Given Pat Buchanan's history of clear bigotry - most recently demonstrated in his reminder last night that he supported and continues to defend a white supremacist - there really isn't any good reason for MSNBC to continue putting him on the air. The man is a bigot, plain and simple. In light of the hot water MSNBC has gotten into in the past for bigoted comments by its employees, you would think they would want to distance themselves from the likes Buchanan.

But what's really extraordinary is that MSNBC brings Buchanan on air to talk about race issues. It gives Pat Buchanan a platform from which to call other people racists. Granted, if there's someone who knows racists better than Pat Buchanan does, I can't think of who it would be. But his is not the kind of expertise MSNBC should be inflicting upon its viewers.

Pat Buchanan's idea of a good Supreme Court justice was someone who said “I believe that segregation of the races is proper ... and the only practical and correct way of life in our states. I yield to no man in the firm, vigorous belief in the principles of white supremacy and I shall always be so governed.” Pat Buchanan says calling that person a racist is a “smear.”

Paying Pat Buchanan to opine about the Supreme Court, and to call other people racists, is nothing but a sick, twisted joke.

But that's just what MSNBC is doing. Here's a compilation of some of Buchanan's recent vile and hypocritical attacks on Sonia Sotomayor: