Jude Wanniski -- the supply-side propagandist, Jack Kemp ventriloquist, and flack extraordinaire for Louis Farrakhan -- has been noticeably mum of late about his Nation of Islam friends. Perhaps they balked at accepting the central role of the Smoot-Hawley tariff in the history of 20th-century civilization? Or maybe Wanniski is having second thoughts about the political viability of his GOP-Black Muslim alliance.
That would be understandable. Two weeks ago Farrakhan named a new security chief for his Harlem mosque, the mosque that was once guided by Malcolm X. Farrakhan's new man in Harlem? One Muhammad Abdul Aziz, who served 20 years in prison for participating in the assassination of Malcolm X. Aziz was paroled in 1985 and, in the classic phrase of the New York Times, "has always maintained that he was innocent." The convicted killer will be in charge of security and training at all of Farrakhan's East Coast mosques.
Atonement is a wonderful thing.