Maddow issues "corrections and clarifications" of Buchanan statements on Sotomayor and race that "were not true"

The main point is that Buchanan was making such outrageous claims trying to justify his racism that Rachel, for the integrity of her show and basic human decency, had to correct his foolishness.

Buchanan is still stuck in a by-gone era that only "white folks or white males" matter in society. The way he speaks you can tell that it pains him to see the United States evolve and progress to reflect the true face of the country not the 1950's reflection that Buchanan longs for.

DAWASS. There are legitimate arguments on both sides of affirmative action, but no educated person can reasonably think that the US was built primarily by white people. I grew up in the Jim Crow south and I know who was working and who was not and that was the 1950's, much more so in the 1860's.... plus I can and do read... history books in particular. Even if that were true it would still not grant white people a special authority or claim to a more genuine form of American patriotism than anyone else, which seems to be be where Mr B is going with all of this. I hope not.

Oh, absolutely. And Pat was in no way trying to mislead when he said that Judge Sotomayor had never written any law reviews or articles "that I've read." That last bit keeps it from being an out and out lie. If the intention was not to mislead, however, why bring it up in the first place?

How would "affirmative action" get her a Rhodes Scholarship if she's white?

And how were his statements "out of context"? He was dead wrong about this country being built, "basically", by "white folks".

For example, he never said that the US Olympic track team was black - he said IF they were all black, let it be because they were the best for the job.

very true. that was a bad mistake she made. she completely took what pat said out of context. she claimed he said, "the U.S. track team in the Olympics, they're all black folks". what he really said was:

"But if I look at the U.S. track team in the Olympics, and they're all black folks, I don't automatically assume it's discrimination. I will say, 'I think maybe those are the fastest guys we got, that maybe they're the fastest guys in the country, maybe they're the fastest in the world. If they're all-our Olympic team in hockey is eight white guys from Minnesota, I don't assume discrimination.' "

she needs to correct that before she gets called out on it. as much as these kind of mistakes are few and far between with rachel and keith, they need to do all they can to correct the record, which they usually do.

I was watching . . . Buchanan didn't win anything except, based upon your post, I guess, adoration from other racists just like him

Is it difficult typing while wearing your hood?

DAWUSS, I do not believe you truly understand the meaning of 'context'. Is the only way to avoid taking someone out of context by completely relaying everything they've ever said about a topic? Would she have had to read back, as a monologue, the entirety of what he said on the show that night? That week? that year? Where does it end?

Mr. Buchanan made a number of foolish and easily disproved statements, all of them showing an entrenched and unapologetic racism.

I appreciate your comment, and I think it's defensible. But I hope I can politely disagree. The United States isn't a product of intellectual labor exclusively, and to my mind there's no good reason to disregard the physical labor that went into its construction and made that intellectual labor possible in the first place. (That's not to say there aren't plenty of reasons to disregard the work of non Europeans, but I'd argue that they don't stand up to criticism.)

I agree that Buchanan probably wasn't referring to infrastructure or to the overwhelming economic contribution of minorities. But that's the point. What he's referring to is a fiction: a country established in the mind of its European colonial framers, not the country that exists in the world.

Buchanan's statement about the Civil War and D-Day then make his "America was built basically by white folks" statement about more than who contributed to the making of the US Constitution and system of republican democracy and laws though the Civil Rights Movement both during and after the Civil War period and the modern one lead by Dr. King have been instrumental in "making real the promises [and meaning] of democracy."

The Civil War and D-Day references, IMO, make a broad point and suggest that African-Americans have not made significant or major contributions to what it means to be American or to the things he might argue that capture the essence/best in the American character/spirit.

Pat Buchanan is a racist and always have been.

Before you can become a writer, you really should learn the concept of subject-verb agreement.

MSNBC should be embarrassed to have this clown talking stupidities on national tv.

dear Mr Capus,
We the people..............................

If you actually listened to the original interview, Rachael told Pat he was playing with fire and called him on his remarks in a resepctful way. I guess for some people she would have to call him a liar to his face and tell him to shut up. They have been watching too much of Glenn Beck, Rush and O'Rielly. They are the ones who disrespect their guests. If Pat thinks he was maligned by her research and report, he has plenty of time and opportunity on the network to rebut her without interruption. I hope he does. It will be interesting to hear how he could possibly redeem his racist remarks. Frankly, I think he will stand by his words the same way Dawuss defends him because they are both racists who wish whites were superior; a claim that was never true but continues to be proffered since the Civil War through Jim Crow discrimination, violence, murder, vote suppression, segregation and district gerry mandering. How MSNBC can get away with putting Pat on the air is proof that people with money really do want a class society with them on top and non-whites on the bottom.

I agree with this. And I'm a little surprised people are going after her for waiting until Monday to do this. She planned to do this segment on Friday (I read it on the Twitter. I know my stuffs.), but the segment got bumped due to... I don't know, somebody died. Conker? Cockney? Kronkite?

Anyway, it's not exactly her fault that she didn't immediately step up to say, "Hey, Pat's wrong on this." It could have maybe been a bit tacky to interrupt mourning and remembering the passing of Walter Cronkite to say, "Hey, remember our kooky, racist 'uncle' here at MSNBC? Turns out he was wrong about a lot of stuff yesterday! Sorry I didn't catch it yesterday!"

Personally, I don't have a problem with how Rachel approached this. And I have, like, no respect for Chris Matthews. I'm waiting patiently for when they give Hardball to David Shuster.

I think Pat's way out in right field.

She took nothing out of context, she showed the clips of him ACTUALLY saying these remarks.

yes, but in other parts of the segment, she still took him out of context. as much as i love rachel, lets be real here... she made a pretty big mistake. she claimed he said, "the U.S. track team in the Olympics, they're all black folks". what he really said was:

"But if I look at the U.S. track team in the Olympics, and they're all black folks, I don't automatically assume it's discrimination. I will say, 'I think maybe those are the fastest guys we got, that maybe they're the fastest guys in the country, maybe they're the fastest in the world. If they're all-our Olympic team in hockey is eight white guys from Minnesota, I don't assume discrimination.' "

if we want to continue having respect for (in my opinion) great commentators like rachel and keith, we need to call them out on the same things we call out the wingnuts like oreilly, hannity and beck on. the morons at fox certainly spew more lies and hate (and never correct them) than keith and rachel ever do, but as long as they are ALL kept in check, most of the time they will make sure not to make those mistakes again. if we ignore the errors, we are doing a disservice to real journalism, and they will continue that disservice to themselves.

And that is relevant, how?