buchanan and his siblings grew up in dc as racist bullies and thugs beating up kids in the neighborhood. he still does it.

"This has been a country built basically by white folks."

See, ol' Pat wasn't justifying the exclusion of non-whites from the SCOTUS. He was simply saying that the exclusion is understandable, given the pervasive history of exclusion in other areas of American life. Yeah, that's what he meant.

But it was really uncalled-for to attack Maddow's sexuality.

"...you're playing with fire and dating yourself."

Hey, if she's a pyro-auto-sexual, that's her business!

Not only is fact-checking Buchanan daunting it is largely irrelevant. While you spend the time wonking around the history books, he's riled another ten thousand disaffected white people to blame people of color for their problems. These white people will never read or care about the facts you found.

To a certain extant I blame people like Maddow. Buchanan has always been a reactionary bigot. He always will be. Why give him the megaphone and the legitimacy of a cable news platform? Sure she gets lots of ratings and everyone pats her on the back for having Buchanan on and confronting him, but what was accomplished really? Was Buchanan exposed? He was exposed in 1992 at the Republican National Convention. What position does he hold that makes his opinion relevant?

I admit to being of two minds here. I want his hateful opinions openly exposed, but I am tired of seeing him. He won't go away until we stop paying attention.

Meanwhile, Stewart had a series of obscure scholars on this week to discuss important issues not on the public's radar. Another win for The Daily Show.

See, he forgot one. 'White people were pretty close to 100% of the ones keeping other people in chains in this country.' It explains a great deal of the others, Pat.

This has been a country built basically by white folks.

With slave labor.

I won't even address the other 1,000 ways -- in this single appearance -- that Buchanan has earned a good poke in the snoot, except to say that the people who happily eat what he's serving are the world's absolutely least likeliest to produce children who can compete on the merits with the Sonia Sotomayors out there.

This clip offers conclusive proof, as if any were needed, that so long as conservative racists stop short of the n-word, they can say anything on national TV and face no consequences for it.

Why is a vile jerkoff like Buchanan on TV?

Enough said about Buchanan's loud-and-proud racial chauvinism. But this idea that, just because you made all A's in high school and got a scholarship, that means, regardless of your family's standard of living, you are 'privileged', is a notion that needs to be smacked down with extreme prejudice.

Buchanan is a racist bully and thug. He always has been. The good news is he is a dinosaur, and no one should spend a millisecond trying to sort out his lies, bigotry, distortions, and propaganda. He is immune to both reason and logic, doesn't really have a sympathetic bone in his body for anyone other than rich, privileged white folks like himself; he thinks bigotry is his birthright.

Like the dinosaurs of long ago, who didn't know a comet was going to hit the Yucatan and wipe them out, so Buchanan doesn't realize that the comet has already hit in the person of Obama, and that his time has past. He is the vestigial remnant of a different time, a living fossil.

I will give him credit for going head-to-head with Rachel. The likes of Buchanan don't intimidate her, and he had to know that before he went on. I've heard Diane Reim reign him in as well, and now Rachel. Let's see if he drags his knuckles out of his cave again to do battle with either of them.

I could barely listen to this exchange (because of Buchanan, not Rachel, whom I love). What an absolute ass he continues to make of himself. MSNBC needs to lose him, he contributes nothing.

Anyhow, Rachel did a great job, and yes, Pat conveniently forgets the role of slaves, of minorities and women, who also built this country. Sure, white men had the money and power, but without the labor (slave or paid), buildings, roads, and railroads would not have been built, crops would not have been grown and harvested. What about the role of women like Obama's grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line during WWII? The women and minorities who serve in the military? The list goes on and on.

This has been a country built basically by white folks and people owned by white folks.

FTFY.

"100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg"

There were three Union regiments of former slaves who fought (together with elements of two white regiments) in a ferocious battle at Milliken's Bend and were victorious (with the help of naval gunboats). This battle was a part of the Vicksburg Campaign, although not part of the siege itself. It was one of the few engagements in the Civil War where the participants did a lot of hand to hand bayonet fighting.

And even aside from this, Buchanan's statement is very questionable. Confederate armies had numerous black body servants, musicians and others, and sometimes they participated in battles. Additionally, there seem to have been isolated examples of blacks in white Union regiments. How does he know that none of these people died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg?

