Pat Buchanan Mocks Sotomayor for Learning English
Learning a foreign language, if you’ve ever tried, is really hard. Meanwhile, it’s clearly also important for people living in the United States of America to do their best to learn to speak and read standard American English. But this takes hard work. Sonia Sotomayor, like many Americans, was born into a Spanish-dominant family. But she worked hard, learned English, went to Princeton, then Yale Law School, then had a successful career as a lawyer, as a District Court judge, as an Appeals Court judge, and now as a Justice of the Supreme Court. This is, as I’ve said before, a good inspirational story that parents are going to tell their kids to encourage them to work hard in school.
Unless, that is, you’re Pat Buchanan in which case you take a cute story about Sotomayor spending her summers re-reading classic children’s books she hadn’t had a chance to read as a kid and turn it into a pretext to mock her:
Amanda Terkel reminds us that normally Buchanan claims that Hispanics need to work harder to learn English. But faced with an actual example of someone working to learn English, he has nothing but scorn and spite.
Meanwhile, Buchanan also thinks a vote against Sotomayor would be a vote for the white working class. In the real world, of course, despite the attention on “hot button” social issues, the bulk of federal litigation has to do with economic matters. As Jeffrey Toobin wrote of John Roberts:
After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.
It’s not clear to me why consistently siding with corporate defendants would count as a blow for the interests of the white working class.
99 Responses to “Pat Buchanan Mocks Sotomayor for Learning English”
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June 1st, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Well, Pat transitioned pretty nicely from German to English, so he stones and glass houses…
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Operation Gringo is proceeding precisely according to plan.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
now as a Justice of the Supreme Court
Don’t jump the gun Matt.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
It’s not clear to me why consistently siding with corporate defendants would count as a blow for the interests of the white working class.
If the children of the white working class work hard enough and sell out even harder, one day they too can be corporate defendants!
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
To me, Buchanan’s story of Sotomayor finishing at the top of her Princeton class despite having to read children’s books during the summer to improve her English is a very poignant story in her favor. In that sense, it really shows how tone-deaf people like Buchanan have become on these issues.
Which leads us back to the same point we have now made what feels like hundreds of times: I can’t imagine Democrats are shedding any tears over the fact that people like Limbaugh, Buchanan, and Tancredo are leading the public charge against Sotomayor.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I thought I had read English was Sotomayor’s first language and that her brother doesn’t speak Spanish… Do I have this completely wrong? Am I confusing her with someone else?
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Learning a foreign language, if you’ve ever tried, is really hard.
Meanwhile, learning a foreign language, if you’ve never tried, is even harder.
Ha!
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
The anti-Sotomayor nutjobs went from zero to “say anything” before she was even nominated.
No wonder they can’t get any traction.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
The almighty Wikipedia says she became fluent in English after her father died.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Racist!
signed Al and 24AheadDotCom
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
i just wish someone on national t.v. would say “c’mon now, pat. you and i both know that no matter what she was reading, you’d try to mock and smear her. there exists no book in the universe that she could have read that would make you think differently of her.”
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I guess if Sotomayor had wanted something really juvenile, she could have started with Buchanan’s speeches.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
It’s like red meat to a hyena. Buchanan can’t help himself. I fully believe that racist dogwhistling has been a proven winner for the Republicans just as it used to be for the democrats, but really, trying to convince us that the deck is stacked in favor of Peurto Rican women is just ridiculous on it’s face. Much like Mr. Buchanan is these days.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
But faced with an actual example of someone working to learn English, he has nothing but scorn and spite.
That contradiction is pretty easy to explain: Buchanan is a pig-fucking racist who resents it when people speak Spanish in his presence, regardless of whether or not they are able to speak English. His concerns about their supposed inability or unwillingness to assimilate are totally post hoc; indeed, he’d almost certainly be goddamned if he’d ever personally “assimilate” with any of them.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
It’s not Buchanan’s tone deafness to the difficulty of learning another language, it’s his obliviousness to being an utter lightweight himself, which he betrays every time he opens his fat mouth. Who the hell does he think he is?
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Well, Pat liked Francisco Franco a lot, and that dude spoke Spanish.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Some conservatives are just so proud of their ignorance.
The degree of paranoia and closed-mindedness is mind boggling.
