MSNBC's Deafening Silence on Patrick Buchanan's Association with Holocaust Deniers

One week ago, I outed Patrick Buchanan, the former senior White House official in the Nixon and Reagan administrations, erstwhile reactionary candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and now a highly paid political commentator on MSNBC, for sponsoring a Holocaust denial forum on his website. Within hours, the forum in question, entitled "Disinformation, Deception and Other Tricks: Discussion about 'The Holocaust'" (with The Holocaust in quotes, of course), mysteriously vanished from Buchanan.org, and the link to it was disabled.

The Buchanan website's forum followed the standard Holocaust deniers' playbook, complete with such gems as "Most historians believe it was LOGISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GAS 6 MILLION JEWS AND REDUCE THEIR BODIES TO ASHES;" "We have known for some time that the Auschwitz myth is of an exclusively Jewish origin;" "The same blinded people that believe that the Germans intentionally killed Jews -- also believe the myth of the Anne Frank Diary;" and "Rightly or wrongly -- the Jew was blamed for a lot of the problems that Germany suffered. The Jews were given years of warnings that they were unwelcome in Germany. A lot of Jews fled Germany in the late 1930s. The United States was not very anxious to accept very many. This was when White Christians still had a little control of our Nation."

One might have expected the disclosure of this forum to at least raise some eyebrows at MSNBC. After all, two years ago, the news channel summarily fired talk show host Don Imus for making a racially insensitive remark about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Sponsoring a Holocaust denial forum on one's website strikes me as no less offensive. But not a single member of MSNBC's management has deigned to publicly address Buchanan's association with anti-Semites, White supremacists and other assorted bigots.

One would also have expected Buchanan's MSNBC colleagues to take him to task for aiding and abetting Holocaust deniers. They have not done so. Not once.

If Fox News' Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly had sponsored a similar forum, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews would have been all over them. If Buchanan had been a CNN or Fox News fixture rather than an MSNBC pundit, Olbermann would most certainly have excoriated Buchanan as the "worst person in the world." So the question to Messrs Matthews and Olbermann has to be, how can you justify giving Buchanan a pass?

Since Buchanan's Holocaust denial forum became public, I have watched him on three popular MSNBC programs: Morning Joe, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Andrea Mitchell Reports. Neither Joe Scarborough nor Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of Morning Joe, asked Buchanan to explain why he provided a platform for Holocaust deniers. Matthews did not ask Buchanan whether he approved of or agreed with the Holocaust denying screeds that were posted on Buchanan.org. Andrea Mitchell did not ask Buchanan how and why the Holocaust denial forum was so suddenly removed from his website.

Matthews would never have remained silent in the face of slurs directed at Irish-Americans, or Scarborough at Southern conservative Christians, or Brzezinski at Polish Catholics, or Mitchell at women. Holocaust denial by definition is toxic, and Buchanan's MSNBC colleagues have an obligation to confront him on their shows with the vitriol he allowed to be disseminated under his auspices.

MSNBC's audiences for the most part have no idea that Buchanan is not just another affable, well-spoken if arch-conservative television personality. They do not know that he has compared John Demjanjuk, the Nazi guard at the death camps of Sobibor and Majdanek who has just been deported from the United States to stand trial in Germany, to Jesus Christ. They do not know that he wrote in his March 17, 1990, syndicated column that Jews could not have been murdered in the gas chambers of Treblinka, and dismissed the Holocaust survivors' experiences derisively as "group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics."

They do not know that Buchanan has referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory" and called Israel "a strategic albatross draped around the neck of the United States." They do not know that he told the Christian Coalition in 1993 that "Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free."

They do not know that he has actively lobbied on behalf of Nazi war criminals like Demjanjuk, Karl Linnas and Arthur Rudolph. They do not know that Buchanan called for the abolishment of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which prosecutes and seeks to deport Nazi war criminals from the United States, because he considered the unit to be "a shark force... running down 70-year-old camp guards." They do not know that he once wrote that "Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier... a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him."

Patrick Buchanan has no greater credibility or respectability than David Duke, the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, or Louis Farrakhan, the grotesquely anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam. If, however, MSNBC's executives insist on retaining him as a fixture on their news channel, he must be clearly identified as an enabler of Holocaust deniers and a defender of Nazi war criminals whenever he appears on the air.

Menachem Rosensaft, the son of two survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, is General Counsel of the World Jewish Congress and Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell Law School.

 

Comments

[nolalily]

I think one has to be over 55 to know the real Pat Buchanan. Thanks for re-exposing him. I'd like to see more Pat Buchanan reality. The man is dispicable and has no business being presented as if there is anything legitimate in his twisted, sick self.

