Comedian Pat Buchanan does a hiliarious bit on MSNBC about how President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is like Jim Crow for "white guys"

H/T to Media Matters for capturing Pat Buchanan insane blathering about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's alleged "reverse racism".

Funny how he refers to her selection as an "affirmative action pick" -- as if that was an objectively bad thing. The connotation, of course, is that individuals who benefited from affirmative action were not qualified for the opportunities they received.

According to poll results released today, the majority of American voters are not in favor of affirmative action on the basis of race or gender.

In an article on this poll, Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, stated that "the public clearly opposes the idea that such programs are justified as a way of increasing diversity, which has become the rationale in recent years as opposed to compensating for past discrimination which was the reason when they first began."

Mr. Brown, of course, is factually wrong. Nowhere in either executive orders laying the groundwork for affirmative action mentions these policies in the context of past discrimination. And on a more common sense basis, one doesn't need to be a historian to know that in 1961, when the first executive order was signed by President John F. Kennedy, that current discrimination was what kept (over)qualified people of color and white women from even entry-level positions in corporate and government jobs -- let alone admission to college or graduate school.

And if indeed past discrimination were in fact the basis of affirmative action policy, wouldn't it stand to reason that the only thing that would make this controversial public policy obsolete the comprehensive and proportional representation of people of color and white women in previously white and/or male-dominated spheres (i.e., "increasing diversity")?

If that were the case, affirmative action can be expected to be around a looooooooong time!

Comments

[Max Reddick]

My only question is why is this old bigot still considered relevant? Why is he still being trotted out to provide commentary or opinion on anything?

Pat Buchanan is truly a relic of an earlier age. At this point, he needs to be put out to pasture. He is barely able to contain his obvious racism, and his so-called commentary usually falls well short of anything remotely acceptable by any standards.