Pat Buchanan To GOP: Forget Hispanic Vote, Attack Sotomayor On Race

MSNBC pundit Pat Buchanan, who's fond of warning people that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a Hispanic trickster who learned English through chupacabra magicks in orations before people who cannot spell words in English themselves had a full-blown panic attack today in the pages of Human Events, as the hour of Sotomayor's confirmation drew nigh. His basic argument is that Sotomayor is the greatest threat to white people since...uhm...well...sorry, nothing's coming to me. Nothing serious, anyway!

Anyway, Buchanan wants the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to really give Sotomayor the business:

What they must do is expose Sotomayor, as they did not in the case of Ginsburg, as a political activist whose career bespeaks a lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males to the degree necessary to bring about an equality of rewards in society.

Sonia is, first and foremost, a Latina. She has not hesitated to demand, even in college and law school, ethnic and gender preferences for her own. Her concept of justice is race-based.

Of course, Pat Buchanan's concept of what cereal he's going to eat for breakfast is race-based, but nevermind. Buchanan's insistence that Sotomayor has a "lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males to the degree necessary to bring about an equality of rewards in society" simply isn't supported by the facts:

SCOTUSBlog, May 29, 2009:

Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals.

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent's point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.

Of the roughly 75 panel opinions rejecting claims of discrimination, Judge Sotomayor dissented 2 times. In Neilson v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 199 F.3d 642 (1999), she dissented from the affirmance of the district court's order appointing a guardian for the plaintiff, an issue unrelated to race. In Gant v. Wallingford Bd. of Educ., 195 F.3d 134 (1999), she would have allowed a black kindergartner to proceed with the claim that he was discriminated against in a school transfer. A third dissent did not relate to race discrimination: In Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143 (2002), she dissented from the majority's holding that the NYPD could fire a white employee for distributing racist materials.

Doesn't seem like much of a lifelong resolve to me, but no matter! What's really at work here is Buchanan's lifelong resolve to get the GOP to stop pandering to ethnic groups and work to build a Caucasian Coalition. And, along the way, he's eager to hit John McCain for not showing fealty to this:

In 2008, Hispanics, according to the latest figures, were 7.4 percent of the total vote. White folks were 74 percent, 10 times as large. Adding just 1 percent to the white vote is thus the same as adding 10 percent to the candidate's Hispanic vote.

Story continues below

advertisement

If John McCain, instead of getting 55 percent of the white vote, got the 58 percent George W. Bush got in 2004, that would have had the same impact as lifting his share of the Hispanic vote from 32 percent to 62 percent.

But even Ronald Reagan never got over 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. Yet, he and Richard Nixon both got around 65 percent of the white vote.

When Republican identification is down to 20 percent, but 40 percent of Americans identify themselves as conservatives, do Republicans need a GPS to tell them which way to go?

I'm guessing that the GPS is directing the GOP to Oildale! Anyway, to Buchanan, McCain's an idiot for not pursuing the obvious winning strategy against Barack Obama:

Had McCain been willing to drape Jeremiah Wright around the neck of Barack Obama, as Lee Atwater draped Willie Horton around the neck of Michael Dukakis, the mainstream media might have howled.

And McCain might be president.

So, let me get this straight. McCain needed to pick up three percent more of the white vote, which he could have done if he'd only been willing to jump around on the hustings like a paranoid monkey, shrieking, "BOOGA BOOGA FOO! JEREMIAH WRIGHT! MWAAHAAHA!"

Huh. Seems to me that Buchanan doesn't think too highly of white people, either!

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to [e-mail] -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[dimplesmile7]

People like Pat are the reason why the GOP party members are on a rapid decline. You can't afford to forget the Latino vote Pat.

[AlphaDoc]

Buchanan is a racist? Gee, what a shock. LOL! The only real surprise is that MSNBC continues to give this guy a platform.

[dillydawg]

Ratings generated by controversy. That's the sell product.

