Pat Buchanan: Too Many Jews on the Supreme Court

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pat-buchananPat Buchanan’s column on Elena Kagan is a pretty typical mix of bad faith and racial scare-mongering, but the tone is so strange that it’s getting some pushback. Buchanan writes, with a wink, that no Democratic president has elevated an African American to the court since 1965. (Democratic presidents have had only four nominees since then.) But “if Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats,” he writes, adding, “Not in nearly half a century has a Democratic president nominated a white Protestant or white Catholic man or woman.”

Let’s put this in context.

Buchanan has been clamoring for more whites to get Supreme Court seats for four decades, and in 1971 he wrote this in a memo to President Richard Nixon.

Italian Americans, unlike blacks, have never had a Supreme Court member – they are deeply concerned with their “criminal” image; they do not dislike the President. Give those fellows the “Jewish seat” or the “black seat” on the Court when it becomes available.
The court now has two Italian American members, so Buchanan revisits his obsession to make a tiresome argument — that Obama is passing over theoretically qualified white candidates and that, hint hint, this provides an opening for conservatives.

“Neither Obama nominee is academically distinguished,” writes Buchanan of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both of whom graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University.

Really, it’s such a thin and weakly argued column, coming from such a place of bias, that I don’t forsee many smart conservatives looking to it for advice on how to oppose Kagan.

And here’s the ADL’s statement:

ADL SAYS BUCHANAN’S ANTI-SEMITISM UNABATED
AFTER HIS REMARKS ABOUT JEWS ON THE SUPREME COURT

New York, NY, May 15, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called Pat Buchanan “a recidivist anti-Semite who doesn’t miss an opportunity to show his fangs,” in response to remarks he made about the Jewish faith of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan and the religious makeup of the current court.

Buchanan wrote in his May 14 syndicated column, “If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?”

Buchanan continued, “Not in living memory has a Democratic president nominated an Irish, Italian, or Polish Catholic … What happened to the party of the Daleys, Rizzos and Rostenkowskis?”

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

Pat Buchanan is a recidivist anti-Semite who never misses an opportunity to show his fangs. His remarks about the Jewish background of Elena Kagan and the religious makeup of the Supreme Court are bigoted and unacceptable in a pluralistic society such as ours.

Kagan’s nomination for the Supreme Court should be considered on its merits. She is a highly qualified candidate for the judiciary, an exemplary Solicitor General and a great legal mind.

As the nomination process for Kagan moves forward, we hope that all Americans will reject appeals to bigotry and anti-Semitism.

Editors Note: Pat Buchanan’s history of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and racist remarks is chronicled in “Pat Buchanan In His Own Words,” which is available on the League’s Web site at www.adl.org.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

{Washington Post-David Weigel/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}


17 COMMENTS

  1. This is an excellent point. It’s absurd to complain that
    Jews make up 33% of the SCOTUS and only 2% of the
    general population. That’s comparing apples to oranges.
    The right question is, what percentage of lawyers are jewish? I don’t know, but I
    would guess that it would be much, much higher than
    2%, maybe even close to 33%. It probably has something
    to do with the legacy of the Talmud, just as I believe that
    the legacy of the great Mainmonides has something to
    do with the large number of Jews in the medical
    profession.

  2. I almost always disregard anything Foxman and the ADL say. His left-wing statements go way beyond ADL’s mission. ADL statements are issued against imagined anti-Semitism as reflexively as the NAACP does against imagined racism. Buchanan opened his column to show how bigoted the Democrats are. Their affirmative action over-emphasizes one demographic and automatically excludes another. Isn’t that what bigotry and racism is all about?

  3. As Bob Grant would say: I have no problem with the fact that most basketball teams are comprised of all black men. People should get positions that they are qualified to fill”
    I’m sure if Buchanan needs an emergency surgery and sees some names of Dr’s such as Goldberg, Singer, Markowitz… he would insist that a Leroy Johnson operate on him!!!

  4. There is nothing wrong with what he said. He is just being mekayem the mitzvah of Eisav Soneh es Yakkov
    And his Rov is Harav Yehuda Levin. Who is being Moreh Derech him

  5. And is anyone suprised about this? If the Court is in theory to represent America there should be a diverse balance btween gender, race and ethnicity.

    However Mr. Pat most likely is not all that concerned by diversity . . . .