Maybe it's just me, but I love seeing Buchanan say this type of thing so openly on TV. He doesn't convince anybody who doesn't already agree with him, and he repulses a good number of moderates who might not be the world's biggest fans of Obama or Sotomayor, but don't want to be associated with someone so racist.

By taking sides with the GOP and then saying this, he also gives the lie to the idea that this isn't what Republican senators are actually thinking.

doesn't really have a sympathetic bone in his body for anyone other than rich, privileged white folks like himself;

Actually, I suspect the reason that Buchanan has maintained his relevance is because he is actually an economic populist in a punditry where that is pretty rare. He actually sees what he is doing as a defense of the working class. He just seems either unaware or unconcerned that the working class contains many people who are not white.

Rachel missed a bunch of chances to skewer the paleo-white guy, but Pat really didn't let her get much in the conversation.

The main skewer is simple: if Sotomayor were a white dude, Buchanan would be talking about something else.

Buchanan plays well to the shrinking rump of the silent majority. Always the victims of everybody else being always so 'wrong.' The white cry in the 40+ year old pity party, eh?

Well, if I'll give credit to Pat Buchanan for anything (and it ain't much!), it's that he doesn't try to hide his bigotry. He's a dying breed (not dying fast enough, but I digress...), the neo-racists are much more subtle, couching their bigotry in affirmative action, welfare, income gaps, education, etc.

It's of no use to argue with Buchanan. Rachel's preaching to the chior, what is the point of allowing him on to explain his twisted world view? And she doesn't understand "working class America"??? It's good to reenforce that good ol' Pat ain't just a racist, he's a blatant sexist, too! No woman could understand "working class Americans", just as no blacks, hispanics, asians, etc. can either.

What people need to do is to put pressure on MSNBC to fire him. He's not only an embarrassment to NBC, he's an embarrassment to all right-thinking Americans. Banish him to Fox where he belongs.

To a certain extant I blame people like Maddow. Buchanan has always been a reactionary bigot. He always will be. Why give him the megaphone and the legitimacy of a cable news platform?

For better or worse, Buchanan is an MSNBC political analyst. I speculate that among the reasons that Rachel has him on is because she likes her job.

I think SNL needs to run some Buchanan skits like their wildly successful parody of Palin and expose him for the dimwit he truly is. There are still Archie Bunker types out there that will believe everything Buchmeister says. He has a talent for talk (meaning he can string two sentences together - unlike Palin). My hope is that the younger generation can see through this nonsense and laugh at his outdated opinions.
Then on second thought, here I am in Texas...and you know what a battle it's been with the Texas Board of Education members trying to take over textbook material for all of our kids (yours also if you're in the US)...and you know more than quite a few of them carry Uncle Pat's mindset...hmmm...we are in some deep trouble!

Guys, MSNBC will fire him when hell freezes over. The guy is exactly the kind of loud, controversial, in-your-face commenter who gets viewers and ratings, and they (and Rachel Maddow) know that.

MSNBC, like its competitors, does not make casting -- yeah, I chose that word on purpose -- decisions based on the merits of the people or their ideas. There is generally no moral component to these decisions (although there should be; in Maddow's case there usually is, and it's unfortunate that she chose to do this). Buchanan is there because he gets people's attention, sets the blogs aflutter, validates the target angry white viewer, and several other things that have nothing to do with the intrinsic value of his words and everything to do with the financial value of his presence.

*

Prejudice and ignorance reinforcing each other. It happens.

Buchanan actually takes umbrage with the notion of presuming racism when the result is consistently white and male, but not when the result is something other than those two characteristics.

Um, maybe if our country had any history of discriminating against white males, that would raise flags, Pat.

I'll give this guy credit for having the courage to air his half-baked notions of equality in person (rather than in the cozy confines of his anonymous blog or a Fox News set), but seriously, this asshole needs to think his ideas through a little more conclusively.

For instance, he cites the key anti-affirmative action cases decided by the SCOTUS, but doesn't explain that while the Court found the State affirmative action in those cases technically unconstitutional, he doesn't lay out that the Court generally supports benign race-based activity to correct past discrimination, so long as their is solid evidence of past discrimination. I thing the fact that 99% of all Supreme Court Justices have been white males, combined with our nation's long history of institutional racism clearly allows any sensible person to presume racism played a huge role in that outcome.

