Patrick Buchanan's splenetic outburst on the political loyalties of New York Times columnist William Safire puts THE SCRAPBOOK in mind of the old adage, "Better to keep your mouth shut and have people suspect you of being an anti-Semite than open it and remove all doubt."

Here's how Buchanan answered ABC's Diane Sawyer on Oct. 26, when she asked the Reform party's newest star about criticism from Safire, his "old friend at the Nixon White House." First of all, said Buchanan, "William Safire is not a friend of mine. And I do not think he is an honorable man, personally." Harsh, but still within bounds. However, Buchanan continued, "With regard to Mr. Safire, I've got to say: I represent America first. I represent America only. Mr. Safire, in my judgment, has always put Israel a little bit ahead of his own country."

Now, the traditional anti-Semitic slander has been to accuse Jews of "dual loyalty" -- i.e., however much they love their country, Jews are incapable of being like other citizens, since they are loyal to Israel as well. Buchanan here goes beyond even that, accusing Safire of being not even a loyal American, insofar as he puts another country first. Shouldn't there be a little more outrage about this calumny? Does Buchanan's Reform party sponsor Pat Choate agree? Does Ross Perot?

Meanwhile, loyal SCRAPBOOK readers will not be surprised to learn that Buchanan has a new and voluble cheerleader, Jude Wanniski, who when last reported on by this page was favorably comparing Slobodan Milosevic to Abraham Lincoln. Wanniski-Buchanan might seem a counterintuitive alliance. On all the issues that used to animate Wanniski when he was an ardent publicist for supply-side economics -- free trade, capital gains, immigration -- he and Buchanan are at odds. But Wanniski's political tailspin has dropped him over the years from advising Jack Kemp to advising Louis Farrakhan. From there it was apparently just a small step down to embracing Buchanan.

And besides, as Wanniski says he explained to a rapt Buchanan, they (Wanniski, Buchanan, Buchanan's Reform party pal Lenora Fulani, Louis Farrakhan) are all Marxists now.

In an Oct. 26 letter to his clients titled "Pitchfork Pat and the Power Pyramid," Wanniski reports from "Pat Buchanan's cozy living room in McLean, Va., which I visited for the first time last week." As Wanniski relates, "I threw out several policy ideas that I believed might be useful to him, which no other candidate would risk, and he seemed enthusiastic about most of them. The one thought I shared that surprised him, I think, is that he is not a 'right-winger' at all, but is a Marxist at heart. Karl Marx, I told him, believed capitalism was doomed because its power elites would capture governments in order to reach into foreign markets, at the expense of the masses who would be left behind in the quest for global profits. I think he knew that but he looked surprised when I told him Marx, like Lincoln, believed America was the last, best hope of mankind." (Not to mention, Marx was anti-Jewish.)

These guys deserve each other. The Republican party is luckier than it knows that Buchanan left it.