The Oscars passed over an Argentine fascist and an American pornographer to honor an adulterer who in real life was a homosexual Nazi. A very, very tough call.
Louis Farrakhan is enjoying the Strangest New Respect of all-and from conservatives, no less. Robert Novak has devoted two columns to his defense. Jude Wanniski has been cheerleading for him in increasingly extravagant terms: “The Jews he criticizes are those who hide behind Judaism in pursuit of a political agenda that he believes comes at the expense of black Americans, and I can easily agree with him there.” Tony Snow, in the course of a fawning interview with Farrakhan, notes his social conservatism on, e.g., abortion. As the “dialogue” Mr. Farrakhan constantly seeks proceeds, will we soon be treated to Novak columns on UFOs and the “man-made virus” of AIDS, to name two of Farrakhan’s other concerns? Meanwhile, the Rev. Ben Chavis, former head of the NAACP, has joined the Nation of Islam. Wanniski says that Farrakhan is “close to being recognized as the most important black man in the world.” If so, it would behoove us all to pay attention to the kind of man he is. He is, first, a fraud who rakes in millions from poor people whom he has deluded into thinking they are contributing to black economic development. And he espouses a sort of inverted nationalism which feeds on the alienation of black Americans from their country. Is he a conservative? He may know some of the words, but he is singing them to a different tune.
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