Four months after suspending him, MSNBC officially fired right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan on Thursday. (Oh that’s why we saw a rainbow and a flock of doves outside our office yesterday.)
In October Buchanan released his latest incendiary tome, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025. It contained chapters titled “The End of White America” and “The Death of Christian America,” and bemoaned marriage equality and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Indoctrination of recruits, soldiers and officers into an acceptance of the gay lifestyle will transfer authority over the military, the most respected institution in America, to agents of a deeply resented and widely detested managerial state.
On Thursday, a network spokesman explained that “after ten years, we have decided to part ways with Pat Buchanan. We wish him well.” But in a column the same day, Buchanan, called efforts to silence him “un-American.”
After ten enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous…
A Human Rights Campaign that bills itself as America’s leading voice for lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgendered people said that Buchanan’s “extremist ideas are incredibly harmful to millions of LB
GT people around the world.”
Their rage was triggered by a remark to NPR’s Diane Rehm that I believe homosexual acts to be “unnatural and immoral…”
That homosexual acts are unnatural and immoral has been doctrine in the Catholic Church for 2,000 years.
Is it now hate speech to restate traditional Catholic beliefs?
…Without a hearing, they smear and stigmatize as racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic any who contradict what George Orwell once called their “smelly little orthodoxies.” They then demand that the heretic recant, grovel, apologize, and pledge to go forth and sin no more.
Defy them, and they will go after the network where you work, the newspapers that carry your column, the conventions that invite you to speak. If all else fails, they go after the advertisers.
Going after advertisers is a tried-and-true strategy of your pals on the Christian right, Pat. Like those kids in the anti-drug campaigns, all we can say is “We learned it from watching you!”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Image via MSNBC, Thomas Dunne Books
Rusty Redfield
In fact, we’re smart enough now to go after the advertisers FIRST. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Pat. Buh-bye!!
Tinstaafl2
Actually, the Catholic Church’s attitude toward gays has been hate speech for 2,000 years. Society now just recognizes it now for what it’s always been.
Danny
An important article about silencing gay journalists and bloggers can be found at:
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/17/billionaire_romney_donor_uses_threats_to_silence_critics/singleton/
cwm
Buchanan gone? After decades of being one of the most prominent editorial commentators in both print and broadcast media! Based apparently on his stellar record as one of those diehard Nixon appointees who stood firm–attempting to continue the cover-up of massive election fraud, and other illegal covert operations–for his paranoid anti-Semitic boss.
Oh and speaking of paranoid Jew-haters! You want to read about Buchanan’s defense of Hitler himself–and his lame attempts to defend Nazi war crimes–please read through the half-million Google results (“pat buchanan” hitler) yourself. I’ve heard enough of it over the years, and won’t be bothered. Yeah plenty of fagbashing as well.
But hey it’s hardly a First Amendment issue. Patty can start a blog if he wants. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
the crustybastard
Fired, without due process, merely for being who you are?
The HORROR!
Wait…isn’t this exactly what you advocate for gay people?
I’m only sorry I cannot vote to deny you a family, you bigoted, xenophobic, ignorant piece of shit.
Isaac C
This is terrible news. He is an accomplished man and does not deserve this. I hope he finds a place on TV where he is not silenced for having a dissenting opinion.
Joetx
Isaac C has completely exposed himself as a right wing troll whose purpose in life is to visit gay websites & post despicable comments, usually of the racist variety.
rev fartwell
WHY WAS HE EVEN ON THERE????
ARE THESE MSNBC PEOPLE SADISTS OR SOMETHING??
Hephaestion
How has Professional Catholic Pat Buchanan has failed to notice that at least 70% of the priests in the church which he thinks should write laws for America are gay?
LandStander
@Hephaestion: If you are referring to the pedophilia rampant in the Catholic church, they are pedophiles not gay people. Huge difference there, you douche.
If that is not what you were referring to, then carry on about your business with my apologies 🙂
mary eli
@LandStander:
Some people may say that gays are pedophiles due to gays’ love of youth and everything associated with it. And some may say that’s not the case. Honestly I don’t know.
cwm
Some people may say there are commonly-used passive-aggressive verbal constructions: intended for promulgating vicious rumors, without appearing to believe in one’s own attempts at character assassination. (It’s often said Fox News Channel relies heavily on these. Or, according to some folks, anyway!)
