“In this changing climate, moreover, it did not help that Chomsky, even though he sometimes called himself a libertarian anarchist, repeatedly rushed to apologize for or side with any totalitarian despot, whether Communist or fascist and no matter how murderous, provided only that the despot in question was ranged against the United States. To the consternation even of some formerly devoted admirers, this included Pol Pot, who had slaughtered one-third or more of his own people in setting up a Communist regime in Cambodia. As a result of all this, Chomsky, too, like Buchanan, was increasingly relegated to the margins and largely forgotten.

“After 9/11, however, and unlike Buchanan, Chomsky found a newly receptive audience and one bigger than ever. Arch Puddington of Freedom House summed it up in an article in Commentary:

9/11, a pamphlet-sized book of responses to questions from foreign journalists, sold over 300,000 copies in 23 languages. According to one survey, Chomsky is the most cited living author, and the eighth most cited of all time (just behind Freud). His speeches draw packed houses. At the World Social Forum, an annual gathering of the anti-globalist movement, he is a featured personality. The current generation of young leftists treat Chomsky as a celebrity, and pay him the kind of homage normally reserved for rock stars or cult icons. He is the subject of several reverential documentary films, which depict him as an isolated voice of truth against a corrupt and warmongering establishment, and he has even inspired a one-man theater work, The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky.” 

Excerpt From: Podhoretz, Norman. “World War IV.” Doubleday, 2007-09-11. iBooks.

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HKO

Pat Buchanan’s tilt towards anti-Semitism on the eve of the Iraq War caused him to be marginalized by the right.  Chomsky’s equally odious slant caused him to be a celebrity of the left.  Anti-Semitism has found a much more welcome reception from the left.

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