Hagel earns coveted Buchanan endorsement, Part Two

As Scott noted earlier today, “Chuck Hagel has earned the endorsement of Patrick Buchanan” (emphasis added). Scott’s daughter Eliana Johnson, an invaluable recent addition to the blogosphere, reminds us that Buchanan’s anti-Israel utterances in connection with the Gulf War caused William F. Buckley to write:

I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism, whatever it was that drove him to say and do it: most probably, an iconoclastic temperament.

Some believe that Hagel’s reference to a “Jewish lobby” similarly amounts to anti-Semitism, whatever drove him to utter it. I don’t consider the case against Hagel as strong as the one against Buchanan, and therefore I’m not inclined to allege anti-Semitism on the part of the former Nebraska Senator.

But it is reasonable to ask, as Ron Radosh does, “why is a known anti-Semite like Buchanan endorsing Hagel?”

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