Update. The video via rhfactor.

In his column in today's Huffington Post, Jason Linkins described Pat Buchanan as in full "panic attack" mode as evidenced by his musings in his most recent column disparaging Sonia Sotomayor. Buchanan continued to unravel today on the Rachel Maddow show, but for once, someone stood up to him and called him out on his racist views.

After listening to Buchanan claim that Sonia Sotomayor is ONLY a SC nominee because she is a "Latina Woman," Maddow directly asked him to explain why he seems to think white people are getting the short end of the stick, given that of the 110 justices that have served on the highest court, 108 have been white.

It's a great line of reasoning--if you think we are in a post-racial society then you must think white men are just smarter and harder working than the rest of us, right?

Buchanan began to dig himself further into the hole he lives in by explaining to her that it's only logical, given that this country was built by white men!

I guess all us women and minorities have just been lucky enough to be a part of it???

Later, the interview entered an ever lower level of absurdity. After Maddow again asked him to reconcile his "whites are victims" rhetoric with the fact that 108 of 110 Supreme Court justices in our history have been white, Buchanan started offering "other" examples to make a point that seemed to suggest some people are "naturally" better at things than others, including the following: "I believe everyone should get a chance to excel and be on the US Supreme Court. But if I look at the US Track Team and the Olympics and they’re all black folks, I don't automatically think it's discrimination."

HUH???? So black people are naturally better at track and White men are naturally better at intellectual pursuits like the Supreme Court?

At this point, Maddow was fed up and decided to ask him if he is "happy" that we have a Latina on cusp of the Supreme Court. "Is that a positive" she asked?

Not surprisingly, Buchanan refused to answer. She asked him again and he managed the following.

"If you say be the best we can be, we're not being the best we can be with Sonia Sotomayor and I think you know it."

Maddow kept her cool during the whole thing, but made her point clear at the end:

"A lot of things divide us Pat; for you to privilege race and say that what we really need to do is make sure that we tap into white people's racial grievances, you're dating yourself and playing with fire."

Bravo Rachel!

Finally: MSNBC must stop giving this man a public platform to to make continued racist/sexist/homophobic rants. I don't care that he gives conservatives a bad name--it's not worth the sacrifice of "normalizing" this type of discourse.