If P. Buchanan had spent his summers studying anything at all, we would all be better off.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:57 pm
There is a guy in our town who sounds like this. You can usually find him sitting next to a dumpster behind the grocery store drawing pictures with his drool.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“It’s not clear to me why consistently siding with corporate defendants would count as a blow for the interests of the white working class. ”
The white working class doesn’t know whats good for them. Corporations do. Its really pretty simple once you accept the benelovent oversight of our corperate masters.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I’m glad Jasper was first with that comment, because I’d be pissed if he were #18 and I just missed my chance.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
benevolent, even.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Why is this man still on TV. When is the media going to stop providing a platform to right-wing extremists to spew their version of god and country. I specifically say right-wing because I’ve never seen a left-wing extremist accorded the same privilege.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
It’s not clear to me why consistently siding with corporate defendants would count as a blow for the interests of the white working class.
White working class = White collar
Both begin with “white”. Ergo, they’re the same!
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Obviously, back in Hahvard MattY could have used some of the same help SS got, except with logic and honesty. And, of course, there’s a huge difference between one student at a top college struggling with English and millions of people showing limited interest in learning the language.
P.S. I’m still waiting to hear from MattY about the group she joined that gave an award to someone who’d proposed genocide.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Jasper wrote:
<>
Don’t be an ass, Jasper. The stereotyping of Germans as fascists is idiotic and is as stupid as anything coming out of Pat Buchanan’s mouth.
Read a little history, Jasper. Learn a little bit about the world. Plenty of English-speaking countries (including this one) has been engaged in genocide (see the Native Americans, the slave trade, the Opium Wars, etc.)
Germany is and has been (for 3 generations) one of the most democratic, humane countries in the world.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
White Men Can’t Read. It’s a summer sensation!
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
“re-reading classic children’s books she hadn’t had a chance to read as a kid” —
How does one go about re-reading a book one has not read? Also, as noted at #3 above, she’s not a Justice yet. I take your point, Mr. Yglesias, but here’s mine: sloppy writing undermines the credibility of your snark.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Hey everybody! AssForAHeadDotConned put something on his blog! Everybody make sure & look, okay?
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Not to diminish Sotomayor’s success story, but the above really should read:
Learning a second language is an entirely different proposition for a child — and much, much easier. It has to do with the plasticity of the human brain in children, and how that changes between childhood and adulthood.
I’ve watched many young immigrants from Mexico learn English with ease, while their parents struggled mightily.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with Buchanan and why anyone ever listens to him about anything. I guess the media keep going to him because he’s an idiot who is guaranteed to say stupid, provocative things that are truly offensive.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Had an African American friend who was once knocked down on the street by Buchanan and he didn’t even acknowledge that he had knocked him down, or help him up, or say sorry. Just keep on going.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I don’t have access to the “liberal” playbook, but I’m going to guess that it’s going to end up that, just as there’s a “good”, “liberal” kind of racism, there’s a “good”, “liberal” kind of genocide.
P.S. Compare what’s at the link in my last comment to what MattY would tell you about the same group.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
The National Council of La Raza is not advocating genocide. If you want that loose an analogy, then Reagan and the Republican Party were advocating genocide because members of the Heritage Groups Council were found to be original members of Nazi-allied European governments, or you could have much of the Reagan administration tried and perhaps hung for directly funding and facilitating the Guatemalan genocide against its own Mayan population.
Stop being stupid. Nobody’s trying to wipe out white people.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Of course, since she’s Boricua we can assume Sotomayor never really learned how to speak Spanish.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I don’t have “access” to the “liberal” “playbook”, but I’m going to “guess” that it’s going to “end up” that, just as there’s a “good”, “liberal” kind of “racism”, there’s a “good”, “liberal” kind of “genocide”.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Compelling evidence indeed.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Actually, Pat thinks Latinos should learn English and then STFU. That’s where Sonia S went wrong.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Plus, Buchanan is declaring that the childrens literature that builds a foundation of Western culture and values.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Sorry, should have read Plus, Buchanan is declaring that the childrens literature that builds a foundation of Western culture and values is no longer valid. The guy is now a crypto-Muslim hater of European history.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
What a wonderful discovery I made, as an adult, when reading the childrens’ books of E. Nesbit to my own children — it is never too late.
And my s.o. similarly discovered Kipling’s Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and Wind in the Willows (too sophisticated for most small children).