  6. hi I’m a frum jew and have mostly right wing opinions, but i do agree with him we are to much involved, we belong under the radar not cover story news all the time
    p.s. pat will always be an anti semite even when hes right

  7. Pat is both right and very wrong here. His point that the left is anti-WASP is quite true. The Democrats have since the 1880s been a collection of those with grievances against the majority. The preacher, who cost Republican James Blaine (himself half-Catholic with a nun for a sister) the election in 1884 with the line that the Democrats were the party of Rum (urban poor, many of whom were alcoholics), Romanism (a derisive term for Catholics) and Rebellion (Southerners), was quite correct if impolitic. The FDR coalition of Southerners, white ethnics (Catholics and Jews), labor, and Northern Blacks was an extension of this. And it has re-invented itself with every generation. The only difference today is that the Scotch Irish (ironically the first group reached out to in this manner) are now lumped in with WASPs.
    A majority of Americans are Protestants and it is wrong that no member of the founding population of the US is on the court. The American political tradition was founded by dissenting Protestants. A court without one shows just how far we have gone from out heritage and founding principles in an increasing krytocratic court that thinks it writes the Constitution.

    Of course, while Jews certainly are over-represented, but 2/3 of this court is now Catholic. I don’t see the German-Irish Catholic Buchanan complaining about this now or back when President Bush nominated Alito. Buchanan reaffirms himself as a antisemitic hypocrite. But don’t think that the issue of the US Supreme Court being Protestant-less is irrelevant.
    Kagan is a socialist and Obama would like nothing more than useful idiots to make this a Jewish issue so that the man protecting Iran’s nuclear program from Israel can scream “antisemitism”.

  8. Read Pat’s article for yourself without Crazy Old Uncle Abe’s hysterical commentary – there’s nothing bigoted about it. He is simply showing Obama and the Democrats hypocrisy and lack of diversity regarding race despite their claims to champion that very ideal.
    We should be more careful before yelling antisemite at every moving target.
    Pat Buchanan may be a rabid antisemite – but you have to really contort your mind to see it here.

  9. 1.Jews may be 2& of the population but what percentage of lawyers are jews?–thats the relevant number.

    2. “Italian Americans have never had a Supreme Court justice”. Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t Scalia Italian?

  10. Abe Foxman is from the biggest liberals in the world.

    All they do is scream anti-semitism at any conservative they can think of. Somehow they forget about the massive amount of antisemitism which is found primarily on the left.

    Pat Buchanan is one hundred percent correct in his analysis. There is nothing antisemitic in what he wrote.

    Please, never trust Abe Foxman.

  11. At http://matzav.com/a-letter-to-mrs-park, I posted the following remark, and will post it again here. I related about an article that the “Yated Ne’eman” published a number of years ago. I think that the issue of the newspaper was sometime during the election campaign of the year 2000; the subject of the article was about one of the presidential candidates, Mr. Patrick Joseph Buchanan.

    By profession, Mr. Buchanan is a news and political commentator, served as a senior advisor to three former presidents, and ran himself for president in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 elections.

    His political philosophy is far right conservative on domestic issues (including very strong opposition to abortion rights, toeiva rights, and illegal immigration) and a very strong “America First” isolationist view on foreign issues.

    As a result of specific critical remarks he made regarding certain situations (and now this latest one regarding the Supreme Court nominee), he has heavily been called “anti-Semitic.” He himself though VEHEMENTLY DENIES this characterization. He explains that these remarks have been taken and presented totally out of their proper context; on the contrary, he has made many statements that are very PRO-Jewish and very PRO-Israel. See: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/b/buchanan-pat/buchanan-on-buchanan.html

    The Yated article related about and had an actual picture of the following incident that took place in 2000, at the rally for the opening of the “Buchanan for President” campaign. When Mr. Buchanan arose and stood at the podium to deliver his address — this was the address in which he was officially declaring that he was now a candidate for President of the United States — two Jewish teen-age boys wearing yarmulkas sneaked onto the auditorium stage and stood behind him holding an almost-as-long-as-the-stage sign on which was printed:

    “BUCHANAN IS AN ANTI-SEMITE!!”

    First of all, just on the issue of TRESSPASSING ON PRIVATE PROPERTY, what these boys did was 100% — please excuse me, what these boys did was 1,000% — again, please excuse me, WHAT THESE BOYS DID WAS 100,000% ASSUR!!!!

