Correspondence

...It's worth noting that the most successful Republican politician of the past half-century, Ronald Reagan, won 41 states in 1980 running as a pro-immigration candidate, even in the middle of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression...

...I suspect the effects would more than counteract the occasional downsides of free trade...

...If Buchanan had said in 1990, "I'm against entering the war, against Israel's support for it, AIPAC's support for it," no one would have called him an anti-Semite...

...To criticize the strong pro-Israeli position of Rosenthal, Kissinger, Krauthammer, and Perle is not anti-Semitism...

...But his use of colorful language-"Israel and its amen corner"-qualifies him as an anti-Semite...

...Taken together, they are fairly compelling evidence of prejudice...

...First of all, it means that not only are Alexander Hamilton, John Calhoun, and Russell Kirk not conservatives, but that to conservatives they are not even Americans since they do not pledge allegiance to the Gettysburg Address...

...It has been a mystery to me why fellow NAFTA supporters have so consistently displayed such a blithe disregard for free trade's losers, primarily low-wage workers...

...But faced with accusations about racism and anti-Semitism the best he can do is to laugh them off...

...William M. Connolly Newton, MA Respectable Economics Thank you for Irwin Stelzer's "Buchanan's Surprisingly Respectable Economics" (Mar...

...As a nonpartisan organization, the League supports neither parties nor candidates...

...But please elaborate on how "deracinate" relates to race or racism...

...The Buchanan-Simpson-Smith vision of America seems to be that the shining city on a hill should be surrounded by a 20-foot barbed-wire fence protected by the military, with citizens carrying internal passports...

...Brooks argues that because Buchanan agrees with Aristotle rather than Gloria Steinem about the nature of men and women, and because he agrees with Edmund Burke against Abraham Lincoln that a nation cannot be founded on philosophical principles apart from tradition and culture, Buchanan and paleoconservatism are opposed to conservatism, properly understood...

...I especially loved the quotation from Eugene Genovese's The Southern Tradition on Reagan as a progressive...

...I was therefore quite surprised to find the following litmus test: Someone is a proper conservative if he believes that "anyone can become an American by adopting certain ideas...

...Becky Cain President, League of Women Voters Washington, DC Eric Felten Responds: If the League's political action has consistently been "mistaken" for partisanship over its 75-year history, perhaps that ought to tell the League something...

...Correspondence In D oconservativ Paleoconservatives David Brooks claims that Patrick Buchanan and his paleoconservative allies are "at war with conservatism as we have properly come to understand it today" ("Buchananism: An Intellectual Cause," Mar...

...Let's look at Buchanan's regrettable silence this way: If an authoritative Republicanparty voice were to say publicly that no matter how much Buchanan says he's against abortion, he is secretly prochoice, Buchanan wouldn't wait a second to deny indignantly that he was pro-choice...

...First, Felten refers to Republican claims made in 1995 that the California League was partisan...

...To criticize Israel and the pro-Israeli lobby is not anti-Semitic...

...Perhaps I can cut my roots to an extended family or a southern community-move to New York, as my Virginia grandparents did-but how can I un-race myself...

...Taken separately, such remarks may be ignored...

...Felten, failing to discover any evidence of partisanship, tried to impose it on our political positions...

...2), which found a pattern of anti-Semitism in Buchanan statements over two decades...

...Abolish the payroll tax...

...Uproot, as in annihilate or destroy, had been my sense of the word, confirmed when I hauled out my Oxford English Dictionary...

...Now, if only the scales could fall from Podhoretz's eyes where Buchanan's fellow travelers Pat Robertson and Richard Nixon are concerned...

...The pressure to oppose term limits came from our state Leagues...

...If an authoritative Republican-party voice were to say that Buchanan is secretly for unrestricted immigration, he would deny it a hundredfold...

...Second, it was amusing to see the League's opposition to term limits cited in an article attempting to prove partisanship...

...One of the primary themes of the Reagan victory was that the United States should stand as a "shining city on a hill...

