That the liberal news network MSNBC fired Pat Buchanan is hardly surprising, but what is interesting and characteristic of our age is how they justified it.
The usual way to do these things is to say something like, "We appreciate Pat's contributions to MSNBC, and we've been proud that by hosting Pat for all these years, we've increased the diversity of debate in America. But, of course, he doesn't really fit in with our audience strategy, so we've decided to go in a different direction. We wish Pat well in his future endeavors, and look forward to seeing him regularly on one of the other networks where he'd be a more natural fit, such as, say, Fox."
In other words, pat yourself on the back for your tolerance and open-mindedness and lay a booby-trap for your archrival Fox.
Instead, MSNBC announced that not only were Buchanan's ideas not appropriate for discussing on MSNBC, which is their prerogative to decide, but that they aren't "appropriate" for anybody to discuss anywhere here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave:
In January Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said he would be meeting with Mr. Buchanan soon to discuss the commentator’s role on the channel. Referring to the book “Suicide of a Superpower,” Mr. Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.” …
When Juan Williams got fired from NPR for political incorrectness, he was immediately hired by Fox. So, what are the odds that Fox will triumphantly announce they are hiring Pat to stick one in the eye of the left? Here's a pundit, for example, explaining why Pat would be a natural at Fox.
How little they know ... There are wheels within wheels making this seemingly natural event unlikely.
As Elliott Abrams recently bragged in the Fox-founded Weekly Standard, while denouncing Tom Friedman and Joe Klein for their anti-Semitism, that policing "the bounds of public discourse" is far more important than arguing with your putative rivals. Why debate when you can silence?
"Let us not descend into such analyses when what matters is not abnormal psychology but the bounds of public discourse. Once upon a time, William F. Buckley banned Pat Buchanan from the pages of National Review and in essence drummed him out of the conservative movement for such accusations."
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69 comments:
Pat will get a job with FOX, right after they apologize for linking Jared Taylor to Jared Loughner.
The question is not why MSNBC fired Pat but why they hired him in the first place. Before MSNBC he was employed by another liberal network, CNN. For years and years, liberals were happy to give Pat a platform. Why do you think that was?
Buchanan views don't go well with the Neocon crowd.
Agree with Propeller Head; I am surprised Pat got as much love from the nets as he did. Something awfully strange about that, considering the interests that he opposes.
The Weekly Standard isn't owned by Fox. News Corp was the founding publisher but they sold their interest to Clarity Media Group a few years back. That's Philip Anschutz's company.
The question is not why MSNBC fired Pat but why they hired him in the first place.
He was against the Iraq War. This is the reason why the Neocon News Network won't hire him.
You mean the Fox that hired Williams but fired Napolitano?
"Before MSNBC he was employed by another liberal network, CNN. For years and years, liberals were happy to give Pat a platform. Why do you think that was?"
Before there was Fox and Msnbc and others, CNN was news for all Americans(though leaning liberal), and so it had to be balanced. And Buchanan was a fun personality on TV. Also back then, there were many more white folks alive. Consider all the older white folks who died since the late 80s. They were replaced by younger whites raised on PC.
I doubt if Mike Royko would be hired by any newspaper today.
I'm sure the IDF-wannabe warbots at Fox will just love Pat's non-inverventionist America First foreign policy views ...
For years and years, liberals were happy to give Pat a platform. Why do you think that was?
To give the illusion of diversity of views. The left claims to love diversity, but what they really mean is that they love diversity that coincides with their views--which is to say, they don't like diversity of all. They use the pretense of diversity to eliminate all views different from their own, whereupon the professed concern about "virtue" and "fairness" and "openness" vanishes.
This absolute hypocrisy is what soured Céline on the left. He observed that when they are out of power, they wax eloquent about the importance of intellectual openness and speaking truth to power; but as soon as they assume the dominant cultural role, lo and behold, they extinguish any and all dissent.
In short, the left can dish it out, but they can't take it. Thus any good faith granted by the European aristocracy in dealing with subversive elements was repaid, and continues to be repaid, with savage insolence and treachery.
