Politiks As Usual: In The News 8/26/13

Man May Have Fathered 50+ Kids

Two Million Bikers To Meet ‘Million Muslim March’ in DC on 9/11

Martin Luther King Is Weeping In His Grave 

Rush Limbaugh: Nobody is Listening to Obama Anymore

DOJ Tries to Stop School-Choice for Poor Children in Failing Louisiana Public Schools

Avril Lavigne’s Latest: Lesbian Make-Out Scene, Throwing Babies

Pat Buchanan: 'Whites Are the Only Group That You Can Discriminate Against Legally in America Now'

Syria Gives Green Light to UN Chemical Arms Probe

'Trans-inclusive Human Rights Ordinance' Defeated in Florida County 

In Defense of Russia's Law on Homosexual Propaganda

5 Faces of the March on Washington

Video: If Gun Control Worked, Chicago Would Be Mayberry

The Sportswriter Who Blogged His Suicide

If MSNBC Sacks Pat Buchanan, Will They Have To Answer For Al Sharpton?

Great points. Too bad they didn't mention Tawana Brawley or the people who were killed in Harlem at Freddy's Fashion Mart due to Sharpton's incendiary rhetoric:

We still don’t know what Phil Griffin and MSNBC will ultimately do in regards to the Pat Buchanan situation. What we do know is that if Buchanan is taken out permanently, there will be blow-back. And let’s start with what will likely become the focal point for those who take issue with Buchanan getting taken off permanently.


To remind everyone, here is what Phil Griffin said at the TCA concerning Buchanan.


Mr. Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.”


If that is now Griffin’s litmus test with regards to Buchanan, it will be one that people will use to examine the records of all other MSNBC contractual talent. And here’s where the trouble begins for MSNBC because if the person at MSNBC with the most baggage and history of controversial, provocative, and (some would argue) hate producing commentary at the network is Pat Buchanan, the person with the second largest amount of baggage and history of controversial, provocative, and (some would argue) hate producing commentary at the network is Al Sharpton. By using the “appropriate for national dialogue” litmus test on Buchanan, MSNBC is all but inviting the same litmus test to be applied to Sharpton. And Sharpton would fail that test just as Buchanan apparently has.


This would put MSNBC in a real quandary. If it takes Buchanan out but leaves Sharpton in place it’s opening itself up for a whole bunch of questions it really doesn’t want to answer. It will be forced to discuss how Buchanan’s controversial history is not appropriate to the point that he has to be taken off the air but Sharpton’s at times even more inflammatory rhetoric and history is. MSNBC doesn’t want to discuss that. It’s a lose-lose scenario.


The subject would next parry to how MSNBC could justify keeping Sharpton on the air if it got rid of Buchanan. Another lose-lose scenario. The conventional wisdom is Sharpton appeals to the Progressive demographic and that’s a core constituency MSNBC does not want to alienate right now because of the perceived threat from the even more leftward bent Current TV. Some would say MSNBC is paranoid about Current TV. I think the threat is vastly overstated because Current hasn’t shown that it can even do the most basic rudimentary cable programing things correctly. Look at Olbermann’s set or the network’s premature cut-out of the Iowa caucuses if you don’t believe me. And then there’s the hiring of Jennifer Granholm who isn’t exactly a progressive firebrand of the type that Olbermann and Uygur are. Given all that, plus the Al Gore backed channel’s poor distribution, one could easily argue that FBN is a bigger threat to CNBC than Current is to MSNBC.


Nonetheless, one could make the case that MSNBC has taken an irrational to the point of being paranoid defensive posture regarding being out-left-flanked by Current. I don’t think you’d see either Chris Hayes or Melissa Harris-Perry with weekend shows if MSNBC wasn’t worried about the potential of Current poaching. The fact that they’d be poached down what would amount to a Nielsen black hole is beside the point. They’d be poached.


When you are in a branding fight, facts on the ground can take a back seat to perception. Keith Olbermann first sowed the seeds of this fight by implying that MSNBC wasn’t progressive enough…that it was too much of the establishment. Cenk Uygur further drilled this thesis down by his very public falling out with the network. The perception was starting to take shape.


If MSNBC doesn’t get rid of Buchanan now, it re-enforces that perception amongst Progressives. Remember, this is a branding fight over ideology not a fight over indisputable facts. If it was a fight over facts and absolute appropriateness for the national dialogue, both Buchanan and Sharpton’s records would have to be examined side by side. MSNBC doesn’t want that because it forces the network into a position where it has to at least tacitly admit that it’s carving out an exception for Sharpton because Sharpton and his views carry Progressive street cred whereas Buchanan and his views carry Progressive street ire.

Failing Liberal TV Station MSNBC Ousts Conservative Pundit Pat Buchanan

Conservatives know that MSNBC is nothing but a ratings fail, with consistently last-place shows that feature far-Left hosts that no one takes seriously but the few radically-leftist yahoos out there that bother to watch them (i.e. "echo chamber"). That's why it's kind of funny to see MSNBC get rid of one of the conservatives left on their programs, Pat Buchanan, for having the nerve to write a book in which he expounds on his conservative views. No doubt MSNBC was pressured by its few remaining viewers to get rid of Buchanan, but still:

Reading what Phil Griffin had to say today about the Pat Buchanan situation made me think about why this is happening.


“During the period of the book tour I asked him not to be on,” Mr. Griffin said. “Since then the issue has become the nature of some of the statements in the book.”