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Maybe she went back and read those books because they were well written, and we do a terrible job of teaching grammar in the country. If one wishes to learn the proper rules of grammar, one probably needs to do it independently of our educational system.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I look at ratings for national newscasts and am appalled at the numbers of people getting their sole current event information from Couric, Gibson, et al. Then I must remind myself “Thank god similar numbers don’t tune to cable for their news!” Buchanan, Beck, Hannity and their ilk are viewed by a comparatively small number of people in the grand scheme of things.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cable News Ratings for May 31, 2009
P2+ Total Day
FNC –812,000 viewers
CNN – 413,000 viewers
MSNBC – 287,000 viewers
CNBC –192,000 viewers
HLN – 217,000 viewers
NEW YORK – June 2, 2009 – According to Nielsen Media Research data, “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” was the most-watched network evening newscast, winning the week of May 25-31, 2009. During the week, the Williams-led newscast grew to 7.570 million total viewers, +677K more than ABC “World News’” 6.893 million, and +2.194 million more than CBS “Evening News’” 5.376 million. Season-to-date “Nightly” leads ABC by 764K viewers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Network news viewership dwarfs those of cable. Something to keep in mind when you worry about the effect of the cretins populating various cable newsies. Of course, network news shows present their own particular set of misinformation issues.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Even the liberal New Republic hates Sotomayor!
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I didn’t read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn until after my 30th birthday. It’s a great read for anybody at any age.
When I was in Germany, it helped my education immensely to read Tintin books in German.
What does this commentary tell us about Pat Buchanan? It tells us he only speaks English. Learning a second language can be a humbling experience, and I’m sure Pat would never subject his fragile ego to such an ordeal.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Being born in an English speaking society almost guarantees you’ll learn the language. There’s nothing impressive about Sotomayor learning English after Spanish.
It is worrying if she still had problems with English up to her college years.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Pat Buchanan had unlimited empathy for Elian Gonzalez, but I’m sure his legal position must’ve been strictly constructed out of something or other. Evidently, Judge Sotomayor came from the wrong island.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Whoa, Mr. Duncan! The worst network is still more than six and a half times bigger than the biggest cable outfit.
IIRC, cable news’ demographic is also very, very old.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Lonewacko’s just spamming now. Still, it’s remarkable how quickly he comes along to say “look over there! And by ‘there’ I mean my shitty blog!” whenever a racist shithead is being a racist shithead. Obviously, that can’t be because Lonewacko is a racist shithead.
What does this commentary tell us about Pat Buchanan? It tells us he only speaks English.
Oh, I’m sure he had the Latin Mass beaten into him, and he might be able to decline a noun, but that’s about it.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
She did. When were you going to start?
That’s not what the article says.
And how old are you now, since you still have problems reading and writing English?
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Meanwhile, Buchanan also thinks a vote against Sotomayor would be a vote for the white working class.
As I said last week, Buchanan and Matthews are caught in a 1950s mindset — to be fair, one they grew up with — where the white Catholic guy with an Irish name was still an object of suspicion, as opposed to being a rich pundit.
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Pat has long extolled the rigor of urban parochial schools
to benefit the deserving poor, like Sonia.
Surely, Pat is proud of her for excelling
at Cardinal Spellman.
Lightweight? Top of the class – Pat must think
ill of the lesser students.
Hypocrite.
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
there exists no book in the universe that she could have read that would make you think differently of her.
Atlas Shrugs?
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Dammit, that’d be Rand’s Atlas Shrugs, not that shrieking nutjob’s blog, of course.
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
It is not that they are well written because they use correct grammar, but that they are well written because the writers were steeped in an education founded on the study and enjoyment of English and classical poetry. Their writings have rhythmic and stylistic distinction, such as can only come from immersion in poetry of the highest level in several languages. It was understood that if you want to teach eloquence, poetry, and particularly the exercise of translating poetry from other languages, is the most effective way to do it.
Today we have become such philistines that the highest aim of of those who manufacture our high-stakes English tests is that pupils be capable of reading a text at the level of a “professional journal.” Academese, in other words is what they aim for.
I am not making this up.
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece, not a children’s book. WTF are you talking about?
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Dammit, that’d be Rand’s Atlas Shrugs, not that shrieking nutjob’s blog, of course.
Maybe you’re being ironic or something, but …
If you’re going to make a correction, you should at least get it right.
