Pat Buchanan Attacks Affirmative Action And Sonia Sotomayor

Yesterday, on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan attacked Sonia Sotomayor specifically, and affirmative action in general. Included in his attack were such claims as "this has been a country built basically by white folks," that Sonia Sotomayor was purely an affirmative action candidate who lacks real credentials and his suggestion that we need more white-male Supreme Court nominees---like Robert Bork---despite the fact that 108 of the 110 United Supreme Court Justices in our nation's history have been white.

What opponents of affirmative action like Pat Buchanan fail to grapple with is that this country was built on affirmative action---for white males---and you don't have to go back to the Founding Fathers to see this in action. If you go back to the 1950s, which Buchanan apparently wants to do, and look at the major private universities, you would find that 20-30% of the admissions were "legacies," people who got there not on merit but because they were the sons of alumni and donors. George Bush, of course, is the poster-child for this generation of affirmative action babies. I'd like to see Buchanan, or any conservative, defend his admission to Yale on the basis of merit. And I'd like to stack his credentials up next to Sonia Sotomayor 's and ask which one was more deserving of admission to a major university, or the bench, or the Presidency, or anything.

The white-male affirmative action which bozos like George Bush benefited from and want to protect was a monopoly of opportunities; monopolies work to undermine healthy competition and produce bad results. The affirmative action which emerged from the 1960s civil rights movement was an effort not only to promote diversity of people and opportunities, but to democratize opportunities so that white-male hierarchies did not automatically get all the perks. This has been healthy for America, not only because society has become more diverse, but also because it now is less likely that the truly unqualified, the frat boys like GWB with no academic credentials and problems with excessive alcohol consumption [but a connected family] are not automatically passed on to graduate schools, and then on to unsuccessful business careers, not to mention catastrophic political careers.

I prosecuted employment discrimination class actions for 25 years, in the process forcing many major corporations to hire and promote women, minorities, older people and the disabled. In every single case I had, when the case was over and the workforce was integrated, no matter how bitter the litigation had been, the companies would confide in me that their workforces after "affirmative action" were stronger, more competitive, more productive. Affirmative action has been good for American business and good for America. Indeed, corporate America, which has seen the benefits of fair employment practices first-hand, long ago abandoned opposition to it. Too bad racists like Buchanan have failed to pay attention to what really has happened in the American workforce over the past 40 years.

Comments

[Bailey Reynolds]

It's time to put a stop to legacy recruitment in universities and military academies. Imagine how many people would be alive today and how much equipment wouldn't have been destroyed if it weren't for the likes of George W. Bush and John McCain. Neither of those men were remotely deserving of their slots, intellectually or character-wise.

That type of affirmative action is catastrophic.

[MoeB]

Agreed. It really bothers me how people MSM folks don't refute opponents of AA. I find myself saying all the time 'it's not like they're just pulling random minorities off the street and giving them jobs!'...yet it mostly falls on deaf ears as the typical response is always along the lines of 'well, they are taking jobs away from qualified white males'. I'm still YET to see that statistics that show that there is a correlation between white males LOSING jobs, and minorities GAINING those jobs.

I'm also yet to hear a valid argument that proves that every employer ONLY hires the "best and brightest"­...clearly­, not everyone is the "best and brightest", yet millions upon millions of people have jobs in this country. If that were the only criteria for getting employment, only 100 people would be employed in this country.

Further, does every employer have the SAME criteria list for determining who is the most qualified for a particular postion? And if they do, is being the "most" qualified the ONLY criteria in selecting a potential employee?

[ESerafina42]

There have been studies (I think based on gender, maybe on race too), where two resumes were given to people, with essentially equivalent qualifications where one was stronger on experience and the other on education. The subjects pretty much always picked the man, and when asked why, if the male resume was stronger on education would say that education was the most important factor, and of course, if he was stronger on experience would say that was more important. People will generally make the decision they want and justify it after the fact.

[Cye]

Sorry, but wasn't America was built on the sweat of African slaves?