...Politics gets dirty when the character assassins, stone throwers, and mud slingers get into the fray...

...Stephen Moore Washington, DC The Political isn't Partisan Eric Felten has repeated a common error in confusing the meaning of the term "nonpartisan" with "nonpolit-ical" in reference to the League of Women Voters ("Non-Partisanship as a Partisan Weapon," Mar...

...And that's why Bill Clinton is on his knees every night praying for a miracle-a Buchanan victory in San Diego, if only a platform victory...

...Two years earlier, however, when that League supported a redistricting plan put together by Republicans, the cries of partisanship were coming from Democrats...

...Buchanan has had many opportunities-most recently on Meet the Press- to speak out about the racism accusations against him...

...It could be that removing or uprooting community and culture in a personal sense, rather than a racial sense, defines "deracinate...

...Marguerite Snow Stockton, CA Don't Wall Off America Three cheers for your insightful editorial "Republicans and Immigration" (Feb...

...Disagree with Buchanan, but please stop defaming a good, honorable, and decent man...

...Term limits is an issue on which we had support from members of both parties...

...You have spoken with the same candor as the London Economist (Mar...

...The four strongest supporters of Israel in the press may be Jewish-Americans...

...When erstwhile conservatives engage in slander and innuendo, once the sole province of the academic Left, they do a disservice to themselves and to conservatism...

...As for Felten's claim that we opposed our own grassroots on this issue, the reverse is true...

...Because it is complex and anti-rationalistic, it is particularly vulnerable to caricature by liberals...

...He has shamefully ignored those opportunities...

...I am not yet ready, however, to "reconsider" the role of the corporation in America when a much simpler remedy is at hand...

...Why don't we just stop taxing the hell out of both workers and their employers...

...This litmus test is silly for several reasons...

...Arnold Beichman Stanford, CA While Norman Podhoretz employs Patrick Buchanan's more recent statements to illustrate his anti-Semitism as concisely and effectively as I've ever seen, his admission that he'd previously "held his tongue" in deference to Buchanan's Cold Warrior credentials is too typical of the sort of gymnastics that neocons (including Jewish neocons) engage in to ignore and minimize anti-Semitism on the right, while being ever vigilant for the faintest whiff of that old prejudice from the left...

...I have read almost all of Buchanan's articles and regularly watched him slug it out with Michael Kinsley on Crossfire...

...If Buchanan criticized by name Irish politicians-Ted and Joe Kennedy, Governor Casey, Bob Dornan, the late Tip O'Neill-for supporting the Irish government on an issue he believed detrimental to Anglo-American relations, would this qualify him as anti-Irish Catholic...

...Buchanan is not an anti-Semite, and the evidence offered to the contrary is libelously weak...

...Thomas Sowell deplored Buchanan's "divisive candidacy and questionable rhetoric and associates [which] may succeed in reelecting someone who both represents and epitomizes the counterculture, Bill Clinton...

...of Pat Buchanan's anti-Semitism ("Anti-Semitism and a Presidential Candidacy," Mar...

...Your charges of bigotry don't square with reality...

...I was under the impression that most conservatives would be familiar with Edmund Burke's critique of the French Revolution and his defenses of tradition and prejudice...

...In the 75 years that the League has been advocating political positions, observers have too often mistaken political action for partisanship...

...Buchanan and his paleoconservative allies represent a conservatism that is broader and more intellectually cogent than self-styled pundits like Brooks seem to appreciate...

...Ted Lindsay Westport, CT Divided over Buchanan No doubt you will be attacked for Norman Podhoretz's splendid expos...

...Second, it means that Rousseau and Robespierre are Americans, if not conservatives, since they accept "the idea of a nation formed in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...

...Daniel P. Moloney South Bend, IN David Brooks provided a thoughtprovoking tour of the thinking of Messrs Buchanan, Fleming, and Francis...

...I hope Republicans will reject that vision...

...Jeffrey Sacks Washington, DC With all due respect, Norman Podhoretz is wrong about Patrick Buchanan...