I'm not sure who else to send this letter to other than Rachel Maddow. I just got through mailing it to her, copied to Keith Olbermann (I hope I got his address right...kolbermann@msnbc.com) and letters@msnbc.com. Perhaps I should send this also to Chris Matthews; I would appreciate his address from anyone here who knows it. If anyone has any other suggestions on MSNBC representatives to send it to, please say so (with an address if possible.)
It's hard to step in and tell someone that their personal friendships are wrong. Scratch that--that itself is wrong. It's far outside civility to impose upon others our personal tastes. What we can speak out on, though, is any kind of endorsement of their friends' opinions, or assignment of any kind of validity, by giving them a soapbox. Personally, I find it lovely that Rachel has found a "fake uncle" in a man whose politics long ago brought her to tears. That she found good in him says so much for her. But she, and by extension MSNBC, really need to abandon Pat Buchanan on air. His latest racist tripe plainly says he is incorrigible.
Letter to Rachel after the jump.
Here's what I sent to Rachel:
"It's really not for us who do not know you personally to intrude on your friendships, but you just can't have Pat Buchanan on anymore without demeaning your show. Not since his racist comments about Colin Powell on the special Sunday Hardball edition. I understand how you can feel so much affection for a man who is your political opposite. Nearly everyone who has ever met Pat Buchanan has said what a grand person he is, how he's the sort of guy you'd want to have a beer with, that sort of thing. Al Franken likes him, even. Me, I have dear, dear friends who are on the very extreme right wing; they have made comments about Muslims that have appalled me, but at heart and in practice they treat the individuals they meet as just that, individuals, not representatives of a caricature.
But Buchanan has a history of racist remarks, and he's not saying these things behind closed doors. He's foolish in not knowing when his comments are unacceptable. He demeans all of the network on which your show appears when he utters statements like Colin Powell endorsing Obama because he's black--and insinuating that Powell did so in a subversive way to cover for his real motives. It not only raises the spectre of "they all stick together," it's also filled with the xenophobia that somehow "they" are plotting against "us." What has happened is, with this comment, he's no longer charming or funny. He's really hateful underneath that blustery Irish cheer he's cultivated for years. (I can say that, being Irish.) He's a pre-segregation, even pre-WWII mind angrily resisting the 21st century, and it's time for him to retire.
I sincerely hope you reconsider having him on your show. Be his friend, his fake niece, his drinking pal, because there is good in him--there must be, or you wouldn't have the affection for him you do. But don't give his old-world hate a platform, please. He really must get off the world stage now."