MSNBC INDEFINITELY SUSPENDS PAT BUCHANAN

Add another notch in the belt of the group Color of Change! For a few years now people have been asking why Pat Buchanan was allowed to promote his sick racist politics on MSNBC as a commentator. A few months ago, the Color of Change said enough was enough – and now it seems they got MSNBC to agree.

One People’s Project

White Nationalist commentator Pat Buchanan, who despite his controversal views on racial matters has had a lucrative career as a presidential advisor and speechwriter, as well as author, may have gone too far with his latest book that laments the death of White America and proclaims that it may be the “Indian summer of our civilization.” According to the Associated Press, that book, “Suicide of a Superpower” and the subsequent campaign by the advocacy group Color of Change has led to his suspension at MSNBC.

Buchanan, a regular commentator at the station has not been seen on the channel in over two months, just after his latest book was released. It was during the week following Buchanan’s Oct. 22 appearence on The Political Cesspool, a white supremacist radio program hosted by James Edwards, that Color of Change launched their campaign calling for MSNBC to oust Buchanan. Edwards is also a board member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group that Buchanan has had long-standing ties with, and just as quickly attempted a counter-campaign against Color of Change, even declaring at one point that Buchanan’s absence from MSNBC did not mean he was ousted and in another case suggested the calls to do so had backfired because a poll – in which Edwards urged his fans to participate in – showed that 91% of those that did supported Buchanan. At the time of this writing there has been no comment from Edwards.

On Nov. 9, Color of Change presented MSNBC President Phil Griffin with a petition of 270,000 signatures demanding Buchanan be fired. Indeed, Griffin did say that there were issues with Buchanan’s book. “When Pat was on his book tour, because of the content of the book, I didn’t think it should be part of the national dialogue much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

In addition to the controversial stances in the book itself, Buchanan has credited and thanked for help in research for the book Marcus Epstein who was the Executive Director of Buchanan’s group the American Cause when in 2007  he was arrested and charged with assault after attacking an African American woman while calling her the N-word while drunk walking the streets of Washington, DC. He later made an Alford plea, but when the incident was made public in 2009, it cost him enrollment at the University of Virginia Law School.

Buchanan was still able to go on other programs, notably NPR and on Fox News Channel, where he appeared on Sean Hannity’s program. Hannity, who has been criticized for his friendship with white supremacist Hal Turner in the past, is known for inviting white persons on his program that have sparked some racial controversy, that often being a racist remark, particularly their use of the N-word.

In a statement, Color of Change applauded the decision to suspend Buchanan, but says MSNBC needs to go further. “(I)t’s time for MSNBC to permanently end their relationship with Pat Buchanan and the hateful, outdated ideas he represents,” ColorOfChange.org Executive Director Rashad Robinson. “We appreciate this first step and urge MSNBC to take the important final step to ensure that their brand is no longer associated with Buchanan’s history of passing off white supremacy ideology as mainstream political commentary.”