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After defending Hitler, Pat Buchanan again complains about Dr. Martin Luther King

September 11, 2009 3:09 pm ET by Jamison Foser

Here's the thing about Pat Buchanan: No matter what outrageous statement he makes, you should have seen it coming.  He's done it before.

So when he recently argued that Hitler has gotten a bum rap and didn't really want war, that was bad.  But he's said it before -- and suggested the Holocaust was Churchill's fault.

Now Buchanan is whining that "Old heroes like ... Robert E. Lee are replaced by Dr. King."

Wow!  That's flat-out crazy!

But ... It isn't surprising.  After all:

Buchanan urged Nixon not to visit Rev. Martin Luther King's widow, warning that such a visit would "outrage many, many people who believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagogue and perhaps worse. ... Others consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history."

...

In his 1990 book, Right From the Beginning, Buchanan reminisced fondly about his childhood in segregated Washington, D.C.: "In the late 1940's and 1950's ... race was never a preoccupation with us, we rarely thought about it. ... There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The 'Negroes' of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours."

...

Last year, Buchanan suggested that slavery worked out pretty well for "black folks":

...

Again, that was just last year. And Buchanan went on to argue that "no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans," an assertion he supported with a laundry list of government programs that, though he didn't mention this part, he spent his career opposing. Nor did he mention the inconvenient fact of his opposition to integration.

Instead, the man who once wrote in a memo to Richard Nixon that "integration of blacks and whites ... is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed consciously by government side by side with the capable," now argues that African-Americans are insufficiently grateful for the gifts white America has given them, starting with slavery.

I don't mean to suggest that Buchanan's views are old news and should be ignored.  No, they should be denounced, loudly, and consistently.  I mean only to make clear that the sponsors of Buchanan's virulent screeds (MSNBC/NBC/General Electric) cannot claim ignorance of his views.  Not after five decades.

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    • Author by JoshSN (September 11, 2009 3:27 pm ET)
         
      I think it probably is the case that people with such hateful views often become, in the minutae of social graces, quite excellent people.

      Stalin, I understand, was beloved by everyone who knew him. He could kill your best friend and you'd still love him.

      This was according to what I remember of the 2-parts Booknotes interview with Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.

      I was emailing with my favorite two conflict researchers, they were jerks!
      Report Abuse
    • Author by wookie (September 11, 2009 4:28 pm ET)
      1  
      One of these days we are going to find out that Pat Buchanan is a Sacha Baron Cohen character.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by ladyday59 (September 11, 2009 5:17 pm ET)
      1 3
      The sponsors of BuKKKanan's views will continue to feign ignorance of his racism because there has been no more than a very weak outcry from Media Matters or any other outlet.

      The same organization that launched a nationwide protest against Chris Matthews' treatment of Hilary Clinton has remained relatively silent regarding BuKKKanan's vitriol toward Justice Sotomayor, and other people of color. Where is the daily "Buchanan Montitor"? Why no petition being delivered to MSNBC?

      Is there a double standard within Media Matters?
      Report Abuse
    • Author by Haram Kufar (September 11, 2009 5:34 pm ET)
         
      Shorter Pat:
      Slavery is the path to full employment
      Report Abuse
    • Author by zamfir273114 (September 11, 2009 5:59 pm ET)
        4
      Buchanan says nothing that millions of other Americans say in private and believe themselves.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by political_left-religious_right (September 11, 2009 6:26 pm ET)
        2 1
        "Buchanan says nothing that millions of other racists say in private and believe themselves."

        There, all fixed for you.
        Report Abuse
      • Author by Brabantio (September 12, 2009 8:22 am ET)
        2  
        So? There are probably a couple million people who think that pedophilia is perfectly natural and should be legal. Does that mean arguing to that end on television doesn't bear criticism?
        Report Abuse
    • Author by bilbo_dies (September 11, 2009 8:10 pm ET)
      2 1
      The 'Negroes' of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours."

      Ah, yes. The "good old days", I remember them well. We got along well with the colored, as long as they stayed on their side of the track, down in the "bottoms". Of course, there was always one or two "uppity" ones, who didn't know their place. Not to worry though, it gave us something to do on a slow Saturday night, when we would mosey on down to the "bottoms" and "teach them a lesson".
      Report Abuse
    • Author by phredicles (September 11, 2009 9:18 pm ET)
      1 1
      I don't agree with calling Robert E. Lee a "hero". He was on record as recognizing that slavery was indeed wrong (Onkel Pat, please take note), and he believed secession was illegal. But he felt he could not fight against his home state (Virginia), so he fought instead to preserve slavery and destroy the Union.

      I'll agree that he was a tragic figure in some respects, but he was not a hero.

      I'll confidently predict that they will never be any debate over the possibility of Onkel Pat being a hero.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by Texas Aggie (September 12, 2009 5:58 pm ET)
      1  
      One thing I noticed about Patty's comment on Hitler that hasn't been picked up by anyone is that he said the Polish city of Gdansk should have been given to Hitler because it was German anyway. Then Hitler would have been happy and not felt the need to invade Poland. That was the same argument that Neville Chamberlain used for giving Hitler the Sudentenland, and he has been vilified as an appeaser. How is Buchanan any different?
      Report Abuse

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