[spanky0719]

Hope Chris Matthews reads this article... Rachel too, for that matter!

[uncommonsense2009]

it should be against the law for the ADL to deny the Armenian Genocide but deny they do. Double standard much?

[aemathisphd]

Nice straw man. I don't think that Mr. Rosensaft either (a) advocated the ADL's position, or (b) suggested criminalization of expressing points of view.

[US1st2009]

Nice try at changing the subject or just not getting the point. They said the ADL as THE leading Jewish Anti Defamation organization i.e. the leading Jewish organization against Holocaust denial itself denies the Armenian genocide. This topic is broader than Mr. Rosensaft of just this article.

[uncommonsense2009]

it should also be against the law to lie to the international community about having hundreds of nukes and not signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty while simultaneously railing against others who MAY acquire them. oh yeah, it is against the law at least when some countries lie about their nukes, double standard much?

[aemathisphd]

How is this related at all?

[US1st2009]

the article is about denial. can't get any more straight forward than that.

[uncommonsense2009]

it should also be against international law to keep millions of people captive in a small prision for decades... oh yeah it is and yet Gaza is still a prison without hope. how is that reconciled?

[aemathisphd]

The only thing that is related to all three of your posts seems to be an obsession with you.

I'll give you a hint: It's a word that starts with a "J" and rhymes with "bruise."

[US1st2009]

and the only thing related in all of your posts in the exact same obsession. you might want to check out the mirror.

[PublicusOrator]

Give it a rest. I have heard Buchanan on more than one occasion fully condemn the horrors of the Holocaust. In fact several years ago C-Span ran an hour interview with Buchanan and the subject of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust were discussed. He violently condemed that horror. I'm sure that if you inquire C-Span will give you access to the transcript.

[aemathisphd]

"The problem is: Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody."
—Pat Buchanan

Problem is that some 1.5 million Jews were killed this way during World War II.

He can "condemn the horrors" as much as he likes, but the above quote is blatant Holocaust denial and he won't say where he got that idea from. (Which, by the way, is wrong.)

See: http://www.holocaust-history.org/~jamie/buchanan/

by my friend and colleague Jamie McCarthy

I'll repeat an earlier point: Bill Buckley wouldn't allow Buchanan to write about Israel because he couldn't be even remotely objective. That someone would have such a harsh standard on dealing with Israel but give other regimes that are far more repressive a blank check is worth questioning.

[aemathisphd]

He denied that carbon monoxide could kill people. That's a big problem, as it constitutes denial of about a quarter of the deaths during the Holocaust.

[Emmaboverry]

For another fine example of Buchannan's core belief system, see "A Brief for Whitey": http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-a-brief-for-whitey-969,which ran during Obama's campaign. His main thesis is that "black folk" should be grateful for being brought in chains to America. He manages to associate Obama with rioting and rape, while drawing together a virtual lynch mob of like-minded responders. Becoming increasingly hysterical, he cites skewed, inflammatory, and fictional crime statistics corroborated only by other white supremacists.

One has to read it to believe it. But most horrifying is that he can advance such a blatantly racist argument and MSNBC continues to turn a blind eye. No wonder he went rabid over Reverend Wright. Wright accused America of a KKK mentality. When our top news organization employs talent like Buchannan to present what purports to be mainstream political commentary, it invites not only speculation but evidence-based claim that racial bigotry is endemic and institutional. Buchannan is no more a Bill Buckley than David Duke--or Joe Scarborough.

[enriquecaliente]

Like it or not. Free Speech. It's his right to believe in whatever.

[HeevenSteven]

Nobody is questioning his right to believe. It's about the credibility of a news analyst.

[Emmaboverry]

Not what's being argued here. He has a right to mount a soapbox on Mainstreet and call for fellow extremists to revolt against the government , or write letters to the editor contending minority populations are a figment of leftist imagination, WHATEVER. But be passed off as credible, to-be-taken-for-real, on any medium the American public trusts as an authoritative source? Frightening.

[sfirx]

Why do people care that others deny the holocaust. If you know it happened, why is it important that others have to admit it happened. It's not like people who deny the holocaust will convince people to participate in a holocaust.

[aemathisphd]

I would suggest you read the work of Gregory Stanton on this issue. He defines eight stages of genocide, the final of which is denial. And, yes, denial is used to get people to participate in new genocides.

[Emmaboverry]

Good one! And rhetoric fanned the flames of the European holocaust
and whetted the machetes of Rwandan genocide. Words have a weight beyond measure.

