Think Progress

Buchanan on GOP and Fox linking Obama to Nixon: ‘It is the most idiotic comparison I’ve ever seen.’ - Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Taking cues from their communications shop over at Fox News, GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) yesterday attacked the White House’s campaign against Fox’s unethical journalistic practices by comparing President Obama to President Nixon. “Let’s not start calling people out and compiling an enemies list,” Alexander said, touting his days as a [...]

ThinkFast: July 17, 2009 - Friday, July 17th, 2009

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Last night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow debated her colleague Pat Buchanan on the role of affirmative action in the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. When Maddow pointed out that 108 of 110 Supreme Court justices have been white, Buchanan responded, “White men were 100% [...]

Buchanan: Todd Palin should drown Levi Johnston. - Monday, July 13th, 2009

Earlier today, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan suggested that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband should murder his daughter’s ex-fiance, Levi Johnston, for saying Palin’s decision to resign came down to “money.” While appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Buchanan said:
BUCHANAN: “Well, first, with regard to Levi, I think First Dude up there in Alaska, Todd Palin, ought [...]

Ideologically-divided 5-4 Supreme Court reverses New Haven firefighters case. - Monday, June 29th, 2009

For 25 years, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has given employers broad discretion to reconsider a promotion test whose results favor one race over another. Judge Sonia Sotomayor followed this binding precedent when she rejected several firefighters’ claim of reverse discrimination in the now-famous Ricci v. Destefano case, as [...]

FBI Arrests White Supremacist Blogger Hal Turner For Threatening To Kill Federal Judges - Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Today, FBI agents went to the New Jersey home of white supremacist blogger/radio host Hal Turner and arrested him “on a federal complaint filed in Chicago alleging that he made internet postings threatening to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their recent ruling upholding handgun bans in [...]

Under Misspelled Banner, Buchanan And White Nationalist Brimelow Argue For English-Only Initiatives - Monday, June 22nd, 2009

On Saturday, Pat Buchanan hosted a conference to discuss how Republicans can regain a majority in America. During one discussion, panelists suggested supporting English-only initiatives as a prime way of attracting “working class white Democrats.” The discussion ridiculed Judge Sotomayor for the fact that she studied children’s classics to improve her grammar while attending [...]

Rep. Rohrabacher: Obama Is A ‘Cream Puff’ For Not Interfering In Iran - Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Yesterday, President Obama explained his relative public silence with regard to the situation in Iran, saying, “It’s not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling, the U.S. president meddling in Iranian elections.” Later in the day, on Radio America’s Dateline Washington, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) responded to Obama’s measured statements [...]

Buchanan argues against affirmative action: ‘One prefers the old bigotry.’ - Friday, June 12th, 2009

Today, in a Human Events column titled “Miss Affirmative Action,2009,” MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan continued his attack on Judge Sotomayor. He declared that affirmative action is worse than the “old bigotry” against African Americans:
Thus, Sotomayor got into Princeton, got her No. 1 ranking, was whisked into Yale Law School and made editor of the [...]

Leading White Nationalist To Speak At Pat Buchanan’s American Cause Conference This Month - Friday, June 12th, 2009

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan has invited the editor of a white nationalist, anti-immigrant website to speak at the upcoming conference for his group, the American Cause.
Peter Brimelow, editor of VDARE.com, has written numerous tracts railing against immigration. He has said that the Republican party must “appeal to its [...]

Steele Forces College Republicans To Participate In A 10-Minute Demonstration Of His Infamous Hat Metaphor - Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Appearing on MSNBC in April, RNC Chairman Michael Steele unveiled a strange metaphor to highlight his view of Republican Party regional inclusiveness. Steele asked Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan to pretend they were all wearing hats that said “GOP” and for the purposes of the demonstration, they all hailed from different parts of [...]