Céline said it best: "I’m fully willing to lay everything on the table. But only if there is to be “absolute” sharing. Nothing else! and by example! absolute! I’ll repeat it right now!... As for myself I feel communistic without an atom of ulterior motive! [...] If it were a question of true communism, of the sharing of all of the world’s goods and sufferings on the basis of the strictest egalitarianism, then I would be for it more than anyone... [...] That which is called Communism in well-advanced circles is a great reassurance-cache, the most highly perfected system of parasitism of any age...admirably guaranteed by the absolute serfdom of the global proletariat...the Universalism of the Slaves...under the Bolshevik system, a super-fascist farce, an internationalist superstructure, the greatest armored strong-box that has ever been conceived, compartmentalized, riveted, and soldered together using our guts..."
I quote this long passage because it illustrates the most important point of all: the distinction between the stated intentions of the left and the actual intentions of the left--what they say in contrast with what they do. Learning to dig beneath the surface is paramount.
As Dostoevsky observed, all revolutions are executed to replace one set of overlords with another. That's it.
"For years and years, liberals were happy to give Pat a platform. Why do you think that was?"
Pat is a clean and articulate conservative, who plays the part of the foil on those networks. If those guys get fed up, they can dump him with no blowback from the viewers.
On FOX, he, a conservative, will be considered part of the fabric. They cannot disavow anything he says without a risk of payback from the viewers and/or the sponsors.
O'Reilly and Hannity would look bad bashing a conservative icon like Pat with their invade the world mantra.
Oh, and Krauthammer, the philosopher king of FOX, would offer a "he goes or I go" ultimatum.
"Before MSNBC he was employed by another liberal network, CNN. For years and years, liberals were happy to give Pat a platform. Why do you think that was?"
I'm not saying I'm convinced of this, but I am entertaining the notion that the powers-that-be at NBC and NYTimes, WAPost, etc. are fully aware that there exists a body of data that now backs up much of what Pat Buchanan touches on.
I'd guess they are aware of Steve, of HBD blogs, of academics who frequent such blogs (even "anon" academics) and they may be sensing that there is growing a tide that may speak out against their erroneous reporting, their erroneous "facts."
Media did to Pat what it is doing to Iran.
Buchanan and friends should get together and start an internet channel for news and opinions. Alex Jones did it.
Just as you say, it's hardly shocking that liberal MSNBC would fire conservative commentator Pat Buchanan for being too "controversial." But there are much more intriguing examples from last year.
Immediately after MSNBC ownership changed, they fired Keith Olbermann, probably the most prominent liberal voice on TV and host of their highest-rated program, right in the middle of his huge $30M contract. Roughly around the same time, "rightwing" Fox fired rightwing Glenn Beck, star of their most popular show. Supposedly, this was due to "personality-conflicts" and "contract disagreements." Similarly, Stalin tended to purge his NKVD chiefs and Politburo members for being too ruthless.
I think the Media Establishment has just decided to trim off all of its ideological rough edges, and fully consolidate around the NYT/WSJ Party Line.
It's possible MSNBC got rid of Buchanan because there was wink wink understanding with Fox that Fox would not hire him.
Personally, I think UNNECESSARY WAR is by far the more offensive book. I wonder why he wasn't fired for that ridiculous apologia for HItler.
It does not look as if liberals are winning any arguments, so the proposition that America is a more PC place now than it was ten years ago doesn't quite gel.
Rather I think that our elites have moved to the Soviet stage (blatant repression) BECAUSE their ideas are faring so poorly.
Gilbert Pinfold.
I always thought CNN and MSNBC put Pat on because they thought he made the right in America look buffoonish and racist.
" They cannot disavow anything he says without a risk of payback from the viewers and/or the sponsors."
Payback from viewers. Sponsorship will be at risk if they fail to disavow what he says. Sorry about the muddled thought.
It is safer to just let him disappear.