Buchanan's argument sounds eerily like the the same one used to keep slaves under the brutal control of the white man: that non-whites, by nature, lack the same intelligence as whites.

To Buchanan, Sotomayor could only be an affirmative action nominee because she's non-white. How could she - or anybody ethnic - possibly have the inherent intelligence a white candidate? Or have truly achieved - through merit - qualifications for the job?

What a sad commentary on the current GOP.

[ESerafina42]

And how could any woman have the same brainpower as a man?

Very sad.

[londongal]

Thank you for your insight, Mr. Saperstein.

Unfortunately, Affirmative Action gets stigmatized by the likes of Buchanan because he firmly believes it creates an unfair advantage for recipients while trampling on the rights of so-called deserving white males.

According to people like Buchanan, it is as if people who advance under AA laws are somehow less than able, unqualified or unfit for the advancement which they seek.

[punkingale]

I need someone to edumacate me here. If Sonia Sotomayor was valedictorian of her high school graduating class, wouldn't that have qualified her for the scholarship she won to Princeton? And graduating Princeton summa cum laude and earning a Phi Beta Kappa key, wouldn't that have qualified her for the scholarship to Yale Law School? How in the hell is she an Affirmative Action case? With those credentials, wouldn't a white male have made it into those two schools?

[Cye]

To the GOP, anybody ethnic who works their way up and achives through merit alone, is a product of "afirmative action".

[LMPE]

What do you expect from Pat Buchanan?

[VSamuels]

It would be helpful if those like yourself and Tim Wise were on to debate a Pat Buchanan, and not Rachel Maddow; while she did an admirable job her agenda is clearly LBGT issues. The GOP has done one thing extremely well in pushing back at Affirmative Action, and that has been to frame those who benefit from its actions as being 'unqualified' and less in general than the white who was displaced. Bill Bennett today on CNN made this same inference and Donna Brazille simply sat pat and did not challenge the premise that Affirmative Action and unqualifed were synonomous things.

But, what is even more disappointing is how those who make this appeal are never challenged to speak to the history of white male Affirmative Action, as you note this is how unfortunately the tenor of the debate has fallen and they have been able to advance their agendas, by simply omitting the reality of the American workforce over the past 40 years.

It also demonstrates that the system does not wish to resolve issues as much as they want to project issues out of their perspectives, even as society demands otherwise.

[zenaby56]

Very well put. Thank you.

[realpolitic]

George Bush was our first affirmative action president. His test scores would have never got him into Yale and Harvard. Then, despite being a legacy admission he was an indifferent student. He failed as a businessman and did not wake up until his forties when he quit drinking. Then he was one of our most ideologically driven, indifferent, unthinking, and incurious presidents in our history. He set the country back at least 50 years.

Sotomayor is the opposite. She relished each opportunity she has ever had and made the most of it through hard work. She graduated at the very top of her class even in a rigorous academic environment like Princeton. Unfortunately, Buchanan still looks down at her credentials, although he admires Alito and Roberts for their very similar academic credentials. Buchanan can get past the fact that Sotomayor is a woman of Puerto Rican descent and never will. Fortunately, we are easily getting past Buchanan and his ideology that places of privilege are reserved for white males. He is so far behind the times.

[EndRacismNow]

It's not quite accurate to call it affirmative action. It seems more like America has royalty-like elitist families like the Bush's, the Clintons, the Kennedy's that get to go to better schools and get elected to office due to their last name. Bush Jr was never qualified to be president or governor of Texas. Just being son of daddy Bush was enough for some reason. Even daddy Bush had Prescott Bush who made his fortune with doing business with the Nazis. Elites continue to dominate our society and government unfortunately.

[realpolitic]

Yes, elites do have considerable influence. I would like to remind you that Bil Clinton came from poverty. Comparing Bush to the Kennedy's is a stretch, a long one. They had talent and drive and concern for others. Teddy, who made serious mistakes a s a young man, is thought of as one of the greatest senators of all time.

[Bailey Reynolds]

In fairness to the first President (G.H.W.) Bush, he served this nation honorably in WW2. He volunteered to fly and was the youngest fighter pilot in the Pacific theater at one time. His ridiculous son doesn't have the courage his old man has in his little finger.

