MSNBC's Pat Buchanan defends Hitler. Again.
September 02, 2009 4:53 pm ET by Jamison Foser
If you get caught defending Adolph Hitler one time, you could, I suppose, claim it was an accident; a momentary lapse of reason.
If you get caught defending Hitler two times ... Well, I guess you could say it was just be an unfortunate coincidence.
But if you defend Hitler as often as Pat Buchanan has, that isn't an accident, and it isn't a coincidence: it's a pattern. And it's pretty hard to avoid the conclusion that you just don't think Hitler was all that bad.
Over at Daily Kos, Markos catches Buchanan marking the 70th anniversary of Britain declaring war on Nazi Germany by arguing that Hitler has gotten a bum rap -- he didn't really want war.
As crazy as it seems, this actually isn't a new line of argument for Buchanan. He has long held that World War II was not "worth it," that Hitler needn't have been deposed, and that the Holocaust was Churchill's fault, not Hitler's. I catalogued those and other monstrous Buchanan claims in a column back in June:
Buchanan has called Adolf Hitler an "individual of great courage." He also questioned whether World War II was "worth it" and wondered, "[W]hy destroy Hitler?" That wasn't 40 years ago; that was just four years ago. Just last year, he wrote that the Holocaust happened not because of Hitler, but because of Churchill.
That actually may demonstrate a hint of progress for Buchanan: At least he acknowledged the Holocaust did happen. In the past, he has peddled bizarre Holocaust denial claims, and as recently as two months ago, compared suspected Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk to Jesus Christ.
Defending an accused Nazi war criminal is one thing. Relying on the discredited arguments of Holocaust deniers in order to do so is quite another. And that's exactly what Buchanan has done.
In a 1990 column defending Demjanjuk, Buchanan wrote: "Reportedly, half of the 20,000 survivor testimonies in Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem are considered 'unreliable' " because of "Holocaust Survivor Syndrome," which involves "group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics." Buchanan didn't say who "reported" this claim, which would fit in nicely in the most extreme Holocaust denial literature. Nor did he identify a source for his claim that Jews could not have been killed at Treblinka because "[d]iesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody," a claim he purported to prove by noting that, in 1988, "97 kids, trapped 400 feet underground in a Washington, DC tunnel while two locomotives spewed diesel exhaust into the car, emerged unharmed after 45 minutes." Buchanan later refused to tell journalist Jacob Weisberg where he got that anecdote, saying only, "Somebody sent it to me." Evidence strongly suggests the claim came from a Holocaust denial newsletter. Regardless of where Buchanan got his theories about diesel engines, the mass graves at Treblinka are rather more persuasive.
Buchanan's bizarre comments about Nazis and the Holocaust kicked into high gear during his time as a columnist, but his questionable approach to the subject began earlier. As an aide to President Reagan, Buchanan successfully urged his boss to visit Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where Nazi troops are buried. Buchanan was reportedly responsible for Reagan's statement that the SS troops buried there were "victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps."
And that's just the stuff about Nazis. There's much more, including Buchanan's defense of segregation.
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Maybe i'm a Sadist? Maybe i was born on the wrong side of the Tracks?
When Patrick Joseph Buchanan talks i Listen.
But hey, when Bozo the Clown (not you Bill O'Reilly) or Ronald McDonald Speak i also pay Attention.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
We all knew Pat was a loon, but this is some really disgusting stuff here.
And this freak is allowed to spew of the cable chatter shows? Amazing...and despicable.
Buchanan is a disgusting bigot who has spewed hatred for decades. He does not deserve airtime.
fox would never have a left wing radical like pat is on the right, on their cable shows.
Like the one time when MoveOn.org made that mistake, but took it back, and did not do it again
Or the few, if potentially justifiable times (considering Iraq) when Bush was compared to Hitler?
But then, this is Pat Buchanan... he is old and senile, so perhaps its understandable??
No, they didn't. MoveOn allowed everyone to post videos for their consideration. When they saw the Hitler comparison, they deleted it, but not before the Right saw it and falsely attributed it to MoveOn. This Right Wing myth still persists, even among Lefties. It could be claimed that open forums like this are a mistake, but that is Right Wing thinking.
Yes, a regular profile in courage. He at least deserves a medal.
I would hope they are. Most people are not terribly keen on aligning themselves with a scum-sucking pile of conservative filth who has good things to say about a man who brutally slaughtered millions of innocent people.
Uh, crazy people aren't necessarily considered courageous.
