Controversial author and pundit Pat Buchanan went to Fox News…for his first television appearance since his stormy departure from MSNBC…. Speaking to Sean Hannity, Buchanan lashed out at his critics and staunchly defended the book that got him kicked off of the network he had called home for ten years. The book, “Suicide of a Superpower,” was published in October…. Buchanan was roasted for writing chapters such as the one entitled “The End of White America,” and for appearing on a white nationalist radio show to promote the book. Gay rights and Jewish and civil rights groups launched a campaign against him. MSNBC president Phil Griffin said that sections of the book were not “appropriate for the national dialogue” and kept Buchanan off the air for months until letting him go.
When I’d heard that Pat Buchanan was finally cut adrift by MSNBC, my first reaction was something along the lines of wondering why it took MSNBC so long to do what should have been done long ago. Buchanan’s been spewing his racism on TV for close to 35 years, and it’s not as if he’s made a secret of his stance on race-related issues. The question is how and why Buchanan had been able to get away with being an unreconstructed racist bigot for so long. How many talking heads have seen their careers founder on the soft said of racism and misogyny? It’s a long list, one that Buchanan’s name should have been on long ago.
Staying true to type, Buchanan is casting his dismissal in terms that paint him as the victim: an “‘Un-American’ Blacklist Pushed Me Off The Air.”. If that makes him feel better, then more power to him, I suppose, but the truth is what it is. Buchanan should be grateful his racist rants were indulged for as long as it was.
After the jump, you can read a list of some of Buchanan’s (not so) greatest hits. If you’re like me, the list will leave you wondering why he didn’t end up being fired as quickly and ignominiously as Jimmy the Greek was by CBS back in the day.
I respect Buchanan’s right to his beliefs, but racism cannot and should not be tolerated on a cable news network. I’d applaud Phil Griffin for doing the right thing…if it hadn’t taken him so long to get around to doing it.
Without further ado, then here they are: Pat Buchanan’s Top 10 greatest hits racist moments:
Claimed Jerry Sandusky’s atrocities are because of “Homosexual marriage.
Said the Jewish population in the United States dropped in the 90s because Jews aborted all their babies. (A Brandeis study said the decline in Jewish population never happened.)
Asserted Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people including 69 teens in Norway, “may have been right.”
Argued that Poland and the United Kingdom had it coming in World War II.
Dabbled in Holocaust denial. (Even better, he compared convicted Nazi war criminal Ivan Demjanjuk to Jesus Christ.)
What else can one say? The man’s a pig. I’m sure he’ll fit in quite nicely at Fox Noise Channel.
