Reporter Deborah Solomon, who conducts the interviews for the Q&A page of the Times Sunday Magazine,
has a history of using the real estate to butter up leftists by either asking flattering questions or ignoring their scandals (like she did with Al Sharpton) while attacking conservatives (like she did with William F. Buckley [1]). She's on her usual form on Sunday interviewing scholar Norman Podhoretz [2], who has a new book posing the question "Why Are Jews Liberals?"
Solomon unloaded her usual anti-conservative hostility:
Solomon: Why is it such a puzzle to you? Anti-Semitism and the Nazi Party were invented by the political right.
Podhoretz: It's a little more complicated than that, but the rise of Hitler was certainly the culmination of a long history of hostility on the right. But there's been a complete reversal of roles. Whereas the right was once full of anti-Semites, since the Six-Day War of 1967, the right - and especially the religious right - has become more pro-Israel, and the left - as exemplified by intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal and a magazine like The Nation - has become more hostile.
Jonah Goldberg, author of a book on the subject, handled that myth in a post at National Review Online pointing out [3] Solomon's politicized historical ignorance:
The New York Times interviewer says that anti-Semitism was invented by the political right. This is simply absurd on too many levels....it's simply not true to say that it was invented by the political right. It was invented by Wilhelm Marr, a German radical, atheist, and leftist. He coined the word, and concept, in his 1879 tract The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism (Der Weg zum Siege des Germanentums über das Judentum). Unlike the old-fashioned Judenhass - Jew hatred - anti-Semitism was modern and scientific, unconcerned with theology. It was progressive! Indeed, Marr hated assimilated Jews more than orthodox ones. Meanwhile, anti-Semitism as a political movement has its roots in the Left. Karl Marx, the quintessential self-hating Jew, was writing about the "Jewish Question" in what can only be called anti-Semitic (by today's usage) terms long before Hitler was born.
Solomon followed up later with this hostile question to Podhoretz:
Do you think the neoconservative movement discredited itself by pushing the Iraq war?