchanan has been treated too kindly by his former media colleagues, despite a history of statements that critics describe as anti-semitic or racist.
New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal, who first accused Buchanan of anti-semitism in 1990, fired the latest shot Friday, charging that the press has been "unprofessional" and "protective" of Buchanan."The press, which could spare armies of reporters and cameramen to track down every charge about a candidate's sexual adventures . . . just couldn't spare a few bodies to probe into Mr. Buchanan's past," Rosenthal wrote. He said Buchanan has been helped by his "columnist friends and TV partners."
John Leo of U.S. News & World Report joined the fray this week, saying, "The apparent immunity of Pat Buchanan to charges of anti-sem-itism has a great deal to do with the clubbiness of Washington TV pundits who do not wish to rock the boat while building one another's careers." Earlier, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen declared it "remarkable that so many of Buchanan's defenders are in business with him."
The issue has split the ranks of the New Republic, where columnist Michael Kinsley, Buchanan's former partner on CNN's "Crossfire," has taken heat from his colleagues for saying he does not believe Buchanan is an anti-semite.
"I fear that my friend Michael Kinsley has lost his mind," literary editor Leon Wieseltier wrote this week, calling it "intellectually shabby" for Kinsley to defend Buchanan simply because he has had pleasant dealings with him.
Kinsley said Friday that the anti-semitism question is a legitimate one and that he has merely responded to reporters' inquiries by saying he sees no "smoking sound bite" in Buchanan's past. "I'm not on some crusade to vindicate Pat Buchanan, and I'm not certifying him as kosher," he said. "I'm not afraid to say what I think."
Kinsley has fired off a letter to The Times, saying: "I wish Abe Rosenthal would stop framing his disagreement with others about Pat Buchanan in terms of courage and cowardice. . . . Spare us the preen-ing."
Jerry Woodruff, Buchanan's communications director, says the candidate "has said he has nothing to recant or apologize for. It's more of a Beltway topic of discussion than it is a topic in the real world. The only people who usually bring it up are Beltway journalists and pundits. Out on the hustings, it doesn't come up."