[S1m0n]

It's perfectly accurate. AA is exactly what it was.

[Xenopus]

Pat Buchanan says America was built by white men. More to the truth, white men stole all America from the Indians and the Mexicans in the southwest. Then, if spreading famine, disease and death among these people weren't enough, white men brought over slaves from Africa to work that land they stole. Then after white men in several countries started World Wars, white men in America rounded up and imprisoned Asian Americans because they weren't white men. So, Pat Buchanan needs to go back and read history before he bellows how much the world owes American white men.

P.S. By the way Mr Buchanan, Sonia Sotomayor is a supreme example of why Affirmative Action does work.....not the opposite. If you had half her intelligence you would understand the difference.

[ClarcKing]

This country was created in order to establish justice. To many people; Affirmative Action is not perceived as a just policy/law. Somehow, some way, there ought to be permission and freedom to discuss the specious, capricious and tyrannical applications of this policy upon the innocent: the unrealized deficiencies created for the citizenry to deal with. The quality and standard of the practice of law or justice pursued are not fully appreciated or apprised.

[MoeB]

Well, let's discuss. How are white males being shoved into poverty due to the existence of affirmative action? Where are the stats to back such a claim up?

[marignymitch]

This is encouraging. Gauging from the dust-up in the wake of Buchanan's latest ugliness, I'd say the nation has grown since 1992 when he delivered his racist, homophobic Nuremburg rally rant at the GOP convention (to wild applause). Molly Ivins, bless her, at the time said the speech was better in the original German. However the reaction then among the MSM punditocracy was nil. The reaction this time is strong and negative, as it should be. We've come a long way, baby.

Still NBC is leaving the light on for this dinosaur. Might even promote him to co-anchor on Morning Joe; that's a good fit.

[escorpion]

Oh, God, I hope you're wrong about that last part.

[Citizen-Jane]

EEEk! Pat Buccanan co hosting!....Talk about white men going wild.....Available on DVD or open any history book world wide.

Now there is an agenda to rage against.

[joebiz]

Affirmative Action was instituted in part to "right the wrongs of the past." Among some of the wrongs, that if taken as as a whole, show a repeated pattern of exploitation by White, European males. To wit: colonialization, slavery, forced repatriations, destruction of the environment and native communities, exploitation of natural resources, genocide of native groups, "legalized" theft through the imposition of customs, laws, culture(s), and language(s). This is just a start. A more modern interpretation is the "taking advantage" of these conditions that skew the rules in favor of the White Male and then instituting and politically and socially legitimizing them. Who can't win under these conditions?

Is it no surprise that the majority of "sytems" are headed by White Males, Is it because of talent? Intelligence? Good looks? (Pat Buchanan!). Or, is it that they have a leg up on the "competition."

[longislandlol]

Them white folks did not build the white house...Pat-if it wasn't for the blacks the white boy presidents would be livin it up at some D.C. hotel----

[peterbeagle]

or maybe in C-House!

[bryan-a]

You bloggers all do yourselves a disservice when you tell half-truths and leave out information (just like you commenters do yourselves disservice when you dont actually read the article or watch the entire unedited video). Buchanon never said or suggested we need more white supreme court nominees (you can alway tell when a Huffpost blogger is lying - no quotes). He said there were much better qualified latino women than Sotomayor.

Basically what he was saying - if all you shoot from the hip screaming mimis would've listened- was Obama didn't spend the time to look for a better qualified candidate he just picked the first Latina woman available - that's what he was upset about.

[babyboomerorig]

He also said in the interview with Rachel Maddow that he'd put his own test scores up against hers to see who was a more qualified person.

The difference being that Pal went on into politics and kept his own views, making them public at every turn. Sodomayor continued to learn, study and realized that she had to put her own views aside when making decisions as a judge.

[bryan-a]

and your point is? what you say is exactly right, what's it got to do with this blogger lying about what Buchanan said?

[ESerafina42]

Oh, please, Pat - do it.