He is such a train-wreck...

Pat's Supreme Court qualification requirements:
1. White.
2. Male.
3. Christian.
4. Republican.

In that order.

Perfect. I think you're right.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Rachel, Maddow, Pat, Buchanan, Sonia, Sotomayor, reverse, discrimination, white, minority' to 'Rachel Maddow, Pat Buchanan, Sonia Sotomayor, reverse, discrimination, white, minority' - edited by xxovercastxx

Several of the facts Pat states in this video are later corrected by Rachel, given some time to research the material.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Maddow-Corrects-the-Record-on-Pat-Buchanan

1. Old
2. White
3. Male
4. Christian
5. Republican

I want to like Maddow, I really do. She's intelligent and, for the most part, interesting to watch. However, I can't stand how she purposefully misrepresents the arguments of people she doesn't agree with.

Pat's points:
-Affirmative action discriminates based on race/gender.
-Appointments should be based on performance rather than race.
-Sonya's appointment was based on race over performance.

I personally think she is well-qualified for the court, but that it beside the point. Despite Pat's odd style and unfortunate history lesson (and general religious nuttery), he's basically saying that race shouldn't be considered for government positions. In essence, discriminating against any racial group is just as bad as discriminating against any other racial group. (Whether or not he believes that, it is the argument he made on the show.)

How does Rachael summarize his view? By implying he said that hispanics shouldn't even be considered for the nomination. Maybe I missed part of the interview, but I cannot find any statement by Pat prior to her summation (~6 minutes in) implying that he believes no hispanics should be considered for the supreme court.


This interview could have been a good discussion about why diversity is good for the supreme court, or if we still need legislated discrimination, but instead Rachael turns it into "Pat hates hispanics". Maybe he does hate them, but he never once said that hispanics should not be considered for this position. I had hoped Maddow had moved past such strawman arguments, especially when there is so much more substance to the issue. =\

^ Yes, the thing holding this back from being a rational discussion is Rachel being unfair and operating on fallacious arguments.

Rachel was only slightly exaggerating Pat's position. His logic seemed to be:

Obama picked a Latin Woman, therefore Obama passed over a better-qualified person for racial reasons, and this unnamed better-qualified person would have naturally been a white male, therefore Obama's discriminating against whites on the basis of race.

Pat did do a little cover by just out and out saying that he thinks Sotomayor is deficient in some objective sense (though the "facts" he based that on were false), but that wasn't very convincing.

^ I'm not defending Pat by any means. Personally I think he has more of a problem with Sonya's "liberal" tendencies and is looking for any way he can to sink her. There isn't much I like about the man, but he never said, or even implied, that hispanics should not be considered for the supreme court.

Maddow may have only "slightly" exaggerated his stance, but it still sucks to see her do even that. By no means is she twisting it to the degree that O'Reilly or Hannity do, but she is still modifying his message in order to make him an easier target. In essence, she's attacking a statement he never made.

*dead

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