But truthfully, I don’t know why “mary eli” is spouting moldy slanders (roughly equivalent to the “blood libel,” and nearly as ancient) that “gays are pedophiles.” Some have suggested she’s merely ignorant, while others wonder if she’s a paranoid schizophrenic. Though perhaps the most credible explanation is sheer, bitter hatred.
kevininbuffalo
I could never be a liberal, I believe in freedom of speech for everyone.
Freedom F. Speech
I may disagree with what Pat Buchanan says, but I’ll defend with my life his right to get fired if he says something I don’t like.
Isaac C
@Freedom F. Speech: LOL
LandStander
@mary eli: “due to gays’ love of youth and everything associated with it…”
Oh yeah? Well I am a gay, and I prefer my men hairy and a few years older than I. So where does that leave us?
MotorGay.net
Goodbye Jerk!
the crustybastard
@kevininbuffalo:
I could never be a conservative. I understand that “freedom of speech” doesn’t magically confer a lifetime broadcasting contract.
Dumbass.
B
No. 11 · kevininbuffalo wrote, “I could never be a liberal, I believe in freedom of speech for everyone.”
If “kevininbuffalo” is referring to Pat Buchanan losing his job or contract, then he also could never be a conservative, as conservatives generally believe in employment at will (the will of the employer). Nobody has interfered with Buchanan’s freedom of speech: he can still spout whatever he wants. It’s just that MSNBC decided not to pay for it. The usual reason for canceling a program is that its ratings were dropping. Buchanan’s been touting the same stuff (more or less) for decades. Eventually, people get tired of hearing the same thing over and over and want to hear something else. In Buchanan’s case, however, it seems he makes comments that most people find rather odd – a throwback to parts of our history that most people would rather forget. He apparently didn’t fit in well with the other news programs that MSNBC has either.
Also, MSNBC apparently didn’t want Buchanan on the air while he was going on book tours to promote his new book, which apparently contain statements with which MSNBC does not want to be tainted. Buchanan has been appearing on other cable-news networks instead.
So there could be some corporate-image considerations as well. Regardless, it is MSNBC’s decision.
Hephaestion
@LandStander: No, you only imagined the pedophilia, Landstander. My comment was stated perfectly. 70% of the Catholic priests, that Buchanan wants to hand our government over to, are gay. Surely you are aware of this. I did not say that these gay priests were pedophiles.
Hephaestion
@LandStander: You really should quit calling people “douche” online. It is unbecoming, and people will assume you are 11 years old.
LandStander
@Hephaestion: Then WTF are you talking about when you say that “70% of the Catholic priests, that Buchanan wants to hand our government over to, are gay.” ??? Where does this number come from? What evidence suggests that Catholic priests, in vast numbers compared to regular citizens, are homosexuals??
Also, you should read my post in its entirety. You know, the part where I said “if that’s not what you were referring to, then carry on with my apologies”. So if that really is not what you meant, then I did not call you a douche 🙂 (although I am starting to regret that)
MKe
It’s hard out there for a professional homophobe. If the anti gay statements aren’t generating the kind of money they used to he might have to find something good to contribute to society. :-/
terry
how does getting fired from a job qualify as being silenced? he can still go out to any street corner (if said street corner will have him) and spout off his nonsense.
dsp
@mary eli: “due to gays’ love of youth and everything associated with it…”
I have always prefered my men in their forties and that was even when i was a youth of 16. Your statement doesn’t make sense but it is quite offensive!
B
No. 21 · MKe wrote, “It’s hard out there for a professional homophobe.” When the issue first came up (what Buchanan said), I checked his web site and out of a long list of articles or opinion pieces, could find very little that had anything to do with gays. Buchanan is simply not a professional homophobe (a term we might reserve for someone running a single-issue organization that collects money to push a homophobic agenda). We need a different word to describe Buchanan. Perhaps “reactionary” would do. He’s kind of a throwback to the 1700s to early 1800s, a guy who assumes that George Washington’s statement about avoiding foreign entanglements makes as much sense today as it did at a time when it took a month or so to cross the Atlantic Ocean.