Mr. Buchanan argues in “Suicide of a Superpower” — which has the subtitle “Will America Survive to 2025?” — that the “European and Christian core of our country is shrinking,” which is damaging the nation “ethnically, culturally, morally, politically.” The book also contains a chapter titled “The End of White America.”


I haven’t read Pat’s book nor do I have any interest in doing so. But this is not new territory for Pat Buchanan to venture in to. He’s been on the edge of the paleocon xenophobic spectrum for a long time and anyone who has followed him even in passing can attest to this.


Certainly anyone who has dealt with Pat at MSNBC knows this. Pat has not changed. He may be a bit more vocal and shrill about it but he hasn’t changed his positions.


On the other hand, MSNBC has changed. It openly courts Progressive views and news. It puts out job ads asking for candidates with a progressive news background. Its pundit host class is all progressive and the network lets them show up en masse at the White House for off the record get togethers. The network is openly and aggressively courting the African American viewing audience so much so that it now notes how big it is in African American viewership in its releases.


Add all these things together and you now have a scenario where MSNBC, which used to be able to handle a Pat Buchanan and his intransigent controversial views, can no longer afford to do so without alienating core constituencies it covets. As Bill Carter wrote today…


Mr. Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.” The network has set out to brand itself as a network designed to appeal to progressive and liberal viewers.


Phil Griffin basically copped to it. If you piss off MSNBC core demographic audiences and they start going ape, as Color of Change did over Buchanan, you may end up being taken off the network, whereas five years ago such a tactic probably would not have succeeded.


And yet, this isn’t Michael Savage we’re talking about where some guy says something on MSNBC’s air that’s toxic. This is Pat Buchanan who is smart enough to moderate and modulate what he says on MSNBC vs. what he writes in his books. Buchanan in effect is being punished on MSNBC for something he didn’t do on MSNBC but is something that he’s been well known for by the people at MSNBC for years.


What I find ironic about this, and gave me the motivation to write up the headline the way I did, is with the Pat Buchanan situation MSNBC has gone and returned to the days of Phil Donahue and the run up to the Iraq War except it’s inverted because this time it’s not Conservative viewers MSNBC is afraid of alienating with Buchanan as it was nearly 10 years ago with Donahue…it’s Progressive ones.

Stephen Colbert Mocks Conservative Pundits For Claims Of Reverse Racism

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Reverse Racism
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

Funny and more importantly, on point.

Rachel Maddow Pwnes Pat Buchanan

This one is too easy. But what's even funnier is that for all the GOP hysteria over Sotomayor, the woman may actually end up benefiting conservatives moreso than the Left. I mean, just look at her record.

Joe Scarborough On Sarah Palin's Future

This is probably the best synopsis I've seen on what may be Sarah Palin's future. I still think it's lame that she quit her term ahead of time, but yeah, she's definitely got mega-dollar deals coming at her with FOX News most likely being one of them.

Politiks As Usual: In The News 7/6/09

Sarah Palin Threatens To Sue Leftist HuffPo Blogger

Ousted President's Plane Circles Honduran Runway, Can't Land

Attorney General Holder Picks Homosexuals Over Priests

4th of July Holiday Marked By Anti-Tax Tea Parties

When Color Trumps Christianity

Save Pat Buchanan!

Gates Looking For 'Flexibility In Law Banning Homosexuals From Military Service

New Documents Connect Sotomayor To Leftist Agenda

Biden Gives Green Light For Israeli Iran Attack, Officials Backtrack

General Electric To Use Embryonic Stem Cells For Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats

Charles Rangel Criticizes Obama For Butting Into NY Primary

Video: Pat Buchanan vs. Michael Eric Dyson on MSNBC

Pat Buchanan takes on liberal blowhard and author Michael Eric Dyson on MSNBC the other day. Frankly, I'm not really a fan of either one, but it was new AG Eric Holder recent "nation of cowards" on race comments (which I kind of agree with) that lit the fire to this debate. Of course, Eric Holder is the same guy who was partly responsible for getting one-time fugitive Marc Rich pardoned by Bill Clinton, but as we all know by now when it comes to properly vetting cabinet picks, Barack Obama could care less.

Pat Buchanan: GOP Would Lose Soul With Giuliani

I couldn't agree more:

Support for Rudy Giuliani represents a return to liberal Republicanism that would strip the GOP of its hard-won progress on moral, social and cultural issues, warns Pat Buchanan.

In his new column “Conservatism is a Tower of Babel,” the GOP strategist and one-time presidential candidate examines Giuliani’s political record, concluding that the former New York City mayor and federal prosecutor is certifiably a liberal Rockefeller Republican.

He describes Giuliani as a, “McGovernite in 1972 [who] boasted in the campaign of 1993 that he would ‘rekindle the Rockefeller-Javits-Lefkowitz tradition’ of New York's GOP and ‘produce the kind of change New York City saw with ... John Lindsay.’ ”

Buchanan points out that Giuliani ran on the Liberal Party ticket and supported Mario Cuomo in 1994.

“Pro-abortion, anti-gun, again and again he strutted up Fifth Avenue in the June Gay Pride parade and turned the Big Apple into a sanctuary for illegal aliens,” Buchanan writes. “While Ward Connerly goes state to state to end reverse discrimination, Rudy is an affirmative-action man.”

Rudy, Buchanan notes, has attracted “those inveterate opportunists, the neocons, who see in Giuliani their last hope of redemption for their cakewalk war and their best hope for a long war against Islamo-fascism.”