Sleazy Glenn Reynolds, John Podhoretz smear Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan offers "Is Putin Being Set Up?" about the recent apparent murder-by-plutonium of the former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko. He offers an explanation other than the most obvious: that the case was an attempt to discredit Putin, rather than attempts by Putin to silence his critics. Considering the trail of dead bodies, I tend to favor the most popular explanation, but anyway Buchanan names billionaire Boris Berezovsky and Litvinenko associate Alex Goldfarb as possible suspects.

Somehow - something perhaps related to the phase of the moon - John Podhoretz of National Review ("JPod") is smearing Buchanan as an anti-Semite because of his article, despite said article not having any conceivable evidence to support the charge:

...Putin, the former KGB strongman who appears to be re-totalitarianizing Russia, is being set up, you see. By Jews.

Minor league thinker (but fast typer) Glenn Reynolds ("Instapundit") joins in with the smear, offering just this link to JPod and someone else:

PUTIN: Set up by the Jews? Claudia Rosett has a different view.

Is there any reason why anyone takes Reynolds or Podhoretz seriously?

UPDATE: The claims made in "Polonium detected at Berezovsky's office" can be taken in many ways: they did it and were sloppy, it was planted by whoever did it, etc. Note also that it can be ordered over the internet, and one of those selling it is Bob Lazar of UFO/Area 51/Art Bell semi-fame.

Bloggage · Mon, 11/27/2006 - 19:09 · · Importance: 1