Suppose someone invited a few folks to dinner and said they could bring a guest. Most of the folks who show up are familiar, but there's a new guy in the corner.
He's got a gentle (almost senile) smile, and a borderline drawl. It's evident he loves to talk, as he circulates through the crowd. His voice is easily distinguishable from the standard murmurs.
You don't have a date, and you are starved, so you mingle with a tiny plate of cheese and a drink and try to listen in on the conversation. Who is this guy, really?
From the corner, you hear the guest reminisce about the days before Civil Rights laws:
"There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The 'negroes' of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses,
playgrounds and churches; and we had ours."
You think you heard wrong, so you grab another drink. You hear that guest again. This time the conversation has turned to education:
"... every study shows blacks 15 I.Q. points below whites on average...a lot of what we are doing in terms of integration of blacks and whites -- but even more so, poor and well-to-do -- is less likely to result in accomodation than it is in perpetual friction -- as the incapable are played consciously by government side by side with the capable.
Other words and phrases rise above the background noise. He uses the term "Scrub stock" to refer to people of color who have been elected as leaders of their countries, and argues that Americans of color have had more than their share of privilege:
"First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation"
And again on immigration:
The burning issue here has almost nothing to do with economics, almost everything to do with race and ethnicity. If British subjects, fleeing a depression, were pouring into this country through Canada, there would be few alarms
A few more cheese cubes, and you come around again. This time the guest is giving a history lesson:
Hitler was...an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe
The conversation is so amazing you move closer, and discover that the guest has even written a book arguing that we never had to fight Hitler at all.
You have had enough cheese cubes and box wine, and dinner is hours away, so you leave. The next day a friend calls and says: "I met a great guy at that party last night. I'm thinking of recommending him for a multimillion dollar job as a 'pundit' for a major television network. He's essentially harmless--like a crazy uncle--and people at the party say that he will ensure that at least some of the right wing fundamentalist crowd to that station. There will be a great need for such a commentator, because America is buzzing about the possibility that many of our highest leaders may no longer be white, anglo-saxon males. What do you think?"
What do you think? Should Pat Buchanan be allowed to continue pretending to be innocuous and gentile on MSNBC? Or should those who really know him make sure the rest of his audience does too?