1/ Unless Pat Buchanan can bring extra hours in a day with him, his hiring at Fox would mean at least reducing someone else's time and salary and at most the firing of someone else.
Nice of people here to be so generous.
2/ Why doesn't Buchanan do what Glenn Beck did?
Glenn Beck did.
How is the transition of this topic to mainstream going to happen? I just don't see it happening. Only the tiniest probing and imagination would reveal that whites regard a white country as better than a mixed one, and you could say like Jared Taylor, 'well we just prefer our own kind' but that's tissue thin; why are whites then happy with Northeast Asians (we are presumably). I mean there's no way this could become mainstream without insulting Mexicans and other NAMs. So those of us who can will just retreat behind walled compounds, and let a good thing die, just to avoid embarrassing ourselves by insulting people.
At least I can't think of any conceptual, rhetorical finesse of this. I guess Steve's 'citizenism' does it, but it's deliberately a bit abstract and thus lacks power. And, too, by posing as a virtue, is too easy to weigh against other American virtues - 'freedom', 'opportunity', '= immigrationism!', 'make more Americans!'.
Personally, I think UNNECESSARY WAR is by far the more offensive book. I wonder why he wasn't fired for that ridiculous apologia for HItler.
Chamberlain panicked after the predictable collapse of Czecho-Slovakia and gave Poland a useless guarantee. Maybe Chamberlain didn't
realize that Czechs and Slovaks considered themselves different peoples. Did you notice that Czech Republic and Slovakia split up after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc?
Just now became aware of Steve's note above the comment box: "Comments are moderated, at whim."
Seems apropos for this post.
Gilbert Pinfold: Rather I think that our elites have moved to the Soviet stage (blatant repression) BECAUSE their ideas are faring so poorly.
Yes, I think that's exactly what's happening.
Consider a metaphor from the physical sciences. When a phase-transition occurs, such as the nucleation of crystals or the condensation of rain droplets, conditions must be right, but there must also be "impurities" about which those crystals or droplets form. Without the impurities, the process is much less likely to occur.
Now for the last couple of generations, Americans have been conditioned to do and believe whatever the TeeVee says. As everyone acknowledges, the popularity of the American Regime is at an all-time low, with about 90% of the population disapproving of the political leadership in DC. Furthermore, there's a very solid chance things may get considerably worse in the near future, on many different fronts.
Such massive unhappiness and dissatisfaction might easily coalesce around a TeeVee personality who says the "wrong" things regarding issues about which the NYT/WSJ party line has already been decided. Hence the need to disappear TeeVee people who either say the wrong things, or might possibly do so in the future, including Buchanan, Napolitano, Beck, and Olbermann. This encourages the surviving TeeVee people to spend their time fiercely debating the really crucial issues facing America, such as whether the Catholic Church should be forced to provide contraceptives for its employees...
With regard to Czechoslovakia, to be fair the ethnic Germans/Austrians in the Sudetenland were being treated badly by the majority Czechs.
It should come as no surprise that Pat's mic was turned off during the disastrous Minority Occupation Administration. Just about now most white Americans are figuring out that power sharing with blacks and Hispanics has been a disaster and a monumental injustice -- it's like putting an eight year old in charge of the family finances (Obama and Maxine Waters) and assigning a class bully the power to give detention (Holder).
Pat brilliantly articulates what most white Americans are feeling, and explains clearly how we ended up stepping into the dog's business. So he must be silenced before a movement rapidly grows to end mass immigration, discrimination against whites (affirmative action) and punitive, redistributionist tax policy. I wish Pat another two decades of life.
Good old Celine, patron saint of those of us who see no light at the end of the tunnel. Like Pat, he saw the war as the demise of the white race. I don't think he meant the wrong side won; I think he meant the event, objectively, did irreparable damage.
He was asked in an interview how significant his contribution to French literature will be regarded in the future. He replied (I quote from memory),"What will the Chinese care about French literature?". If he said Muslims, he'd be a prophet.
His has no living descendants. Too bad.
