Roundup: Growing Outrage at MSNBC Over Pat Buchanan’s Racial Diatribes

America's Voice Blog

Posted 07/17/09 at 07:00pm

Roundup: Growing Outrage at MSNBC Over Pat Buchanan’s Racial Diatribes

This morning we posted Rachel Maddow's takedown of regular MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan over his outrageous comments about race and Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Media Matters has a roundup of Pat's sordid history on the topic of race.

Watch the segment if you haven't already:

Turns out there is no shortage of outrage in the blogosphere right now over the fact that MSNBC continues to promote Pat's outdated and dangerous racial rhetoric. Anger at MSNBC has even bubbled up into grassroots petitions and twitter campaigns, calling on "@MSNBC to Fire Pat Buchanan 4 racist remarks. http://act.ly/9i retweet 2 sign."

Last night, Firedoglake's Scarecrow started the grassfire with a post entitled, "Uncle Pat: MSNBC's Knowing Promotion of White Supremacy and Racial Hatred:"

MSNBC knows that Buchanan has engaged in such racist speech throughout his career. The producers of MSNBC's political news/commentary shows must be convinced that they can attract more viewers and sell more advertising if they feature an unabashed white supremacist as their featured "conservative" panelist. They don't care that this must be deeply offensive to huge numbers of Americans; those viewers apparently don't matter. We don't matter.

There is no escaping the conclusion that MSNBC has a deliberate policy of promoting racism and white supremacy and that it thinks it's just fine that Buchanan is deliberately agitating racial hatred by white males against all non-whites (and apparently all women), especially when those non-whites succeed in achieving political power.

Buchanan's views and the media's blatant promotion of them are a big part of the reason why racism and racial hostility persist. But legitimizing such attitudes is precisely why we get 5 to 4 Supreme Court decisions pretending the problem doesn't exist.

What is MSNBC's excuse for aggressively promoting such hateful views? And why should we continue to watch them?

Greg Sargent reports on Plum Line today:

In case you missed it, Buchanan got into a tussle with Rachel Maddow last night about Sonia Sotomayor. Buchanan said: “White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks.”

John Amato was the latest to join in with this sarcastic retort-- "Why does MSNBC employ a racist like Pat Buchanan? Because he's an 'affirmative action conservative' talker:"

Pat Buchanan is the affirmative action conservative talker for MSNBC because who's left to choose from? Michael Savage. The choices they are left with are extreme right wing radio talk show jocks. So the only reason he's on there airwaves is because they needed to fill that slot. What do you call that, Pat?

Earlier at Crooks and Liars Heather posted a great synopsis of the Rachel Maddow interview:

Some of Pat's "finer" moments during the interview.

-- Comparing Sonia Sotomayor to Harriet Miers.

-- Calling her a purely affirmative action candidate by the President and completely dismissing her academic accomplishments.

-- Saying that "white folks" built this country.

-- Calling Bork and Scalia "real scholars" and "tremendous minds" and saying Sotomayor hasn't risen to their level.

-- Saying the only reason she was appointed to the bench was because of affirmative action.

Huffington Post blogger Jason Linkins piled it on with "Rachel Maddow Takes On Pat Buchanan (VIDEO): "You're Playing With Fire... You're Living In The 1950s:"

If by some chance you haven't heard yet, last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC pundit Pat Buchanan, who's been urging the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor by blissing out to their inner sense of racial superiority, had something of an epic battle with Rachel Maddow over the History of Race in America. Maddow concluded that Buchanan was "dating himself," and basically made Buchanan look like a fool, but first and foremost, let's remember that this tilt was probably great for ratings, and Buchanan will likely be back on MSNBC tomorrow, spitting whatever nonsense comes dribbling out of his face, right after Steve Capus finishes popping champagne over this most recent, awesomely successful advancement of the political discourse.

Anyway, my favorite part of this wondrous dialogue came after Maddow asked Buchanan why he thought that 108 of the 110 Supreme Court Justices had been white. He replied:

"White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against. That's why.

" Damn straight! And what were all those black people doing at the time when heroic white people were setting about the important business of founding this great nation of ours? You guessed it! Hanging around fields, picking cotton, like bone idle jerks!

And of course there was the Kos post we cited earlier today (recommended Daily Kos diaries by ErinW43 and docterry also took Buchanan on):

And to remind people why Buchanan has been unhinged about Sotomayor all week:

We're going to have 135 million Hispanics in the United States by 2050, heavily concentrated in the southwest. The question is whether we're going to survive as a country.

He sees Sotomayor -- heck, any brown person really -- as a threat to his beloved White America's very survival.

Pat Buchanan is living proof that MSNBC doesn't want Fox News to have a monopoly on racists.

Note that the parting shot expresses outrage, not with Buchanan for his outdated, paranoid, and often outright racist views, but with MSNBC for bankrolling them.

Joe Sudbay at AMERICABlog asks, "Why does NBC pay Pat Buchanan to be its on-air racist?"

Finally, Ken at Down With Tyranny ends a post today by echoing Media Matters' prescient question back in June:

What would Pat Buchanan have to say to get himself fired from MSNBC?

Apparently, a lot.

We're guessing the outrage will only grow stronger if MSNBC refuses to address it. And no, having Maddow give Buchanan a little, if entertaining, slap on the wrist every once in a while ain't gonna cut it.