[cesarportugal]

If you denied such injustificated terror, same day you will repeted, and do the same.
that´s why you and everybody must come out and teached yours childrens about All Holocaustes

[Driver125]

Pretty strange of MSNBC. They act as if there's a shortage of reactionary dinosaurs who are still alive out there to hold up the Right side of the discussion. Someone should inform them that this is a species that never dies. They could safely let ol' Uncle Pat slide into the either zone of hard-core hate and never miss him. Plenty of young brain-dead wanna-bes out there to choose from. Any color, all genders, anything that they think will play. Why should Fox have all the worst of the Right?

[mommadona]

Pat Buchanan holds many skeleton keys to many a closet in that BubbleTown of DC.

"Kneef! Kneef!"

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54611

http://stephenhand2.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html

[BlueDog1]

Well maybe GE can fire him (Pat) and morning Joe both are loud mouth talking heads. MSNBC is starting to sound a lot like CNBC everyone is screaming and yelling attempting to shut people up by screaming at them.

[bobWal]

Another sunshine patriot is outed for what he really is. I have an Uncle buried in the cold soil of France. I am sure he would puke to hear of what Buchanon esposes Hitler to have been. Disgusted.

[jcole]

Another republican hypocrite have been exposed, he was one of the biggest republican hypocrite crying for president Obama to drop out of the race for the president because of rev. Wright, now he wants speaker Pelosi to resign alone with Bohnuer.

[ladyoftheland]

I think what most people fear, with the respect to this story, is that we will criminalize any thought or speech seen as minimizing the suffering of Jews during World War 2. Minimizing the holocaust is considered anti-semitic. Anti-semitism is, according the ADL, considered a hate-crime, and is punishable by prison in a number of countries. We now have hate-crime legislation, recently passed by Congress, and in the Senate for a vote. The definition of anti-semitism is very broad, and not well-defined. Who gets to define it? The ADL? This is a very slippery slope. I'm curious: How many people here would be willing to attach a negative name, and a possible prison sentence, to those who questioned the number of Polish Catholics who died in concentration camps? Or Slavs? Or Russian farmers and their families who were brutally murdered by the Nazis? As offensive as we find some ideas, or arguments, or speech, we should be very careful in the restriction of speech. Very careful.

[bruderinnot]

ladyoftheland

This "Outlaw Genocide Denial" Movement is nothing more than the Durantyesque leftist obfuscation of Communist Genocide. Communists killed 100 million in the last century (My, why dont we ever hear of the genocide of 60 million Chinese by Mao?).

This started with the genocide of 2 million Amish and Mennonite and Ukrainian farmers by the Kremlin in 1921, it continued with genocide of another 10 million in 1932-1933 (yes - you can bet your last dollar that this gave rise to Hitler).

http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/order/general/sinner.html

We now have the outlandish addendum to this "law" against those that doubt that Russia saved Europe from doom and disaster.

http://www.iwp.edu/news/newsID.139/news_detail.asp

[jcole]

I don't think people want to criminalize speech but we should have some one on the air speaking what they know, Mr Buchanan sprewing hate, let him go over to fox.

[Frank Smith]

You aren't being very clear about what sort of "forum on his website" you're talking about. Is it a thread started by a registered member in the online forums? Is it a public event being promoted where Holocaust denial was the topic?

His support for Demjanjuk has been common knowledge for years, he's written about the case in his syndicated columns. He thinks the evidence is flimsy. Agree or not, it's what he thinks.

Holocaust denial is a shoddily argued viewpoint that is easily debunked if you know history . . . and trust the evidence gathered by and personal accounts of our own GI's who liberated death camps. I don't like the rush to silence everyone who believes the Holocaust denial mantra. It is a perfect opportunity to let a new generation know what a terrible time it was . . . . and win a debate pretty easily, which is always a lot of fun.

[NABNYC]

Some European nations have laws which make it criminal for somebody to write or say anything that constitutes denial of the holocaust. Luckily, we do not have these types of laws in our country. All people are free to express views or beliefs that are contrary to those held by the majority of the people, or the government.

I've never understood why this was such a hot topic issue. I know people who believe in UFOs, believe martians live among us. I don't share their view, but I would not suggest throwing them in prison either.

In our country, people are free to say what they believe, even if we think their belief is irrational and baseless. Such as religion, for example: nobody can prove the existence of a God, nevermind prove that "their" God is the "right" God. But we don't punish people for their beliefs, even when their beliefs are incapable of being "proved."

It isn't entirely clear from this article whether the things in quotes were on Buchanan's web-site, or whether those are comments typical of holocaust-denial websites. In either event, none of the comments constitute hate speech, none of them say bad things about any group of people, or advocate violence. It's just the expression of a belief -- one which most of us find irrational and contrary to the evidence. No one should be fired for having unpopular or irrational beliefs, as long as they don't advocate hatred or violence towards others.