Revisiting WW2 is done all the time, but not with the intent to justify Hitler or his fellow mass murderers.
And that's a new wrinkle to me, that HE's the one who wanted Reagan to visit Bitburg. I'd thought it was somehow a mistake, and that Reagan being stubborn refused to alter his plans. Buchanan is one of a legion of people who should be employed cleaning horse manure out of stables.
Yes, you are absolutely right, but doing so the way Buchanan does is out of bounds. His arguments are completely illogical. In order to make an extraordinary claim that Hitler didn't really want to take over the world, you have to have an extraordinary argument. Otherwise, you sound like an apologist for Hitler (which Buchanan essentially is).
Exactly so. If Buchanan just wanted to talk about the overall death toll, he would have said 50 million human beings. There was no reason to mention ethnicity except to push the point that Christians suffered just as much as Jews.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."
Not speaking up is where it all starts.
Intelligent debate solves issues.
How offensive can you get! The difference between Christians and Jews in this case is that Hitler tried to wipe out a whole race of people and packed defenseless children and adults into ovens to kill them like animals. The Christians who died also met terrible deaths, but they died as soldiers.
You really think what Hitler did was okay? I thought you were being facetious in your post above, but apparently you weren't.
And I just love the "victim card" bit. This is a new low for Zamfir.
Wow. You totally ignore the fact that Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews. You disgust me.
I wished we could just see some scumbag who crossed the line, get what he deserves, and have to work his way up with the help of minimum wage jobs.
Lawrence J. Peter
Pat Buchanan is right, not happy. His hero, Adolf Hitler, was without blemish, in his eyes, and the hearts of so many of his fellow Hitler-philes, currently residing in America. Apparently, there is a vast market for hatred, otherwise he would not be a guest, on any show. It is good to know where the problem lies.
I disagree with Mr. Buchanan. We are in America, except there is talk of secession. Maybe he can be Fuhrer of one of those states. He could enervate minorities there, and build the new Reich, in his third-world newland. Nightmare away, Mr. Buchanan!
Comparing Nazi Germany to competing ideologies is unrealistic. Where is the SS pulling people out of homes, and burning businesses? What upper-upper class neighborhoods are being pillaged? What highways, railways, and factories are being bombed? Need I go on?
He huddles with ilk, in the past glory of power. In its day it was, but now we are.
It be it,
Ronin Kannushi.
I could not agree more. Thank you.
Pat Buchanan is right, not happy. His hero, Adolf Hitler, was without blemish, in his eyes, and the hearts of so many of his fellow Hitler-philes, currently residing in America. Apparently, there is a vast market for hatred, otherwise he would not be a guest, on any show. It is good to know where the problem lies.
I disagree with Mr. Buchanan. We are in America, except there is talk of secession. Maybe he can be Fuhrer of one of those states. He could enervate minorities there, and build the new Reich, in his third-world newland. Nightmare away, Mr. Buchanan!
Comparing Nazi Germany to competing ideologies is unrealistic. Where is the SS pulling people out of homes, and burning businesses? What upper-upper class neighborhoods are being pillaged? What highways, railways, and factories are being bombed? Need I go on?
He huddles with ilk, in the past glory of power. In its day it was, but now we are.
It be it,
Ronin Kannushi.
2. Since we're jumping to conclusions, are we to assume that you agree with all Buchannan's racist ideas?
2. I think Pat Buchanan is a nut.
Seriously, can Olbermann go on his show with a swastika so if he wants?
How f@fcked up is America?
Sorry if anyone takes offense but things like this is, (and also I've been looking at some Republican sites, Texas secession anybody?) is so pathetically ridicolous, its hard not to think that America is one stupid country.
Again sorry to offend, even though I know I am, but looking at this post on Buchanan, and the crap I see from Limbaugh and Beck etc p@sses me off at times.
Do ye have a Media department that looks over the Media? Cause its not doing its job
No we don't. America is unlike any other country (I lived in Germany a year) in believing in absolute freedom of speech. In Germany, uttering anti-semitic nonsense is against the law. We can't conceive of that here, because we think the government controlling any utterance of speech is against our most fundamental right. So we have no such department.
I don't take offense to your post. Yes, our media is a laughing stock. I think you are the second non-American today to express absolute incredulity at the stupidity of the discourse, and the stupidity of Americans. If our political system wasn't so broken, the media itself would correct some of this. For example, the main TV stations would make this nonsense the story and laugh at the people propagating it. Instead, it either ignores it or promotes it by taking it seriously.