Cal Thomas compares Sotomayor to ‘white supremacy’ advocate G. Harrold Carswell. - Monday, June 8th, 2009

On Fox News Sunday this weekend, conservative columnist Cal Thomas declared that “as usual,” Rush Limbaugh is “absolutely right” when he calls Judge Sonia Sotomayor a “racist.” Thomas complained that the media has a “double standard” when it comes to covering Supreme Court nominees accused of racism, citing two judges nominated by Richard Nixon — [...]

ThinkProgress’s Ian Millhiser Debates Sotomayor’s Nomination With Pat Buchanan - Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

While many on the far right have railed against Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, comparing her to David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, no one has been quiet as virulent in their opposition as MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan. From insisting she is an “affirmative action” choice to mocking her efforts to learn English, [...]

Buchanan Mocks Sotomayor For Learning English By Reading Children’s Books - Monday, June 1st, 2009

Yesterday, C-SPAN invited right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan onto its hour-long Washington Journal show. In recent days, Buchanan has made headlines for spewing hatred toward Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Yesterday, he continued, mocking the fact that she was still struggling with English while in college:
BUCHANAN: Well I, again in that Saturday piece, she went [...]

G. Gordon Liddy On Sotomayor: ‘Let’s Hope That The Key Conferences Aren’t When She’s Menstruating’ - Friday, May 29th, 2009

Yesterday on his radio show, conservative host G. Gordon Liddy continued the right wing’s all-out assault on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. First, just like Tom Tancredo, Liddy slammed Sotomayor’s affiliation with the civil rights group La Raza — and referred to the Spanish language as “illegal alien“:
LIDDY: I understand that they found out today that Miss [...]

Barnes: Sotomayor ‘benefited’ from affirmative action ‘tremendously.’ - Thursday, May 28th, 2009

On MSNBC yesterday, Pat Buchanan repeatedly attacked Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an “affirmative action candidate,” echoing right-wing claims that she has “been the recipient of preferential treatment for most of her life.” On Bill Bennett’s radio show this morning, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes argued “that she’s one of those who has [...]

Buchanan: Sotomayor Must Have Been An ‘Affirmative Action’ Nominee Since No White Men Were Finalists - Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Today on MSNBC, right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan attacked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as an “affirmative action candidate.” He was unable to cite any evidence that she was unqualified, instead pointing to the fact that President Obama’s top four candidates for the spot were women. Because there were no white men in the final round, [...]

Liz Cheney Reveals That Fear Of Prosecution Motivates Dad’s Media Blitz Defending Torture - Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Since President Obama released Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel memos detailing the authorization of the Bush administration’s torture program, Vice President Cheney has taken to the public airwaves on numerous occasions, not only attacking Obama’s security policies but vigorously defending what he perceives (wrongly) as the efficacy of torture. “I’m convinced, absolutely convinced, that [...]

Buchanan: ‘What is happening now to white men right now is exactly what was done to black folks for years.’ - Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

On MSNBC’s Hardball last night, host Chris Matthews, Salon’s Joan Walsh and MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan debated the case of firefighter Frank Ricci, who was denied a promotion due to an affirmative action law. During the debated, Buchanan vociferously defended Ricci, eventually declaring that “what is happening now to white men right now is exactly what [...]

Report: ‘Angry’ McCain Referred To Hispanics As ‘You People’ During Outreach Meeting - Friday, April 3rd, 2009

On March 11, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), John Thune (R-SD) and Mel Martinez (R-FL) met with a group of Hispanic business leaders in the Capitol’s Strom Thurmond Room as part of an effort to reach out to Hispanic voters. National Journal is reporting that several participants in the meeting said McCain got “angry” while talking [...]

Historians rank Bush in the top 10 of America’s worst presidents. - Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Today, C-SPAN released its second Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership, in which “65 presidential historians ranked the 42 former occupants of the White House on ten attributes of leadership.” Coming in first was Abraham Lincoln, followed by George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. Finishing last was James Buchanan. George W. Bush [...]