Pat Buchanan said Wednesday that Sarah Palin has been a victim of the media in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and she was right to use the phrase “blood libel” in defending herself from charges that her language had anything to do with the mass shooting.
“Frankly I thought it was an excellent statement with regard to the phrase ‘blood libel’,” Buchanan said. “That of course refers to the libel that was used in the Middle Ages, charges against Jews that were utterly unsupportable slanders and I think she’s using it in that context.”
MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell (as you’ll see in the video below) didn’t seem quite sure where to go after that.
Buchanan offered a full-throated defense of Palin, who he said “is not a dispenser of hate, she’s a victim of hate.”
“I think to say what she did — calling it what it is as reprehensible and insupportable slander — and the other part of her statement I thought was exactly right,” Buchanan said. “She waited for four days while this was going on before responding was correct and I thought it was an excellent statement.”
Don’t expect that explanation to fly with the Anti-Defamation League, which issued a statement on Wednesday in which they wished Palin “had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history.”
Buchanan, a veteran of the Nixon White House, has faced opposition from Jewish groups in the past due to controversial statements, most recently that there were too many Jews on the Supreme Court.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
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