Why is Pat Buchanan Defending Hitler?

MSNBC conservative commentator and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has a history of insensitivity to issues surrounding the Holocaust. Yet again, with the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, Buchanan posted a telling column on his own website and on Townhall that seems to blame Poland for World War II.

In a piece titled "Just how crazy is Pat Buchanan," Ethan Porter writes on his blog, "Mr. Obama's Neighborhood," that Buchanan's latest comments reflect "revisionism that comes perilously close to denial:"

Despite his current position, as a friendly sparring partner with Rachel Maddow and in-house winger on MSNBC, the guy has been a very-thinly veiled fascist sympathizer for decades. And in his column this week, he all but removes that veil.

Available here, the column is titled "Did Hitler Want War?" Buchanan believes the answer to be no. He pins the blame for World War II on Poland, and Britain's guarantee of protection to it. As evidence, Buchanan points to a string of inexplicably dumb decisions made by Hitler-so dumb that, to Buchanan, they negate the myths about the war and the man thought by nearly all sentient beings to be its instigator.

You might think that Buchanan would have stopped using this sort of unrepentant rhetoric as his career moved from a Republican firebrand to a commentator on one of the nation's top cable news channels - but you'd be wrong.

Buchanan has the sort of history that has earned him an entire page on the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) website. The ADL goes so far as to describe Buchanan as one who "publicly espouses racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-immigrant views." The site features a sampling of more than 2,000 of Buchanan's own words, but maybe more telling are the thoughts of the late conservative intellectual William Buckley, who was included in a Newsweek's article "Is Pat Buchanan Anti-Semitic:"

Buchanan also wrote that if the United States went to war, the fighting would be done by "kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales, and Leroy Brown." Buckley, in his usual opaque writing style, argues that this amounts to charging Jews with starting a war they wouldn't fight in a genuine slur against them. He adds: "I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism, whatever it was that drove him to say and do it: most probably, an iconoclastic temperament."

These are rough words coming from Buckley, who goes to great pains to distinguish between anti-Semitism and simply voicing criticism of Israel.

It is hard to be surprised by a man who has written many columns concerning World War II revisionism, but this may be his worst yet.

However, what may be most surprising is why Buchanan still has a job.

Actually, there is a place on MSNBC where he may belong - you would have to ask Keith Olbermann about that one.

UPDATE: MSNBC is currently promoting Buchanan's column on MSNBC.com. This is beyond ridiculous. The National Jewish Democratic Council just issued a statement that says: "This sort of historical revisionism is deplorable. Buchanan's latest column should be removed immediately from MSNBC.com, and no worthy news organization should employ a commentator who engages in such vile fiction."

UPDATE II: Within an hour of our press release, MSNBC has removed Buchanan's column, "Did Hitler Want War," from their website. Here's a response from David A. Harris, NJDC's President: "MSNBC took the responsible action and removed Pat Buchanan's column defending Adolf Hitler from their website, but no worthy news organization should employ and promote a commentator who engages in such vile fiction."

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Comments

[JeffMaylor]

How is this latest Buchanan article "defending Hitler"? The current leader of Iran espouses similar views as Hitler and we are willing to talk to him. Dictators are dictators ... sometimes you can work with them, sometimes not ... but why not rethink history sometimes to see if massive death could have been avoided.

[MuchMadness]

MSNBC hurts its own credibility by employing Buchanan. I think the MSNBC brass owe their viewers an explanation of why they continue to have him as a commentator.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-keyak/why-is-pat-buchanan-defen_b_275771.html

[offred]

It must be a terrible shock to the system to extremist right-wing pundits, such as Pat Buchanan and Glenn Beck, to suddenly be held accountable for what they say. They've had eight years of totally unfettered access to media to spout their craziness.

[jk4]

I am usually not a defender of Buchanan's opinions, but in this case, I am. Thank God, we can still have differences of opinion without the fear of censure from government or the government's agents.
The First Amendment guarantees Buchanan's right to speak his views in the public square. It is impossible to separate the causes for WWII from the leader of Germany and his indescribably brutal extermination plans for minorities within the German population (principally Jews). Yet, many well positioned people in the USA were not opposed to Hitler the man or to the original advances of Germany to gather onto itself the German-speaking peoples that were held hostage by the Treaty of Versailles. Joseph Kennedy was prominent among those in the US opposed to war. Today, it all seems ridiculous that this should even be discussed, but at the time, there was no urgency within the population until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. History is written by the winners of the last war, so we have our history, but I am pleased I still live in a country where official history may be questioned.

[SeanOcali]

I just read his article and it is truly dispicable. He must be fired.

[SeanOcali]

I love how Rachel uses the graphic "It's Pat" - an SNL reference that Buchanan is no doubt oblivious to.

[wethepeople3884]

Did Pat ever hear of the Gleiwitz incidence in which the Nazis set the stage for war with poland? Or does he just think that this history is all made up? Not only did the Nazis orchestrate the false-flag operation but then, were able to mobilize faster than any other nation could believe basically removing the little doubt that was left in the minds of any opposing nation.

[Doug Welch]

I read Buchanan's book, An Unnecessary War and in it he does lay out a valid and cogent case that Churchill and others wanted war as badly or more so than Hitler. The primary aim was to destroy a surging competitor to British global economic hegemony, at any cost.

Pat's prose is annoying, it's like having Pat right there talking in your ear, blathering on sanctimoniously.

That said, Pat makes several hard hitting points, It seems that if Hitler was hellbent on conquering the world, he did it with one armed tied behind his back.

When it comes to aiding and abetting the march to the greatest catastrophe in world history, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Probably the most important lesson is that when nations become mired in economic stalemates, their kneejerk reaction is to "retreat to the Front." Pray that humanity has learned that lesson and will not repeat it by prompting another war as a solution to our current economic contraction.