Finally, the fact that Sotomayor relied on affirmative action to get into Princeton despite low entrance scores hardly disqualifies her performance and accomplishments there. Buchanan lecturing us about how Ivy League schools operate (giving out cum laude certificates like candy) is ridiculous coming from a person who probably hasn't set foot in an institution of higher learning in 50 years. Did I miss something? Was Pat a professor or administrator of a noteworthy college at some point? Otherwise, how does he feel qualified to disparage those places by casting accusations of malfeasance?

Pat's basic argument of Sotomayor's disqualification is that she got into Princeton because of affirmative action. So of course she MUST HAVE displaced some white guy.

Are we then supposed to imagine that this poor displaced white guy ought to be the next Supreme Court justice? Wouldn't he far more likely be working as a partner at some law firm somewhere?

Really, the suggestion that Sotomayor does not qualify as a supreme court justice because at some time in her life she was benefited by afirmative action is just stupid. By that argument Clarence Thomas is not qualified. At some point such past history no longer applies and the persons recent work stands on its own.

I think it is funny that Sessions et al are complaining that Sotomayor's legal judgements don't seem to reflect her personal biases.

Isn't that what they say they want in a Judge??

And by the way Pat, the reason YOU are not qualified to be a supreme court justice is that you were a member of the criminal regime of Richard Nixon. And not being qualified because of that, you are not qualified to judge others.

What I especially appreciated was Rachel's composure in the face of this blatant racism. At one point she just stayed quiet and let him show himself for what he is.

Actually, a lot of this country was built by "black folks" too, usually against their will--including that "white" house where Buchanan once worked.

I'm going to take the anti-Rachel side on this. Even if it is 'part of her job' some prices are too much to pay to keep a job. Giving a hearing to this type of racism is not one I would pay -- and the idea 'I'm showing it to expose it' doesn't work for me. Particularly the friendliness she's shown him in the past.

It isn't just his racism, but his defense of Nazi war criminals, his 'pitchfork speech' that probably did more to slow the growth of rights both Rachel and I want for ourselves or our fellow LGBTs than anything in the last forty years. (The Republicans might have made nominal attacks on gay rights -- not really meaning them. It was Buchanan who forced them to make these arguments -- ironically so often made by closeted gays or gay speechwriters -- and take them seriously.)

I won't even accept the 'revealing the sinister heart of the Republican Party.' I may not like Republicans, may think them wrong about almost everything, but I think that even the rump still in the party would -- by a large but not overwhelming majority -- reject Buchananism, at least in a secret ballot.

I would not ban the Buchanans and the Perkins' from the air, but I would not treat them as 'respectable representatives of a view I happen to disagree with.' They aren't. and while there are areas which they might have something to contribute on, they should be treated no differently than would be a David Duke.

As Richard Nixon once Said...

"America can't stand Pat!"

Buchanan should never be barred
From spewing his racist canard;
Do not disavow him;
Let Maddow allow him
To hoist himself on his petard.

News Short n' Sweet by JFD8
http://twitter.com/JFD8

I'm with Prup, although my problem isn't just with Maddow, it's with MSNBC for giving Buchanan limitless airtime as some sort of "expert" or whatever on almost all of their shows all day long.
He's a hateful racist and homophobe, he really doesn't have any real expertise on any issues except for maybe speechwriting and politics, but he's the MSNBC go-to conservative guy on every damn issue. But when it comes to race issues, his true colors, so to speak, really show. It's uglier than anything Don Imus ever said, yet Buchanan just seems to get more air time.
I don't normally call for such things, but I think it's time for a concerted demand for MSNBC to drop him.
Just the "country built by white folks" comment alone is a massive insult to the descendants of slaves.

The Ricci case is really what bothers me. Sotomayor agreed with existing precedent, because lower courts are bound by precedent. Had she found otherwise, that would have been an example of that horrific "judicial activism" that conservatives love to decry. But she didn't, and so now, that's an example of racism? Buchanan brought it up again and again, that she was discriminating against white men. Well, yeah, she was. And she was doing it because that's what was codified by law and judicial precedent.

Shorter Buchanan: Because of America's bigoted past, we should continue on the same proud course.

(Um. Yeah. And let ourselves continue to be left in the dust of the rest of the world. We're an awfully large country and we make a lot of noise, but we've been falling behind the rest of the (industrialized) world in every category save military spending for decades now. Thanks Republicans.)