P.S. Journey to the End of The Night - I prefer the Marks translation.
they just got rid of Judge Napol, so only if PB toes the neocon line, and if he did, what would be the point?
Comments are moderated, at whim.
finally Kommment Kontrol has a policy! A whimsical one, but a policy at least.
I kinda a like it. It gives a volcano God aspect to posting here..
I know some folks on both ends of the spectrum who know Buchanan. One thing they both agree on: Pat really is charming and personable in real life, not just on the tube. They posited the reason he lasted so long is the execs and managers personally liked him, regardless of his political views.
"Chamberlain panicked after the predictable collapse of Czecho-Slovakia and gave Poland a useless guarantee. Maybe Chamberlain didn't
realize that Czechs and Slovaks considered themselves different peoples. Did you notice that Czech Republic and Slovakia split up after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc?"
Riiiight. So, Hitler was doing everyone a favor. The USSR fell apart too, so I suppose Hitler had every right to invade and kill millions of people. What a humanitarian.
Imho, Zero chance that pat will join Fox. The fox channel don't really need any more right wingers, the main reason why msnbc hired pat is to show people how balance their views are. Juan Williams and Allen colomes and lou dobbs are the token contrarians.
RKU, Another behavioural analogy is the old line to the effect that when the elevator boy starts giving you stock tips it's time to sell. Herd behaviour always overshoots.
I have lately been amused by the new-found PC zeal of one of my long-time redneck friends. Thirty years ago, when I was reading franz Fanon and wandering the full political spectrum from Stalin to Trotsky, this woman, God bless her, used to complain about 'smelly darkies'. These days, after some upward mobility, she has learned how to behave and doesn't want to be embarrassed by someone like, er, me.
This also helps explain the polaristion of politics and what many have identified as the recent decline of civil discourse.
Witness the 'debate' on HBD where blank slatists appear to have only two rhetorical techniques: bewildering and frankly shameless obscurantism (see Wiki on the topic of race); and childish abuse (see Salon, Slate or any MSM comment forum).
Gilbert Pinfold.
I really wish someone would root for me!
Fox provides propaganda for the police state which includes an international branch, aka the military. Buchanan openly challenges the overseas expansion of American power. It's a no-brainer that the real iSteve wouldn't have posited in an article on HIS blog.
So Steve is saying that Buchanan won't get a job at Fox due to the Jewish lobbies. Might be true.
Would be terrible.
And proof of some things.
Buchanon got fired after decades of being Pat Buchanon, because Color Change and Al Sharpton objected to him.
So, yes Whites ARE irrelevant, at this point. There just are not enough White people watching MSNBC to make Pat Buchanon "worth the hassle" of ticking off guys like Sharpton (a Fox News Contributor) or the Color of Change.
At least, that is the bet that MSNBC is making now. Don't expect Fox News to hire him -- they picked up Sharpton instead. Anti-White feeling is the defacto ideology of America today, not the least is that Whites themselves believe in it.
Propeller--
For years and years, liberals were happy to give Pat a platform. Why do you think that was?
Basically because they thought they could marginalize him and his ideas on air, given his presidential election performances. He proved hard to do that with. There's been momentum. MSNBC, which is far more left wing than Fox is right wing, pulled the plug, when they saw he was gaining more on their air than he was.
" So shut up." he explained.
swimming swan said: Fox provides propaganda for the police state which includes an international branch, aka the military.
Hunsdon clarified: The media---dare I use the term, mainstream media?---provides propaganda for the police state. The NYT, the WaPo, even, for God's sake, NPR, fell mostly into line with the war drums for Iraq. Listening to NPR discuss "enhanced interrogation techniques" was eye opening. They shill for the state.
Glenn Greenwald, Phil Giraldi, and Andrew Bacevich are voices in the wilderness on these issues.
The bigs all play along.