BTW, I mostly hate Pat's politics, but he's got a point about Churchill's love of war and total inability to actually run a war. He goes a long way to dispel the NeoCon myth of Churchill, one that does not exist in Churchill's native country.
Honestly, to equate Pat's criticism of the Cult of the Good War with loving Hitler or being antisemitic is as foolish as saying there's no difference between a NeoCon and PaleoCon, which is a dangerous blindness.

[SteveMD2]

Continuing on re the terrible threat to this country from inside,......

For all Catholics who believe that the church's mission is to feed the poor, minister to the sick and dying etc etc , you need to do something about Pope Benedict. In the name of Unity, he unexcommunicated a Bishop Williamson, an extremists who is a holocaust denier, claims there were only 600,000 people, not 6 million Jews, and 4-5 million other undesireables murdered assembly line. The apparently obvious reason is that Williamson has 600.000 followers. BTW, Argentina, where williamson was living, kicked him out. They;ve had enough back in the 60s or 70s of synagogue bombings etc.

The pope and the church have lost their way. The only thing that will bring the church to its senses, and free the tens of thousands of Good priests from the threat of "speak out and your life's work is over" is to close your pocketbooks.

Stop the money flow, and you will reclaim your church. While remembering that someone said Money is the root of all evil. And someone else - a Jew- said there were only two commandments - Love God, and love thy neighbor as thyself.

Not what we are seeing today.

[SteveMD2]

The republican party has lost its soul. Under Bush, based on lies and or bad intelligence they started a war we didn't have to fignt. And due to that let Bin L:aden escape in Afghanistan. If something really really terrible happens, you know who caused it.

The party's base is now primarily in the south - the people whose culture is still poisoned by slavery and segregation, thanks to groups like the So. Baptists and some of the independent "Christian" churches, who arre behind the effort to make our gay citizens the New Jews of an extremist America, And this can be seen in the eg the guy who brought an assault rifle to a town hall meeting where the President was speaking. That guy btw is tied into the same terrorist groups as was Terry McVeigh of Oklahoma city 'fame'. And his pastor has called for the extermination of gay people.

No matter what your views are on the health care bill, we all need to realize that the republican party has become an analog of what became the Nazi party in Germany, and guys like Buchannan , &Limbaugh in particular, are just one step away from spawring a new Hitler.

And that will be the end of America, and potentially the end of the world. Don't think it can't happen. Most of the Jews in germany didn't think it could happen, and it did. And despite all, there are still Holocaust deniers.

A

[Michael Martinez]

I guess not too many of you read Buchanan's book entitled: Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War. In the book Buchanan portrays Hitler as a likable world leader forced to do some things, like invade other countries because of broken agreements and treaties. For example, the invasion into Austria, according to Buchanan, wasn't something Hitler did not want to do--he was forced by a scheduled plebiscite and a double cross by the leader of that country. The other day, Glenn Beck was saying that Liberals liked Mussolini--the reality is so does Pat Buchanan--who in the book portrays Mussolini as a smart, likable leader who's fascism was embraced by the Italy. In fact, Mussolini, according the Pat was admired by British leaders including Churchill. While, this is all Pat's interpretation of how WW 2 started, the book is an interesting read. His defense of Hitler or Mussolini, while inexcusable, has a historical context in his mind...read the book.

[Venise Alstergren]

Silly me: I've always thought that the genesis of WWII lay in the iniquitous terms of the Versailles Treaty which was the result of the Germans having had an UNCONDITIONAL surrender forced upon them-by the Americans-after WWI. That and a couple of minor problems such as annexing Austria, invading Poland, clobbering the Checzs, an irrational hatred of Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, Russians, Poles, of anyone outside the mainstream Germanic, Aryan bloody-mindedness entrenched in the minds of middle-Europe at the time.
I was even of the opinion that one Adolph Hitler had written his thoughts in his book -Mein Kampf, well before the outbreak of WWII. In this awful oeuvre, Herr Hitler casts covetous eyes towards the Liebensraum of the Russian steppes. And how he kinda thought he'd like to help himself to a lot of that living space.
Then we have Mussolini, a thug pure and simple, who, like the Japanese, thought it was a good idea to have his own empire. Starting with helping himself to Ethiopia.
Then there were the Japanese whom Michael Martinez seems to forget were also involved in WWII. All they wanted was their Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere aka another empire. Their contribution to WWII started with attacking of the Marco Polo bridge in 1929.
Oh well, my Mum always did say that my mad desire for an education would get me into trouble. But I do think I can do without reading Pat Buchanan's contribution to the subject.

[steel71]

People think they know history because they watch Hollywood movies and TV..

[research]

Conservatives LOVE Fascism.

[nicole473]

photo

From Media Matters:

"""SUMMARY: MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan appeared on the June 29, 2008, and September 14, 2006, editions of The Political Cesspool Radio Show, a program whose "Statement of Principles" asserts that it "represent[s] a philosophy that is pro-White." Buchanan's June 29 interview was streamed "Live" on the self-described "White Nationalist" and "White Pride" website Stormfront­­.org.""""­"­"""""""

http://mediamatters.org/research/200808190010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormfront_(website)

[mychagal]

Pat Buchanan is a vile, hateful human being and should be tossed from the show. MSNC should know the difference between employing someone with an opposite view to create a more balanced discussion, but this is outright racism, anti-semitism and hatemongering, and they should dismiss him immediately, with apologies to their audience.

I don't understand why he doesn't work at FOX where he would feel quite at home with all their BS news they purport to deliver. It would be adding just one more fringe lunatic clown on their lineup.