02/22/2012
That the liberal news network MSNBC fired Pat Buchanan is hardly surprising, but what is interesting and characteristic of our age is how they justified it.
The usual way to do these things is to say something like, "We appreciate Pat’s contributions to MSNBC, and we've been proud that by hosting Pat for all these years, we've increased the diversity of debate in America. But, of course, he doesn’t really fit in with our audience strategy, so we've decided to go in a different direction. We wish Pat well in his future endeavors, and look forward to seeing him regularly on one of the other networks where he'd be a more natural fit, such as, say, Fox."
In other words, pat yourself on the back for your tolerance and open-mindedness and lay a booby-trap for your archrival Fox.
Instead, MSNBC announced that not only were Buchanan’s ideas not appropriate for discussing on MSNBC, which is their prerogative to decide, but that they aren’t "appropriate" for anybody to discuss anywhere here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave:
In January Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said he would be meeting with Mr. Buchanan soon to discuss the commentator’s role on the channel. Referring to the book “Suicide of a Superpower,” Mr. Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.” …
When Juan Williams got fired from NPR for political incorrectness, he was immediately hired by Fox. So, what are the odds that Fox will triumphantly announce they are hiring Pat to stick one in the eye of the left? Here’s a pundit, for example, explaining why Pat would be a natural at Fox.
How little they know … There are wheels within wheels making this seemingly natural event unlikely.
As Elliott Abrams recently bragged in the Fox-founded Weekly Standard, while denouncing Tom Friedman and Joe Klein for their anti-Semitism, that policing "the bounds of public discourse" is far more important than arguing with your putative rivals. Why debate when you can silence?
"Let us not descend into such analyses when what matters is not abnormal psychology but the bounds of public discourse. Once upon a time, William F. Buckley banned Pat Buchanan from the pages of National Review and in essence drummed him out of the conservative movement for such accusations."
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