[edndjstcfrall]

Of course, it is depressing to hear guys like Pat say stuff that is just incredible. One wonders if this is something they need to do to earn a living because they would like to tickle a certain constituency or they actually believe it. Either way, it is terrible and ugly. There's an African saying which goes, "He slaps you in the face and cries that his hand was hurting." It does not matter to Pat that blacks and Latinos did not choose affirmative action. The people who have always enjoyed affirmative action are white males in a practice referred as white previlage.

[Toxictort]

Pat's diatribe that only white men died at Gettysburg and Normandy, spat on the brave buffalo soldiers. Tuskegee airmen who fought and died for this country despite the prejudice that their country directed at them. Black soldiers have fought and died in every war including the Civil War.

I have bachelors and masters degree from Columbia University and a JD from Washington University. I would like to disabuse Pat of the notion that grades and Law Review are AA based. They are hard earned. People assume that my resume is based onAA, not meritorious even though it is.

It is sad that 5 year old daughter hs to listen to this type of hate. It is very sad that I had to tell her about "bad people" who think that some people shouldn't have some jobs because they think boys are better than girls &because of how they look. She said,I like the way I look and I want to be a Judge and a teacher and an artist and an astronaut and a ballet dancer. I told her "you can be whatever you want to be as long as you work very hard."

I had wanted to believe that. Pat reminded me that she will have to encounter people who will overlook all her gifts, and see bitterness, and hatred simply because of who she is.

[OswegoKayaker]

Great reply to this hateful man. I just wonder how these guys can look in the mirror. So sad that these men are hurting so many people with their speech. Words sting and hurt more than people know.

[dwillisno1]

Pat and Republicans support Affirmative Action, they just prefer a different criteria for who gets affirmed.

[Toxictort]

George Bush is a result of Affirmative Action. It was called legacy. He would not have gotten into Yale if his whole family hadn't gone there. pat thinks that is fine because it is an entitlement.

[Pleneras]

Pat should be kicked out of MSNBC.

[robbep]

Pat wants the best person for the job he says unfortunately he refuses to acknowledge the history of this country. He blames affirmative action for the loss of jobs of white men and ignores the reality that it is white men who are shipping those jobs overseas. If affirmative action is the primary reason for job losses among white men then why is the jobless rate for minorities so much higher than whites? This is a pathetic attempt to stoke white anger at a time when they shld be angry but the target is the usual black or hispanic instead of the wallstreeter or corporate ceo. I have a message for you Pat, black and brown citizens in this country arent getting those jobs either. The jobs are going to black and brown labor overseas bcz it is cheaper than white labor here and the people who are making this decision are white men. So direct your rage where belongs and quit blaming us.

[Dustee]

Well Pat, if you wanna forget the Hispanic vote, then all you'll have left is the McCoys and the Hatfield's.

[ebanks84]

Give it up Pat. You are yesterday's news. Give us a break and retire. Nobody wants to hear that old crap anymore! And take your funnyboy, Chris, with you!

[rabrophy]

Remember, Pat got his start with Nixon and his "Southern Strategy", when the Republicans put white sheets over their Brooks Brothers suites and starting wining elections.

[babyboomerorig]

Pat, I've been listenintg to your racial rantings far too long. It's time to really listen to what comes out of your mouth, or better yet, think for a second before opening said mouth.

You rants even out do some of the far right wing Congressmen/women.

I know you don't

[OzzieSmerck]

hey, have you ever noticed how you never seem to see pat buchanan and bay buchanan in the same place at the same time? huh???

[BocaMom]

Personally, I don't think Pat is a Republican anymore. He sold out when MSNBC signed him on.
Now he is bought and paid for. He's ours!

[Json]

Can we return him for a refund?

[IowaKid]

Are you kidding is this all the Republicant's know how to do. Be extremists and divisive? It really is sad to see this kind of talk still thrives in this country. I'm almost to the point that I'm going to stop watching MSNBC because they continually have this bigot on. Doesn't say much for them when they fired Imus for the same thing.

[TexasDem0]

Pat is working the GOP plan to completely alienate as many people as possible. That way, they can purify the party and then allegedly win elections with the votes of the leftover hardcore loyalists They make a wonderful case to confirm Judge Sotomayor simply because they're against it.