You are wrong. There is no law that forbids "uttering anti-semitic nonsense" in Germany.
But we do have a law, that prevents people from denying the Holocaust! And good so!
Freedom of speech is a value, that needs to be protectd. But this freedom must stop where a lie about the Shoa begins. So you would not be able to say: "There have been no gas-chambers." The swastika is a forbidden symbol, too; exeptions are made for historic-books or "collector"-stuff to protect freedom, although this exeption is misused. But the swastika is considered, beyond any doubt, a - if not THE - symbol of hate against people with different opinions/ religions/ races, that we are sure that there can be only hatefull and calling-for-murder-reasons to show a swastika.
To Buchanan: If you read his text carefully: He is absolutly aware of the German laws. You can write, shout or sing at any time that "suspected Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk ... " is comparable " ... to Jesus Christ." You would get called an unteachable idiot by people who witness that, you would not get another job as a journalist (exept with Neo-Nazi papers) - but not because of a lack of freedom of speech, only because of lack of IQ.
It´s a fine line that we try to walk here. But I think it is an important line: the request to hate is only a short step from the request to harm. I, from my standpoint, do not understand why den<ing the holocaust is not considered to be a hatecrime in your country. Barney Frank was polite! Using this comparisons is spitting on the graves of the dead. Nelia, Berlin
I stand corrected, then.
But I still think forbidding certain types of speech is problematic, because many very unpopular and unconventional ideas turn out to be true. I can imagine any number of laws forbidding ideas that were thought to be crazy and wrong at the time, that ended up being true. For example, at one time women and blacks were thought to be inferior and not have the ability to participate in politics.
The only reason the laws work in Germany is because most of the population is very well educated, and the discourse is very sane. You can see how ludicrous our political discourse is. I know other countries can't believe it, and just shake their heads.
When in Germany, I use to argue politics all the time. One argument concerned freedom of the press, with the German, Manfred, arguing that the government should own newspapers, and my arguing that that would lead to censorship. Manfred argued that you can't have an independent press when advertisers control the money. A newspaper would not print a negative story about Coke if Coke provided a source of revenue through ads.
I now believe his point of view more than what I had argued. (Though, the business control of the press does not work so crudely as he portrayed it.) Certainly, we have a free press, but it is absolutely *not* independent.
I force myself to watch and listen to you.
I say, "There! The reason we must VIGILANT." The mindset that led to the attrocities in our past will always be there, lurking in the dark.
Pat Buchanan, you remind us to never forget!
That is why they put him on the air (as a guest) because they know that he will say something really off the deep end and MMFA and the Huffington Post will run the story, show the video, and all us political wonks will pontificate on how wrong Pat is.
Let Pat say it, he'll say anything. He's a ratings bonanza. The wackier the better. Just scroll down and look at all the comments on this article to prove my point.
He's the old uncle that you are forced to invite to the family reunion but make sit out in the garage on a lawn chair away from the children. "Ready for another beer, Uncle Pat?"
In some cases, it can move mountains.
In other cases, it's like handing the person more rope to hang themselves.
As a conservative, I only know 1 person who watches his show. The reaction from all my other conservative friends/family, etc is the same as mine and yours - that this guy is nuts and doesn't represent anything we believe. I know personal experience is a small pool to draw conclusions from, but who IS watching this guy?
According to his irrational thinking, by defending Hitler, Buchanan is therefore supporting Obama...who has been characterized as Hitler by the very people who agree with Pat Buchanan.
And I thought I was confused.
So called conservatives who always complain about PC madness display the same crazy reaction whenever his name is invoked. I believe Hannity recently went ape when a guest on his show called Hitler brilliant. Why do you never see this same reaction with other less than pleasant figures, even from the same century or time period. Stalin, for example, Pol Pot,etc. The answer to this is because no other figure in history is sold as being evil on anywhere near the same level as Hitler and people eat it right up. Its called propaganda. Usually it subsides when the figure has been dead or out of power for a long time but anti hitler propaganda is still needed. It is a great tool for jews/Israel to use against their critics and to retain their victim status in the eyes of the world. It is also a tool of the elite (jews and mostly white gentiles alike) as they push for one world without borders globalism.
"Morning Joe" and both Mika and Scarborough said nothing as
Buchanen spewed his outrageous arguments that Hitler didn't want war. They just sat there and then basically said Buchanen's book was in bookstores now so go out and buy it. I don't think so. I don't watch "Morning Joe" anymore because of it.