Of course, there’s (theirs) always the possibility that your (you’re) English teacher was 24AheadDotCrom, in which case the mistake is understandable.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Maybe Pat B. is so upset because Sotomayer read Harry Potter?
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Hilarious: MattY’s anti-Irish bigot is now showing us what he thinks of Catholics.
As for “El Cid”, it’s switched from childish smears into outright lies; I never accused the NCLR of advocating genocide. They did give an award to someone who did indeed propose genocide however. That same person made several similar comments before and after they gave him an award for being a “Hero”.
And, “liberals” don’t have a problem with that.
See the link in my first comment for the details, and once again please compare what I tell you at that link with what MattY would tell you about the same group.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
If you can predict with 100 percent accuracy how a judge will vote on a given case, wouldn’t that be the definition of an activist judge?
I mean, isn’t Roberts the quintessential activist judge?
Or is activism a term reserved only for liberal judges?
There is so much banter about the need for Supreme Court Justices to have supple minds capable of interpreting complex cases and then they vote straight down the party ticket.
What does that mean? Wouldn’t we have a fairer system, statistically, if the 9 judges made their decisions by flipping coins?
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Patty Buchanan is a rancid old bigot who cut his teeth race baiting America into voting for Nixon twice. The guy is a walking sack of resentment and bile. All that is wrong with America can been seen by looking into to ole Pat Buchanan’s beady little eyes. And when he speaks! … my God, it is unbearable.
Which is why he is one of America’s top pundits.
Draw your own conclusions…
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Pat Buchanan has been a drunk since he was in high school over in DC.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Okay, I followed the shitty links, and it turns out that a very accomplished professor said some crazy shit in 1969 about wiping out the gringo.
You know, the very same period in which David Horowitz was working with the Black Panthers up until his ego-driven attention seeking got him in the middle of a situation where a white friend of his was killed.
So, you’re linking to the ex-radical, ex-Black Panther auxiliarist David Horowitz condemning Pr. Jose Angel Gutierrez for shit he did in the late 1960s, and what he did more recently is completely milquetoast nonsense.
I wish I had the leeway to keep out of politics any rightist I know who ever said anything nasty or who participated in generations of U.S. policy nastiness.
Keep this shit up. I’m sure the Bill Ayers thing will take off one day too.
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I believe it was Aristotle who said “You can’t be smart if you don’t speak English.”
No, my bad. It was Aquinas.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Being born in an English speaking society almost guarantees you’ll learn the language.
Someone’s never been to isolated enclaves in areas of Los Angeles, Miami, or New York where you can do all of your daily business in a foreign language.
As a native of Louisiana I’ve been to areas where daily business is conducted in French and people my parents’ age didn’t learn English until well into their teens and twenties. Isolated communities such as these exist all over the country, from French-speaking communities in Maine or Vermont to the aforementioned Spanish communities or Russian speakers in New York, etc. etc.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
John Roberts is also a question dodger and a boring speaker.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Not to mention, Sotomayor was living in a Puerto Rican neighborhood not in 2009, but in the 60s, when cultural, linguistic, and economic isolation in ethnic neighborhoods was much more pronounced.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
It is really amazing how paralyzed the rational part (what is left anyway) of the GOP is today. They solidified their base with crazies like Limbaugh, Tancredo and the Karate Kid, and Buchanan. Now this is the face of the GOP today. A proverb about riding a tiger comes to mind.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
1) I think this appearance by Pat Buchanan discredits him more that it discredits Sotomayor — and I think it hurts him more than it hurts Sotomayer.
2) While I have always disagreed with Buchanan’s social policy views I have thought he showed courage in standing up against Bush and the Republicans over Iraq. And I thought that he was tactless but fair, blunt and irritating but honest.
3) But what struck me about the appearance above is Pat’s dishonesty. You do not graduate from Cardinal Spellman as a valedictorian by being a lightweight. You do not confront Princeton over its lack of Hispanic professors by being a lightweight.
4) What was lightweight was Pat’s substance-free criticism –with maybe the exception to Ricci. Whatever you may say about Sotomayor , she has been an attorney, prosecutor, and judge for decades. She has a public record — and if this vague bullshit is all the Republicans can come up with, then she’s confirmed.
5) What’s is also puzzling about Pat’s appearance is that it is stupid. Both for the above reasons and because Pat and the Republicans are missing the real vulnerability here –not of Sotomayor but of Obama.
Two words: Joyce Foundation.
6)Finally, I do not see what Pat can gain from the above. The conservative Republicans will NEVER accept him back into the fold — not only did he burn that bridge but someone dynamited the pilings.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:56 pm
[...] 2, 2009 — hwiencek My goodness, the Sotomayor nomination is bringing them out in droves. Pat Buchanan–your turn! Posted in Culture, Media, Politics. No Comments [...]
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Hilarious: Lonewacko still thinks that repeating his bullshit makes it true. And still hasn’t applied the GuiltByAssociationTest to himself, probably because he knows what kind of filth would show up. Oh, his ancestors must be registering 4 on the Richter Scale, what the amount of turning in their grave.
Sorry you’ve wasted the last decade, Wacko. Still time to see that shrink.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:03 pm
And if Lonewacko wants to question whether the Latin Mass (and the Baltimore Catechism, for that matter) was instilled in people Buchanan’s age by priests with belts and nuns with paddles, we can just point and laugh and laugh and laugh.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Felix Frankfurter learned English in his teens.
Joseph Conrad didn’t speak English until his 20s.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I normally like to defend the guy (Buchanan) because he’s a friend of mine and as his last book (”Churchill, Hitler, And The Unnecessary War”) proved – he’s a talened writer and an interesting thinker. But, he’s a little too emotionally invested in the white working class is an endangered species meme. Alright, so Sotomayor may be as Turley suggests – a “lightweight”. Maybe, Obama could have found a reliable progressive candidate who cut her english as a second language teeth on say Anthony Burgess, rather than “The Little Engine That Could”. But, all told, America’s gonna be a lot better off having her on the bench than a soulless turd like Roberts, a Mussolini with gravitas like Scalia, or a self-loathing dunce like Thomas. One doesn’t have to posit her as some brilliant mind because of her academic success. This is not the old Nixon era “So what if Haynsworth is a mediocrity? Mediocrities have to be represented as well.” argument. One can still strongly support her and still have reservations about her incisiveness.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
24, I am a card-carrying member of a group that once gave Saddam Hussein an award. I am not making this up. What, precisely, do you suggest I do about it?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/26/iraq/main546287.shtml
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
But, he’s a little too emotionally invested in the white working class is an endangered species meme.
Yup. Memo to Pat Buchanan: “Gangs of New York” is a depiction of the crap our ancestors had to put up with 150 years ago, not today. Today all we have to deal with in the way of prejudice are occasional crass comments from anti-religious jerks on the internet and confused bile from some evangelical wackos. In terms of any substantive bigotry that presents any meaningful barriers to our success? Zilch. We’re probably underrepresented on the rosters of Yale secret societies, but to 99.999% of white American Catholics, that’s immaterial.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
So the guy who said something back in the 60s who got an award from some group Sotomayor belongs to who we’re supposed to hold against Sotomayor and make her withdraw her nomination, I’m too lazy to look up his name.
Can I just call him “Bill Ayers” instead?
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
When a white firefighter gets extra help because of a language acquisition issue that has nothing to do with innate intelligence, it shows that he’s hard-working and extra-committed.
When a Latina student does extra work and gets extra help because of language acquisition issues that have nothing to do with her innate intelligence, it shows that she’s an intellectual lightweight who’s gotten extra special consideration her whole life.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
So Felix Frankfurter, it seems, not only didn’t know English until his teens, but he also seems to have belonged to a socialist group at City College.
hmmmmm……..
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm
But, he’s a little too emotionally invested in the white working class is an endangered species meme.
Buchanan isn’t working class. His parents weren’t working class.
In fact, Buchanan so isn’t working class that he not only went to Georgetown, but he was well connected enough to get out of Vietnam by having some doctor declare him 4-F.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Too bad Buchanan can’t meet this guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4mju3uOf-E
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Re Trevor
Mr. Trevor is confusing Clement Haynsworth with G. Harold Carswell. Mr. Carswell was the one who was the object of the quote that mediocrities also deserved representation on the Supreme Court. I should be noted that several years after his nomination was rejected by the Senate, Mr. Carswell was arrested for soliciting sex in a public mens’ room.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Does anyone any more evidence that Pat Buchanan will take any kind of potshot at a minority (especially Hispanics) because he is really just a racist who is smart enough in knowing what will fly as “acceptable” racist speech instead what will be widely denounced?
It’s incredible that in the 21st Century that a person like this is apart of the regular discourse on C-SPAN and other cable stations.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Well, Pat liked Francisco Franco a lot, and that dude spoke Spanish.
I’m sure that Buchanan thinks Spanish perfectly fine if the speaker is of European extraction and white, like the Caudillo himself.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:26 pm
For some reason, MSNBC thinks they can balance Buchanan’s racist rhetoric by having Lawrence O’Donnell on opposite him. You don’t balance racism. You don’t accept it, ever. And I know everyone over there treats him like the old curmudgeon, but he’s not some lovable uncle with strange ideas. He’s dangerous.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I’m sure that Buchanan thinks Spanish perfectly fine if the speaker is of European extraction and white, like the Caudillo himself.
Actually I once heard Tweety on MSNBC going on about how Argentina was one of the most prosperous Latin American countries “because it’s population is almost 100% European”.
And he wasn’t even trying to be malacious or consciously racist about it. It was just so entirely programmed into his mind that it just sort of came out.
FWIW, I think we should just lock Buchanan in a room with Chavez for a few hours.
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
My Grandmother was a third generation Texan – my relatives were there quite a while before it was Texas. I have one of my Grandmother’s grade school books – it was printed in New York and is entirely in German. She never spoke English until she was in High School.
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Remember in 2000 when Buchanan took the Reform Party nomination then chose a black woman as his running mate to block off one possible third party option that would take votes away from Bush’s extreme right?
MSNBC is doing something similar here. MSNBC is a Democratic Party or Democratic Party leaning network.
Obama chose Sotomayor because he’s daring the Republicans to attack her and alienate more Hispanics away from the Republicans.
The more the Republicans attack Sotomayor’s ethnicity, the more the Democrats win. Even if Soyomayor goes down, Obama still wins.
Buchanan is obviously expressing his true feelings about Hispanics. But MSNBC sees him as useful agitprop for the Democrats.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Remember in 2000 when Buchanan took the Reform Party nomination then chose a black woman as his running mate to block off one possible third party option that would take votes away from Bush’s extreme right?
What third party option? Buchanan’s Reform Party rival John Hagelin? I’m sorry, but even for a conspiracy theory this isn’t very plausible, John Haglin only secured a fraction of the votes in the Reform Party’s own bizarre mail-in primary process. How could have that been a challenge to Bush?
John McCain was a much bigger threat, but I’m sure you know how the Bush campaign torpedoed him through race-baiting in the South Carolina primaries.
Obama chose Sotomayor because he’s daring the Republicans to attack her and alienate more Hispanics away from the Republicans.
Now this might be a little closer to the truth. I think he’s baiting republicans a bit here to and daring them to attack her, but it isn’t the only reason he nominated her. But it’s probably been more successful than he ever could have imagined. The Republicans can’t really help it, it’s like hanging big red bloody chucks of meat in front of Pavlov’s dogs.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I see Pat Buchanan as a useful tool. Accent on tool.
He let’s us isolate and classify the idiotic, racist idiocy of the Right-wing noise machine.
God bless him for it!
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:35 pm
I don’t need to tell anyone that El Cid – who may actually be a sockpuppet of MattY’s anti-Irish, anti-Catholic troll – is lying.
I’m not relying just on Horowitz; I added the link to his site only recently as a quick check will show. More importantly, the professor is only “very accomplished” in the sense of having said some very racist – i.e., “liberal”-friendly – things about white people.
Once again, please compare this page to what MattY would tell you about the same group.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Don’t be an ass, Jasper. The stereotyping of Germans as fascists is idiotic and is as stupid as anything coming out of Pat Buchanan’s mouth.
It’s not “stereotyping” it’s a joke. And old one. Robin Williams has been telling it for thirty years. It doesn’t work if you use “English” or “Japanese” or “Italian” in place of German. Sorry. Them’s the facts. Now lighten the fuck up. (and the insulting part of the joke, if you had half a clue, is aimed at Buchanan, not at contemporary Germans).
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:35 am
What? You’re such a pointless douche. You do nothing but come on to this blog and waste everybody’s fucking time blog-whoring your own shitty little paranoid site.
Every time you god-damn fart, which is a lot, you rush over here and try to insert a link to your raving shitty blog on any possible post possible.
And you want to accuse me of being some sort of fake? Fuck you, jobless wonder. Trust me, the fucking white males of this country (even us Southern ones) do not need you out there guarding our interests.
