In Book, Pat Buchanan Thanks Karate-Chopping Racist for Research
In a few weeks, MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan will unleash his latest book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? According to its Amazon.com product description, the lyrically titled screed “traces the disintegration [of America] to three historic changes: America’s loss of her cradle faith, Christianity; the moral, social, and cultural collapse that have followed from that loss; and the slow death of the people who created and ruled the nation.”
Weighty topics. Fortunately, Buchanan wasn’t alone in sussing them out. As Media Matters pointed out yesterday, in his acknowledgements, Buchanan extends “special thanks” to one Marcus Epstein, “for the invaluable assistance and untold hours he devoted to researching ideas, issues, and anecdotes.”
Every time I read an article or analysis which reminds me of Buchanan’s fundamentally reactionary and unabashedly racist positions, it makes me wonder what he has ever done to merit being anointed as a pundit by a liberal news outlet. I think Buchanan gets a pass because he is on MSNBC; if he voiced his opinions on FOX, the neo-conservative context of his remarks would attract more attention.
Frankly, I click away from his smug countenance as quickly as I do from Al Sharpton’s. In many ways, two sides of the same coin. But Sharpton is a post for another day. Meanwhile, I think MSNBC should run away from Buchanan. There are other conservatives more in tune with a changing America than he. Sometime commentator J.P. Freire should be given more airtime and Pat should be shown the door.