Personally, I think UNNECESSARY WAR is by far the more offensive book. I wonder why he wasn't fired for that ridiculous apologia for HItler
Personally I think that only a moron could misread UNNECESSARY WAR as being an apologia for HItler, rather than an acknowledgment that WWII was stupid and ultimately a Pyrrhic victory even for the "winners".
whiskey wrote,
Buchanon got fired after decades of being Pat Buchanon, because Color Change and Al Sharpton objected to him.
So, yes Whites ARE irrelevant, at this point. There just are not enough White people watching MSNBC to make Pat Buchanon "worth the hassle" of ticking off guys like Sharpton (a Fox News Contributor) or the Color of Change.
At least, that is the bet that MSNBC is making now. Don't expect Fox News to hire him -- they picked up Sharpton instead. Anti-White feeling is the defacto ideology of America today, not the least is that Whites themselves believe in it."
I love how whiskey conveniently left out the Scots-Irish from this equation. Buchanan, and yes I believe you deliberately misspell his name, did not get fired because of Color of Change. He has been in the crosshairs since he correctly identified guys like you as being more partial to a certain ME country than to your own.
Defeated said...
" So shut up." he explained.
Hunsdon replied: Well played, sir. Well played.
Andrew Sullivan (disliked in the steve-o-sphere, but I'm a fan) wrote a really touching response to this. Say of sully what you will, he stood up for Pat with his "megaphone on a soap-box" at full volume
"Beecher Asbury said...
I love how whiskey conveniently left out the Scots-Irish from this equation. Buchanan, and yes I believe you deliberately misspell his name, did not get fired because of Color of Change."
Whiskoy always mispells Buchanan's name. It is a distinguishing tic. How do you know it's whiskey wrting? He misspells that name that way. Oh yes, also he lies and spouts idiocy.
Who is left on the "Unpatriotic Conservatives" list? Neocons are indefatigable.
As Elliott Abrams, the brother-in-law of William Kristol, editor of the Fox-founded Weekly Standard, recently bragged in the Weekly Standard, while denouncing Tom Friedman and Joe Klein for anti-Semitism, that policing "the bounds of public discourse" is far more important than arguing with your putative rivals. Why debate when you can silence?
Susan Scheinberg Kristol is not the sister of Elliot Abrams and Rachel Decter Abrams is not the sister of William Kristol.
"Personally I think that only a moron could misread UNNECESSARY WAR as being an apologia for HItler, rather than an acknowledgment that WWII was stupid and ultimately a Pyrrhic victory even for the "winners"."
But Buchanan blames Chuchill and Polish officers more than Hitler when in fact Hitler was the catalyst for what happened.
Buchanan logic is like black logic. No matter what blacks do, it's white folks fault. If blacks burn down a city, it's cuz whites didn't do this and this for blacks, denying the blacks 'what is rightfully theirs'. Buchanan's book is like the rant of a Germanic Negro.
SO SHUT THE F UP.
"" So shut up." he explained.
Hunsdon replied: Well played, sir. Well played.
I wish I was so subtle. Stolen from the great mind of dead white male, Ring Lardner. Revealed to me via the coarse, Unpatriotic writing of Joe Sobran RIP- it is my mission that he be remembered.
"And proof of some things."
like how they are such a powerless minority that networks have to consider their fragile self-esteem while hiring.
Whiskey always spells 'Buchanan' as 'Buchanon' and has always done so.
Back when he was Evil Neocon and when he was Testing99 its one way which we knew it was all the same person, before he admitted as much.
He's never explained why he does it, a private joke, some curious ScotsIrish quirk, who knows?
Is you-know-who's deliberate misspelling of Buchanan's name some sort of lame play on "anon"? Actually, he's also spelled it "Buchannon", hasn't he, so scratch that.
More blog posts on Buchanan please Steve! Our evil little neocon cannot help responding to them, and as he deliberately misspells Buchanan's name for the thousandth time, with everyone laughing at him, perhaps even he will start to feel a sense of humiliation, and then make the decision to f off.
Whiskey always spells 'Buchanan' as 'Buchanon' and has always done so.
My guess is that Whisky/EvilNeocon/Testing99 purposely misspells Buchanan's name to make it harder for readers to search out his genuine writings.
This makes it easier for Whisy to put lies into the mouths of paleocons like Buchanan and be just that less likely to be caught out.
finally Kommment Kontrol has a policy! A whimsical one, but a policy at least.
There is one topic I know of that Steve has consistently censored over the years.
But if I told you what it was, this comment wouldn't get posted.
Never liked Buchanan's secret-Hitler stuff. Creepy. If he'd just be obvious-Hitler I'd be fine with him on TV.
Then again, he'd be off TV pretty quick.
Back when he was Evil Neocon and when he was Testing99 its one way which we knew it was all the same person, before he admitted as much.
Ha, what a hilarious tell.
CNN might pick him up again, I don't think he left there on bad terms (He left to run for president in 2000, after which he was hired by MSNBC) and he'd be an improvement over the rest of CNN's dry as dirt lineup.
Actually a better fit for Pat would be Al Gore's liberal news network Current TV. Just as Allen Colmes made a good living pissing off Sean Hannity fans, Pat is just the guy to rile up Keith Olbermann fans.
the Fox-founded Weekly Standard
Weekly Standard, founded 1995
Fox News, founded 1996
"Just as Allen Colmes made a good living pissing off Sean Hannity fans, Pat is just the guy to rile up Keith Olbermann fans."
I don't think Alan Colmes did much of anything except to look like a wimp.
If I were a liberal, I'd much rather have a former drunk and druggie representing my point of view, a guy like Beckel (even though he always seems punch-drunk) than Colmes, who is the epitome of the low-status male, which indeed is how I, a woman, think of men who are progressive.
"finally Kommment Kontrol has a policy! A whimsical one, but a policy at least."
Komment Kontrol my ass. It's Lord Whim.
vilNeoCon Testing99 Whiskey: My guess is that Whisky/EvilNeocon/Testing99 purposely misspells Buchanan's name to make it harder for readers to search out his genuine writings. This makes it easier for Whisy to put lies into the mouths of paleocons like Buchanan and be just that less likely to be caught out.
That seems plausible. He hangs around all the blogsites trying to rile up dimmer rightwingers about the Great Muslim Menace, and that would be trickier if they discovered what he was always saying about their great rightwing hero. Maybe they'd even start to wonder if he were really a fightin' Scots-Irishman like themselves...
Buchanan was awesome on MSNBC, especially on Morning Joe. Well it was great while it lasted. What can we do?
Fox Versus MSNBC=Trotsky Versus Stalin.
Whiskey always spells 'Buchanan' as 'Buchanon' and has always done so.
(...)
He's never explained why he does it, a private joke, some curious ScotsIrish quirk, who knows?
Must be some old Appalachian feud, between the Buchanans and Whiskey´s people. Hence the refusal to spell the name correctly.
We need to play hardball and do the same to liberal news organizations. We should threaten boycott of advertisers unless they fire far left voices.
That seems plausible.
That's a decent guess; he probably doesn't think he'll make it "harder," but he doesn't want to make it any easier to search for conversations about an ANTI-SEMITE!!!, either.
Why don't you google Buchanon? It might clear things up. Though it still won't be very funny.
British FO undersecretary Cadogan after the Munich conference: "...no use Halifax wringing his hands and making pretty speeches deploring the use of force when every German will tell you that from 1918 to 1932 the use of force was in operation against them."
Chamberlain and the Lost Peace, p.144
Personally I think that only a moron could misread UNNECESSARY WAR as being an apologia for HItler, rather than an acknowledgment that WWII was stupid and ultimately a Pyrrhic victory even for the "winners".
Whenever this topic comes up you get the morons regurgitating the cartoon version of history they learned from the History Channel.
Whenever this topic comes up you get the morons regurgitating the cartoon version of history they learned from the History Channel.
Well, there's no law against being an ignorant half-wit.
On the other hand, it's not something I would personally brag about.
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