I didn’t “lie” about anything. I went and followed your shitty links (you labeled them “here” “here” and “here”) and the professor is indeed accomplished, and you indeed linked to ex-Black Panther auxiliary David Horowitz’ shitty paranoid “Discover The Networks” site which was raving about this professor’s speech in 1969, and no, it didn’t mention that at that very fucking time David Horowitz, the founder and pusher of the ‘Discover How Embarrassed I Am About My Own Ego-Driven Past’ was working with Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers.
And, yes, the Professor was accomplished. I didn’t proclaim him another Isaac Newton or whatever. Just accomplished. Way, way more so than you.
Here’s some of what the genocidal maniac and America-hater Jose Angel Gutierrez was up to:
Certainly the Man has been covering up how this genocidal radical used his awesome power as the Administrative Law Judge of the City of Dallas to make Dallas part of Mexico and secretly eliminate the city’s gringo population, as can be told by the fact that there are no white people in Dallas anymore.
You’re a panicky little shit and a lazy, blog-whoring loser.
My intensive research technique, which involved no lying or deception, began with depressively following your shitty links to your raving paranoia, figuring out where the core charges were, clicking on the links, and then following them and then Googling on those results.
That’s it.
And you have fucking posted this shit over and over and over like this little piss-ant fart was some challenge to Matt Yglesias and you’ve made your idiot little joke over and over and over about how he’s the winner of the whoever-the-fuck it was blog thinking prize.
And it’s just nothing. Crap. A bad repeat of the Bill Ayers bullshit with a little Mexican salsa picante to capture the full paranoid flavor.
And after all this full panoply rollout of pathetic on your part, you accuse me of being a fake. Screw you.
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:02 am
53: I agree that the loss of appreciation of language is unfortunate, but I think it may be unavoidable in a modern society. It takes years of commitment to learn those skills at the level they were practiced in the past and most of the people who are willing to make that kind of educational commitment have job related skills they need to learn instead. Personally, I focused on history and philosophy as an aside to engineering. I had no time for anything else, especially in college, and the instruction in literature was almost always lacking even at the collegiate level (while both history and philosophy instruction were very solid).
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:07 am
91: nice take down
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:38 am
Unless one is delusional, Sotomayer is a racist, pure & simple, as are all members of the treasonous La Raza by definition- since their motto is “For our race everything- for others, nothing”.
Her record is nothing to shout about either, and frankly -if you’ve heard her speak- she’s not what you’d call a towering intellectual.
Eric Holder has some racial hangups and agenda too, calling us “cowards” regarding racial issues and letting-off Black Panthers who stood in front of a polling place with nightsticks.
And Obama himself has shown us a puzzling pro-Kenyan grudge against the British and has said some pretty odd things, even regarding his own grandmother… plus he’s the one who nominated all these kooks in the first place.
Whatever happened to the idea of a colorblind society? Team Obama define their world in racial terms all the time- and unlike any white people I know. I wouldn’t want to be judged by any of them after what I’ve heard come out of their own mouths- they sound like Jesse Jackson.
If Obama is going to go on with his “justice” agenda largely based upon race- the double standards need to stop… and NOW
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:19 am
I can’t imagine why I stopped watching the incredibly enlightened minds of cable teevee punditry.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
?
I agree. It is puzzling.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:54 am
RRR,
When I was 10 years old my father gave me some good advice: don’t believe everything you read. You my friend have been taken in by a buch of motivated liars. If you care to think for yourself I recommend you get a hold of a primary source, oh like the transcripts of Sotomayor’s statements on the bench, the Ricci case if that is the basis of beliefs, and look at it. See what’s really there, instead of what Redstate or Human Events or Patty Butchanan or the RNC tells you is there. Big difference.
Western civilization dies bit by bit, when we as individuals choose to live our lives in lies. Too many conservative Americans have been doing this for too long. The results are all around us. Shame.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Lonewacko’s really crossed the line from “paranoid delusional” to “psychotic delusional”, hasn’t he?
Repeating a lie doesn’t make it true. Blogwhoring twice as hard won’t make your site any less pathetic. And smearing those who call you out just leaves you covered in your own shit. Dominus vobiscum, arsehole.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Mr/Ms. Cid, your evisceration of 24 at #91 is a beautiful example of troll extermination that should be enshrined for future generations to revere and learn from. You are my new hero. Thank you.