I'm with Prup & Allan Snyder.

People don't realize that yes, Patsy is not only a racist, but he will also pit any group against another.

There's rumors that he once supported a black militant group. His true rant is against the Jewish community. He dodged the war-draft due to a disease called Reiters - apparently, this disease was caused by a venereal disease. So maybe, this vile disease is coming out of his mouth in addition to causing the arthritic problems he have (caused by V.D.)

Personally, I don't waste my time with him. I watch Keith Olbermann, BBC, World Focus, CCTV, and sometimes the local news.

Complaining to MSNBC probably won't work, as he has been in good company with the media for years. As someone suggested a few days ago, maybe, a complaint to the FCC would work.

Yet, that is why I made a big issue of people going to the website:

www.theopalinism.com/blog/2009/06/27

not only does name GOP sex scandals, it also names/pix of people associated with the GOP campaigns/assistants that were accused of abortion clinic bombings, as well as the BTK (Dennis Rader), Bob Barr (I) former republican/recently a pres. candidate allegedly paid for his 2nd wife abortion, 3rd wife allegedly photographed licking whip cream off strippers at his inaugural party....

I found myself wondering if Buchanan's diatribe "sounded better in the original German".

Doesn't the fact that I am quoting a line that referred to Buchanan's hate speech at the Republican National Convention almost 17 YEARS AGO tell us that he has had a national forum for way too long?

Put another way, why is MSNBC depriving the Fox News Channel of another star commentator who could fit right in?

I'm so silk of whining white folks. And I'm white.

I agree completely with Prup and Allen Snyder; why in the hell is this racist, bigoted, homophobic dinosaur given airtime on what seems like every show on MSNBC? Yes, I know he's readily available and like a disturbed child with Tourette's syndrome, they know his outbursts will be incendiary and offensive, thereby provoking "conversation," but when is enough enough? Buchanan needs to be kicked to the curb and/or shoved back beneath the rock he crawled out from under, not constantly encouraged to spew his "viewpoints." There aren't many of them, but there are more responsible conservative commentators if these shows are looking for "balance."

"..It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether..."

I'm always somewhat amused when people get bent out of shape by anything Buchanon says. What we need to remember is at this point in his "career" this is basically his job. He's the house crazy winger for MSNBC which is why he's on all the time. Whether he really believes all the nonesence is almost beside the point. If he doesn't spout off like this there's no reason for him to be there. He doesn't have any other portfolio. Doesn't represent any constituency or interest group. Hasn't held a relevant public policy position in decades.

(Buchanan) "Hasn't held a relevant public policy position in decades."

True, beardman77,
but he DID run for POTUS not so long ago.

And garnered a frighteningly
large number of votes. . .

Doesn't represent any constituency or interest group. Hasn't held a relevant public policy position in decades.

That's precisely the point; that's the very reason he has no business on the air as some sort of "expert." You could swap him out with some loudmouth drunk scooped up from a local dive bar and the result would be the same. MSNBC could at least put someone on who's relevant to this century and who is at least knowledgeable in whatever subject is being discussed. Does the bar really have to be set this low?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "There is nothing more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

Right, Pat?

While Buchanan was ranting about how undistinguished Sotomayor's mind is, how she got everything handed to her because of affirmative action, how mediocre she was - I kept wondering why Buchanan did not say the same things about CLARENCE THOMAS, who also received his chances through affirmative action. I guess mediocre is ok in male form but unacceptable in a female.

Pat's basic argument of Sotomayor's disqualification is that she got into Princeton because of affirmative action. So of course she MUST HAVE displaced some white guy.

Yep, the standard conservative anti-diversity claptrap of pretending that there's a strict hierarchy of qualifications, and therefore some white person must have a perfectly justified grievance.

Anyone who has ever done hiring for anything (party of business -- yeah, right) knows the whole idea is ludicrous. For any position there are plenty of people who are essentially equally qualified (though all of them may not actually apply.) Anyone who claims that it is possible to choose among them by absolute qualifications is either lying to themselves or to everyone else.

mlm -- IOKIYAR. I suspect even Pat Buchanan would claim that equivalent statements against a Republican nominee would be racism.

I can't get too upset about Buchanan spouting his usual bullshit, but I do love that he's yet another Republican who's so wedded to the ideas of the past that he can't wrap his head around the fact that his beloved Southern Strategy has run its course and will never work the same way again.

