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"Alan Keyes said for me to tell Salon that there is an Eighth Commandment," said Keyes spokeswoman Becky Fenger.

"Thou shalt not steal?" I asked.

"That's the Eighth in the Protestant Bible," she told me. "In the Catholic Bible it's 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.'"

"Huh?" I asked. "These are quotes. From Buchanan's columns, and transcripts from his speeches. Buchanan's proud of them. What's the 'false witness'?"

"I would guess," Fenger said, "That Alan Keyes is saying that he's never heard Buchanan make those comments himself, so he wouldn't want to bear false witness against him. But that's just my interpretation."

(Fenger can be forgiven. Many of Keyes' transmissions come from planet Neptune, so they're often tough to decipher.)

To be fair, much of the reluctance of the other candidates to denounce Buchanan is based on the so-called 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of thy fellow Republican."

But utilization of the 11th commandment among the GOPsters seems spotty. Just last month, front-runner Bush was asked about Louisiana Republican David Duke, a former Klansman, and said, "I don't like Duke's politics. I don't like where his heart is. I don't like the bigotry and prejudice that he spreads. That's my position on David Duke ... As a loyal Republican, I don't want that kind of message in our party."

Of course, speaking out against a guy in a sheet is easy. Condemning a Republican on the same stage as you -- one with a voter base, one who may well live to fight another day in another venue, as host of CNN's "Crossfire" once again -- is a little tougher.

As a front-runner who claims to be reaching out to new voter pools besides white Christians, Bush may be ready to affirm himself as a non-racist, but he's not yet able to criticize friends who, figuratively, at least, wander over and shake hands at the local Klan rally.

Take Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster, for example, who has admitted purchasing a mailing list from David Duke in his last campaign, against an African-American congressman named Cleo Fields, and illegally failing to report that fact.

When asked a few weeks ago whether Foster, who is now Bush's Louisiana campaign chair, should have purchased a mailing list of racists to target for votes, Bush said, "Here's my position. Gov. Foster is a good and decent man. He's an honorable fellow. I respect him a lot. I'm fortunate to have him as a friend and ally."

When asked if he would have purchased a mailing list, Bush said, "I don't know all the facts. I don't know what the facts are. I do know I trust Mike Foster, and know he's a good man."

"I don't know all the facts"?

Let me enlighten you, Governor: In 1995, Foster was running for governor. That year, and two years later, Foster purchased mailing lists from Duke for $152,000.

Foster broke campaign laws by keeping the purchases secret because, in his own words, "it ain't cool" to be associated with the former Klansman. But in an investigation into Duke's finances, the deal with Foster was brought to light. And then, just a few weeks ago, Foster was fined $20,000 by the Louisiana Board of Ethics for "failing to accurately ... report campaign expenditures."

It would seem in this that Foster has been anything but "good," "decent" or "honorable."

It is worth noting that besides remaining silent about Buchanan's smears, Bush and his fellow Republican candidates have yet to say anything significant on the issue of race and prejudice in America in this, an insecure era that has seen a number of high-profile murders and shootings based on prejudice in Los Angeles, Chicago, Wyoming.

With the exception of Elizabeth Dole, all of the Republican candidates have denied that the proliferation of guns is one of the causes of such violence -- but then they also refuse to condemn the warped thinking of bigotry when it is demonstrated in anyone of any political consequence.

"That's another thing I don't understand about these Republican candidates," says Danforth. "Is why none of them talk about race at all."

"They wouldn't have to say very much," Danforth says. "All they have to say is, 'We've got a problem with race in this country, and we need to figure out what to do about it.' They wouldn't have to be for quotas or anything, they'd just need to indicate some interest in the subject. If somebody said, 'We've got to do something about this race issue,' it would immediately color the perception of that candidate. People would say, 'This is a moderate.'"

But for now, among Republicans, no one has anything to say about the bigot in their midst. Would David Duke be afforded such a courtesy if he were running for president? Of course not -- he wears a sheet.

So consider Buchanan's own words on the former Klansman: "David Duke is busy stealing from me," Buchanan said in 1991. "I have a mind to go down there and sue that dude for intellectual property theft."

Go, Pat, go.
salon.com | Sept. 4, 1999

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