Here’s a noisy, entertaining row about affirmative action. (It starts about five minutes in.)
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Although heated, the debate remains civil. Say what you want about Maddow, she is at least able to treat Buchanan as a human being. Unfortunately, Ezra Klein, chock-full of bien-pensant indignation, seems unwilling to do the same on his Washington Post blog:
I was going to post this video with the description “Rachel Maddow exposes Pat Buchanan as a huge racist.” But that’s not quite right. It’s more that she re-exposes him as a huge racist. It’s a good reminder of how weird it is that a caveman like Buchanan has been normalized as a valued and sage political commentator in recent years.
Watch Pat Buchanan on that clip. This is man who got his start helping Nixon divide and demoralize this country. Who helped destroy the Republican Party in 1992 by running one of the most noxious presidential campaigns in recent memory. Today, he is a name-brand political commentator who draws a paycheck from NBC.
Not all forms of affirmative action benefit the dispossessed. Some benefit the powerful. And affirmative action for the powerful goes a whole lot further back than affirmative action for the powerless. The futile assault that Jeff Sessions and Pat Buchanan mounted against Sonia Sotomayor was a rearguard defense for the system of privilege that has served them so well, and so faithfully. But Sessions fell short in his struggle. And Buchanan ended his week being dismissed as “dated” on Maddow’s show. They are losing, and they know it.
KXB 
richard monckton 
Pons Seclorum 
andrew e 
MattSwartz 
Barney Rebble 
GC 
peter lafond 
eep 
Nino 
Lucas 
JP 
madamImadam 
mw 
Davidus Romanus 
Cristopher Rodriguez 
Jive Dadson 
Gerald Thomas 
MIke Wallens 
Obama gives speech designed to appeal to race. His theme was that in the face of white racism, both black and white (mostly black, implied) rose up and defied the “white rulers” and made things better. This sets the stage for a “civil rights” discussion.
Then Sonya Sotomayor is presented as an evolutionary step in the civil rights advancement of this country. Objections, by Republicans, to Sotomayor were reduced (falsely) to questions of race. This is to COMPLETELY miss the point of what the Republicans were trying to do. (That is, they were bringing to America’s attention that a JUDGE should be an originalist, and not a political activist with an agenda to change societal rights, along gender, racial, or economic lines). Rachel Maddow falsely asserts that they are interested ONLY in, “Race, Race, Race, and also Race”. (She’s not too dumb to understand her mistake, she is simply following the MSNBC Agenda.)
One example of the blind agenda, here, is the attribution to Tom Coburn as a racist, doing a Ricky Ricardo impersonation. (It is FALSE, and ignores that those of us who have met him in person, know that he talks like that, whether or not minorities are present. Here particularly in Oklahoma, an effort to be racially sensitive is commonplace, among ALL politicians. And I PERSONNALY know Tom Coburn to not be in the least racist. I am always criticizing him on other issues, however.)
Let’s continue with this staged “hit job” on Republicans. The joke being, of course, that Rachel Maddow does not have the equipment to understand how Pat Buchanan views the Republicans, and barely accepts his “sometimes” classification as one of them.
A good portion of his (Pat Buchanan’s) article is “word for word” similar to an email I sent to him in early june, demonstrating that those around him tended to prevent thoughtful articles that agreed with him, and rabid articles that disagreed with him.
Instead, at TAC, one would usually find the rabid folks who agree with Pat, pushed to the fore, as were the thoughtful and intelligent articles either disagreeing, or making fun of him.
Looks like MSNBC is doing a similar job on him here. Note that Rachel Maddow has only one thing on her mind – pushing race. She is essentially not hearing Pat. Note that when Pat ascribes racial favoritism to the “race-peddlers”, Rachel Maddow keeps trying to turn the discussion to make Pat look racist.
Pat actually said, “…and it’s as wrong as discrimination against black females, hispanics, and others…”, but they forgot to edit that out, and they ignore that.
Another example is, that Pat said that, when he was growing up, only 10% of the population were black, and that they WERE discriminated against. Note how Rachel Maddow ignores what he just said, and keeps trying to twist his words.
Take for example, Rachel Maddow’s assertion that Sotomayor “has more experience than any other nominee, presented in the last 70 years.” She carefully avoids getting pulled into discussion of judicial qualification, of the prejudices that Sotomayor has shown, continuing to pound on the racial theme.
Then, at the end, while she starts out arguing that the best candidate, from all pools of candidates, needs to be considered, she slips into the old racist mantra herself, asserting that “white people” somehow “owe” minorities, and that is why preference to “diversity” must be allowed.
Note that Rachel Maddow keeps lying, and attributing racial motives to Pat, while spouting idiot racist “affirmative action” racism herself. Her reasoning is that if there have been “110 out of 108″ white guys (Um, Rachel, 110 – blacks, women, hispanics, does NOT = 108). She then thinks that we need to balance, such that, at some future date we can say that the numbers of Supreme Court Judges of all races will have been equal.
Pat was victim of a “hit job” at MSNBC, similar to what he enjoys at TAC sometimes.