If the Republicans ever do come up with an actual new idea instead of wrapping the same 30- and 40-year-old bullshit in pretty new paper, we might have an actual opposition party, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

@mhr at 12:02p.m.

Pat has said that affirmative action is racist, and if we're going to be racists, at least let's do it the old fashioned way.

Just so you know, Patsy has been under the radar of SPLC for a long time. He has a history of fighting the IRS to the point they don't bother anymore.

GE the parent of MSNBC stock has been tumbling like rocks on a mountain side. Maybe they think with Patsy on all these programs, he will help revive the stock price.

However, the elections are over. Isn't it interesting that CNN & MSNBC, which claims to be cable news, have pretty much become political analysts almost 24-hours. If I wanted to watch politics all day, at least let me know and stop calling it cable news and call it what it really is!

At the risk if sounding like the Palin-esque anti-intellectual crowd, I would take issue with Buchannan's trope that you need to have the most brilliant legal mind to be on SCOTUS. By all accounts, Scalia has an IQ way up in the stratosphere. The problem is that all his intricate legal reasoning leads to conclusions that are total crap.

What we don't need is a lot of Sophistic legal mumbo-jumbo. What we do need is someone who is going to make good decisions. In the end, all the legal reasoning in the world doesn't matter - what matters how the Justice votes.

I wish that Rachel and every one else arguing against Pat Buchanan and the other racists who bemoan affirmative action would ask about "reverse affirmative action."

What I mean is that George Bush did NOT get into Yale and Harvard Business school by any other means than he was a "legacy" of a very wealthy family. Let's ask Buchanan about how many qualified whites didn't get into those two school in those years because the admittedly mediocre Bush took their places?

For every "affirmative action baby" like Sotomayor who was admitted to Princeton, I'll bet a "legacy" was admitted to Princeton.

Tell me, please, what the difference between "affirmative action baby" and "legacy" is.

I do not agree with those of you who say that Rachel should not have given Buchanan an extra forum by inviting him on her show.

MSNBC is going to have him on bloviating his poison in other forums anyway. At least Rachel had the opportunity to debunk some of his egregious statements, whereas he is often allowed to spew without rebuttal.

IMHO, we need to allow people to spew in public forums and to rebut them every chance we get.

So in the end she's accusing him of dating himself back to the 1950s and he defends himself by saying he's only dating himself back to the 1960s. Ok.

Buchanan does it for money, pure and simple. Greed, as well as fear' can sell hatred.

Patsy does it for money...So did Imus.

Tell me, please, what the difference between "affirmative action baby" and "legacy" is

The "affimative action babies" tend to be much more capable than "legacies" once they are admitted.

I feel certain there are lots of people of color in this country who could have replaced Buchanan if it weren't for some other rich bigots who protect his position, his voice in the "public debate".

It's the people who support Buchanan who really really need to be replaced by more wise folks (of any color, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or age.

Dr King said we'll get there and I hope Buchanan lives to see it, so I can watch him cry.

I wonder why nobody has yet pointed out the single best rebuttal (imho, and in the context of the teevee shows which are his metier) to the Buchanan bs: By Buchanan's own definitions, he's not "white" (or, if you prefer, "white people" as he defines them, didn't build America) -- because as of most of the last-century-but-one, the Irish were not among the whites.
The best possible take-down of Buchanan would be to have some carefully selected racist commentary from the 18th century read to him on-air, get him to agree wholeheartedly, and then -- the big reveal! -- show him the context: every single one referring to the Irish.
Add a dash of YouTube, simmer for three weeks, and Buchanan gets a nice meal of crow to last the rest of this life, and the next.
If anyone reading this is a friend of Ms Maddow's, Mr Stewart's, Mr Colbert's, or anyone else useful in such ways, pls feel free to pass on...

Is it in their DNA? What is it about Irishman and being a bigot (too many of them on TV, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck), on the one hand Pat Buchanan, slams Sotomayor because her Yale grades, her experience on the courts are not valid because they were handed to her because of her race or she real did not even earn it, on the other hand he adamantly supports Palin because of her accomplished background, please, what a joke, he is an Irish bigot, plain and simple, like most of his thoughts.

Why is a vile jerkoff like Maddow on TV??