In addition to Foster Friess’ passive-aggressive “apology” for his “joke” about how the “gals” used to avoid unwanted pregnancy by keeping their knees together, the other big news in the world of Old White Male Reactionaries was Pat Buchanan’s self-pitying announcement that his contract with MSNBC has not been renewed. It seems the Jews and the Blacks and the Feminists and the Gays have denied the grizzled paleocon his accustomed perch on Basic Cable, though his claim that he has been “silenced” seems a bit strange coming from someone whose self-proclaimed martyrdom is getting maximum media coverage.
I’ve never quite understood the conceit whereby television networks are First Amendment Boxes that owe it to every crank to peddle his or her wares, or that any one “personality” should have a perpetual entitlement to visit us all in our homes four or five times a week. But before it gets out of hand, let’s definitely throw some cold water on Buchanan’s effort to make himself a living sacrifice for the poor persecuted conservatives of America. Here’s an apt comment from the conservative blog site Outside the Beltway:
Buchanan obviously refuses to take responsibility for his own rhetoric. In the end, though, I think the main reason he’s gone is because MSNBC has figured out something that most people who spend any time on the right have known for years. Put simply, Pat Buchanan has not represented the mainstream of political thought on the right for years, if ever. Leaving aside his idiotic comments on race and religion, the man is a xenophobic protectionist whose economic positions often seem more akin to Michael Moore than Milton Friedman. To the extent that the network was bringing him on as the “conservative voice,” they were failing miserably, because he really doesn’t represent modern conservatism in any respect. That’s why I don’t think anyone is really going to miss the guy.
Pat Buchanan has had regular access to major mainstream news media for close to four decades now. That should be enough for anybody, much less for a guy who often seemed determined to channel the disreputable ideologies of the pre-World-War II Right.