    Second, what in the whole world did these guys think that they could have even remotely begun to accomplish??? This was a campaign rally for a certain candidate. It was a very special campaign rally for that certain candidate, for it was when the candidate was going to officially announce his candidacy. So obviously, the people who were attending this rally were people who were staunch supporters of him!! They were people who were staunch supporters of him, and who obviously thought that he was a very good man. So when these boys — totally illegally — get up on the stage in front of Mr. Buchanan’s supporters and hold up a sign that in effect says to them: “No, your friend, Mr. Buchanan, here is really a very BAD man!!” can they reasonably think for even a minute that these supporters will give a hoot about it??

    Third, there are, of course, all the rules and standards of basic elementary human decorum and respect — all the rules and standards of basic elementary human decorum and respect that every child in Pre-1A and Kindergarten knows — of not disturbing a speaker, of not interrupting a speaker, of (instead) sitting quietly and politely and listening to the speaker, etc.

    Fourth, above all, this was THE occasion for Mr. Buchanan; this was “His Night”! This was “His Special Moment”! This was the time when he would be making history! This was the moment when it would now be recorded in the annals of America that in the 2000 election, Patrick Joseph Buchanan was one of the candidates for President of the United States!

    The numerous photographs of that event will be taken and placed in special albums that will be cherished by the campaign staffs, by the Buchanan family, and, of course, by Mr. Patrick himself.

    That these two boys had to come in now to disrupt and spoil his special event, and to try to ruin the pictures that would be taken of him delivering his speech, is sick and mean!

    The Yated concluded the article with the blunt observation: Whatever the truth is about Mr. Buchanan being an anti-semite or not being an anti-semite, with what these guys and others like them are doing to him, Chas V’Shalom,

    THEY ARE SURE GOING TO MAKE HIM INTO ONE!!!!

  12. Oh no!! The goyim are in control of the United States! What will we do?

    To #10: I don’t know how many lawyers are jewish, but in the New York area, A LOT of them are.

  13. The truth is that we keenly realize that we Jews should NOT try to get into high spositions in the government. There are two practical reasons for this. Number one, when one of us holds a high government office, it, Chas V’Shalom, gives Sonei Yisroel fuel for their tirades against us as they exclaim: “Ah, you see, these damn Jews, they control everything!” Number two, if a Jewish officeholder makes any kind of a mistake, especially if the mistake causes terrible consequenses for the country, it, Chas V’Shalom, gives Sonei Yisroel much further fuel for their tirades against us as they exclaim: “Ah, you see, these damn Jews, they are destroying our country!”

    These are not my words. I once heard a lecture from Rav Berel Wein, Sh’lita, in which he explained these considerations. He related that at the end of World War I, it was a Jewish official who, representing Germany, signed the cease fire agreement that ended the war — with Germany loosing. Now, the development of the war had been that after several years of the most deadly severe fighting ever in history, the forces of the western allies had finally heavily pushed back the threatening German forces. So the Germans were literally forced to agree to this capitulation.

    However, latter on, when Hitler and his Nazi cronies, Yemach Shemam, came along with their thingy, they would never accept that the German army had been vanquished, for the German people — “The Volk” — “are invincible!” The only way then that Germany could have lost the war was that Germany had been “betrayed”! And who had betrayed Germany? Who had signed the capitulation? A Jew!!

    Rav Wein thus stated: “I get very scared every time a Jew attains high office. Boruch HaShem, we ‘survived’ Kissinger!” *

    —————————————-
    * Henry Alfred Kissinger, born in 1923. Attained great fame when he served as a National Security Advisor to President Richard Milhous Nixon and President Gerald Ford from 1969 to 1975 and as Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, and was thus the chief architect of the numerous major foreign policy endeavors of that era.

  14. Erev Shavuos 5770
    Time: 8:05 PM Pacific Standard Time

    In order to more fully appreciate this issue, B’Ezras HaShem, let us have a little lesson in American government.

    When we think of the government of the United States, we think of two things: the President and the Congress. The two buildings of these two sections, the White House and the Capitol, are thus probably the most important national landmarks.

    The people who set up the government, purposely set it up this way. The President was set up to be the leader of the country and to thus really fulfill the role of a king. However, he was not set up as an actual “king,” for the founders of the country did not want him to be a king; they did not want him to be a dictator. In fact, they did not want any part of the government to be a “dictator.”

    Therefore, they spread out the different functions of government over different sections. In this way, each section has significant power but not total power; the functions of each section form a set of “checks and balances” against each other. For example, the President can make a proposal for a certain project. However, his proposal is only that — a proposal; it does not become a law unless a majority of the members of the Congress decide that they want it to be a law. When the Congress thus does pass a law, it is not yet a finished actual “law,” for it still needs to have the final approval of the President. He does this by “signing” the law. (The signing of a very major law is, understandably, viewed as a major historical event, and is thus usually done in an elaborate ceremony with heavy media coverage.)

    The President though, has full choice in giving this approval. If he strongly disagrees with the way the Congress made the law, he can write a statement that states he disapproves of the law. This is called “vetoing” the law and the proposed law is nullified. If the Congress though, does very strongly like how it made the law, then, if a large two thirds majority of the members of the Congress vote to still have the law, that “overrides” the President’s veto, and despite the President’s disapproval, the proposed law becomes a real law.

    So again: The President can propose a law. The Congress can pass it or not pass it. If the Congress passes it, the President can sign it or veto it. If the President vetoes it, the Congress can override the President’s veto.

  15. (continuation of above comment)

    Until now, we have just discussed the President and the Congress, for as we noted at the beginning, these are the two most well known parts of our government.

    There is though, a third part of the US government; it is certainly not as well known as the first two, and its building, though also quite an exquisite structure, is certainly no where near as much of a major American landmark as the White House or the Capitol. The reason for this is probably because the work that it does is a little more subtle and behind the scenes. However, as we will soon see, it is a very, very powerful part of the government.

    This part is called “The Supreme Court,” and it serves many functions. As its name implies, it is the very highest court in the land and is thus the highest and last tribunal to which a lawsuit can be appealed. Furthermore, it performs a key role in the operation of the government itself.

    Above, we related in detail how the functions of the President and the Congress “check and balance” against each other. This third part, the Supreme Court, checks and balances against both the President and the Congress! Or, to express it in court language, the Supreme Court “judges” the President and the Congress. If the President does an action, or the Congress passes a law that is contrary to the fundamental law of the nation, the country’s constitution, the Supreme Court can nullify the President’s action or the Congress’s law by declaring that that action or that law is “unconstitutional.”

    Wow, this is pretty powerful. The Congress makes the laws of the country, and the President runs the business of the country. But the Supreme Court can come along and knock it all right down! For the Supreme Court can say that what the Congress or the President did is no good because it was “unconstitutional”!

    So the Supreme Court has this very strong power to check both the President and the Congress. In this case though, the checking is pretty much only in one direction. For while the Supreme Court can check the President and the Congress, there is not too much of a way for them to check it. The President does have the authority to appoint the judges of this high court, along with the approval of the part of the Congress called the “Senate.” However, once a judge is approved, he has the position for life (or until he retires.) Then once (the majority of the nine judges on) the Supreme Court decides that something is “unconstitutional,” that’s it! It’s over!

    [The only thing that then can be done is to — change the constitution! Yes, this can be done; it is called “amending” the constitution. Understandably though, to make an amendment to the constitution, is an extremely long difficult process. (There has to be the approval of a two thirds majority of Congress, plus, the approval of the majority of each of the legislatures of three fourths of all the states in the country.) So it is understandable that only a small number of amendments have ever been added to the US Constitution.]

    Over the years, the Supreme Court has made many decisions that very many people are very bitter about. And, as just explained, these people have almost no options for opposing them.

    In my above remark, I discussed the extremely serious issues that can exist when one of us Jews is in a high government position. With the especial extreme powers that the US Supreme Court has, we Jews should be even more hesitant to ever be a judge on this court.

  16. #7
    In calling the Democratic Party the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellian” the “rum” does not refer to drunken poor people but to the Democratic Party’s opposition to Prohibition.

    Also “Scotch Irish” are not NOW “considered as WASPs” — they ARE WASPS. The Scotch Irish were the Protestants imported from Scotland into Catholic Ireland by the English to pacify it. They are the protestants in Ulster warring with the (native) Irish Catholics. I suppose you could call them “non-wasps” in the sense that they are not technically Anglo-Saxons, but it’s a distinction without a difference.

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