D’Amato Slams Buchanan Views

Labeling Patrick Buchanan’s views toward immigrants, minorities and Holocaust survivors “reprehensible” and “unacceptable,” Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, R-N.Y., told worshipers at a synagogue Saturday the Republican presidential candidate’s attitudes are divisive for the party and the country.

Wearing a yarmulke bearing his name and the Israeli and U.S. flags, D’Amato told a near-silent congregation at the Rego Park Jewish Center: “Extremists, whether on the left or the right, should not be tolerated.”

Campaigning in Maryland, Buchanan said D’Amato’s attack was part of a frenzied onslaught by party leaders who want him out of the race. D’Amato is a supporter of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas.

D’Amato urged the congregation to reject those who spew hatred.

“You have left virtually no stone unturned in your rhetoric, which denigrates women, bashes gays, criminalizes immigrants, insults African-Americans and politicizes religion,” he said.