MSNBC Fires Antisemitic Contributor Pat Buchanan For the Wrong Reason
Can someone explain to me what NEW idea in Pat Buchanan’s latest polemic crossed the line, resulting in his dismissal from MSNBC? Because it sounds like it’s just another regurgitation of the same paleoconservative party line he’s peddled for the last 20 years.
Buchanan at The American Conservative, almost crowing about a victory:
My days as a political analyst at MSNBC have come to an end.
After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.
The calls for my firing began almost immediately with the Oct. 18 publication of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?? A group called Color of Change, whose mission statement says that it “exists to strengthen Black America’s political voice,” claimed that my book espouses a “white supremacist ideology.” Color of Change took particular umbrage at the title of Chapter 4, “The End of White America.”
That Buchanan has remained a respected figure in our political culture as long as he has is a disgrace. That he is dismissed from MSNBC on the grounds they provide is even more unfortunate. Congratulations MSNBC President Phil Griffin, you’ve done the impossible: making the mean-spirited bully Buchanan now a victim likely to get support he does not deserve.
Pat Buchanan is an antisemite. It’s plain as day. The evidence is too abundant to be dismissed away. Today’s Paleoconservative and Paleolibertarian movements have antisemitism hardwired into their ideological DNA. Read their books and they are entirely open about wanting to revive the conservative tradition that opposed US engagement in World War II and even sympathized with the Nazis.
In their bones paleoconservatives like Buchanan are in line with the antisemitism of Father Charles Coughlin. Buchanan has even slipped up and confessed it. Consider this revealing exchange with Wolf Blitzer in 2004 in which he defends using the racist, anti-Jewish caricature of Fagin to smear Richard Perle:
BLITZER: Did you think of the Jewish line of Fagan [sic] when you wrote that and Richard Perle being Jewish?
BUCHANAN: Well, I mean, obviously Fagan was Jewish. But the thing about it is he was a leader of pick-pockets in a fictional book. Why is it unacceptable for me to use a literary allusion when I am called routinely Father Charles Coughlin of the modern era who was alleged to be an anti-Semitic priest? That is an outrage because that’s a real character.
Coughlin was ALLEGED to be an antisemite? This is a man who published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his newspaper but Buchanan declares on CNN he was an alleged antisemite?
Update: My friend Jeff Dunetz at Yid with Lid has more examples of Buchanan’s antisemitism, including William F. Buckley, Jr.’s verdict.
They only hired him in the first place to perpetuate the myth that conservatives were racist bigots.
What I don’t understand is, why did MSNBC fire him now? What has he done that’s different than anything he did before they hired him?
I think Clarice has it exactly right. Still, why fire him now? His book came out last Fall, and he hasn’t said or done anything particularly worse than anything else in his history.
Clarice, I’ve been impressed with your commentary @ JOM and other places but am I wrong to understand you are joining the band wagon to disrespect PB. If so I am very disappointed and find this Swindle piece as well as the general response from other so-called ‘conservatives’ very strange.
one needs to love you neocons because the big difference between you and a leftist is—- well there isn;t one, is there.
MSNBC could hire Ron Paul to replace Buchanan.
The hard left loves the slurs.
It needs an attack dog. It thinks that having a Buchanan is a pincer move.
It isn’t.
It’s slurry with a fringe on top.
Why would the left want him out? He has done them more good than anyone on their side.
Good thing for Democrats Ron Paul is running.
Jeez why such hatred for Buchanan, he has some strong opinions just like every one else. I prefer the type of Conservative thinking that defends traditional values than the PC swill from the non-conservative Swindle who once again seeks to disparage other Conservatives.
The word “Anti-Semite” is almost as big a dog whistle as “racism”.
When Marlon Brando made the ‘circle the wagons’ comment, Foxman of the ADL threatened to make his life a “living Hell’. What? He couldn’t just disabuse him Brando of his error? Or maybe Brando wasn’t in error and if he wasn’t in error, then was what he said anti-Semitic?
And the same could be asked about Buchanan’s “Amen Chorus” comment on the McLaughlin. The comment was about Israeli influence in Congress. Was it all that outrageous? To whom? And why? Was it false? Then why not disabuse him of that falsehood instead of blowing the whistle?
You rake Buchanan over the coals in the matter of Demjanjuk. The man was aquitted by the Supreme Court of Israel, Buchanan took up his case in a few columns. So what?
In their bones paleoconservatives like Buchanan are in line with the antisemitism of Father Charles Coughlin. Buchanan has even slipped up and confessed it. Consider this revealing exchange with Wolf Blitzer in 2004 in which he defends using the racist, anti-Jewish caricature of Fagin to smear Richard Perle:
BLITZER: Did you think of the Jewish line of Fagan [sic] when you wrote that and Richard Perle being Jewish?
BUCHANAN: Well, I mean, obviously Fagan was Jewish. But the thing about it is he was a leader of pick-pockets in a fictional book. Why is it unacceptable for me to use a literary allusion when I am called routinely Father Charles Coughlin of the modern era who was alleged to be an anti-Semitic priest? That is an outrage because that’s a real character.
—
Coughlin was ALLEGED to be an antisemite? This is a man who published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his newspaper but Buchanan declares on CNN he was an alleged antisemite?
Swindle, this Blitzer-Buchannan exchange appears to be out of context. What, exactly, did Buchannan say that provoked Blitzer’s question? It’s only fair to provide the full context, or don’t you think so?
The context is obvious by the question: he used an antisemitic stereotype (the character Fagan from Oliver Twist) and compared him to the Jewish foreign policy analyst Richard Perle.
And I copy and paste parts of my blog posts that commenters choose to ignore. Saves time. Why are you ignoring the fact that Buchanan denies the antisemitism of Father Coughlin?
This is how you answer Patrick of Atlantis by simply retyping the heart of your short essay? Pretty weak response.
That’s IT? That’s your evidence? You are REALLY grasping.
Go back to Atlantis, Pat.
Give it up any criticism of Jews is met with a nuclear bomb. You can not criticize Jews EVER. I have no problem with Jews but when it comes to playing victim they are the experts. They make blacks and any other people look like paupers as you have seen from the replies you get. Want freedom of speech? Try a Jewish criticism in Hollywood if you are in the entertainment industry. Might as well just shoot yourself in the head.
The only people that can be trashed and defamed with impunity are white men an Christians. That is the truth.
Silly conservatives. You are so quick to adopt the vocabulary and the mentality of the left. Hop on the p.c. bandwagon if you will, but today they go after Buchanan, tomorrow they will come for you.
Anti-Semitic Christians are the epitome of hypocrisy and paradox. Jesus was a Jew and of 100% Semitic stock. God, his father, is the God of Abraham, once again, Jewish/Semitic. The first half of the Bible, the Old Testament, comes complement of the Jews. By their blanket hatred of Jews, Anti-Semitic Christians are denouncing the very core of their own religion. It would be comedic if it weren’t so pathetic.