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RachelWatch: A Day at the Racist

Today: Pat Buchanan introduces your jaw to the floor. Plus another Republican sex scandal!

History

Rachel started us off with President Obama’s speech at the commemoration of the NAACP’s 100th anniversary in New York. The President is an excellent speaker, which is good because you need that to cushion your system for what’s coming next.

It’s Pat

Noted racist Pat Buchanan, who is inexplicably a regular commenter on multiple shows on MSNBC, wrote a column this week asserting that Republicans should be rattling the Scared Angry White Guy cage even harder in Judge Sonia Sotomayor‘s confirmation hearings.

Rachel did a fine job of taking him apart (even though she had to bend her own rules of courtesy and break in just to get a chance to speak), but even she seemed to be stunned once or twice by what Buchanan was disgorging.

(Buchanan’s statement about white guys being the only ones fighting at Gettysburg and Vicksburg are, of course, flat-out wrong. And I was able to spot those with only a basic knowledge of American history! It’s kind of a fun game: Which gross distortions did you notice?)

One of the saddest parts of that clip is that Buchanan really can’t seem to see that he’s kneecapped himself with one of his own examples: He looks at a theoretical eight white guys from Minnesota on the Olympic hockey team and assumes that they must naturally be the best players.

Does it really not occur to him that those eight guys might have grown up with access to ice rinks and hockey equipment that other kids might not have, and from a very young age? That they had the time to practice and a way to get there? That they had lifetimes of both implicit and explicit messages that they had real chances to excel?

Does he really think that a kid with Samoan ancestry dropped into the same community with the same advantages couldn’t grow up to be as good at hockey, or even better?

And is it really so horrible to give everyone a fair crack at the ice rink, just to make sure?

Buchanan’s breathtakingly immoral race-baiting political advice is shameful and disturbing, yes. But I think I may be just as discouraged by the real anger and fear that seems to seep out the edges. The idea that one Latina — ever — might make it on to the Supreme Court really seems to incense him.

Principled, thinking conservatives, this balderdash is beneath you. Run these racist jackholes out of your party or found a new one while you can still get the deposit on your souls back.

Hypocri-C Street

After she (I assume) showered off the bile during the commercial break, Rachel brought us back to C Street, the home to many a steamy Republican love affair.

More than we thought, in fact! Turns out former Representative Chip Pickering (R — Mississippi) may also have been C-ing more than he should have of a woman who was not his wife.

And actually on the premises of the C Street church/dorm/bunny ranch, to boot.

Jeff Sharlet should write this thing up into a cable series. He’s sitting on a gold mine. I hope they take the same casting liberties they did with The Tudors.

John Dough

Senator John Ensign (R — Nevada) is still a Senator and still a hypocrite. And still running for re-election.

It’s his financial statements that seem to be shifting around. Now his office is saying the $96,000 from his parents to his mistress and her family (Eeeeew!) was maybe not so much a terribly generous gift as severance pay. From his parents.

C Streeters, I don’t want to tell you how to run your lives, but maybe you want to work in more seminars on getting your story straight and fewer sermons on how your wife is possessed by demons if she says you aren’t flying her to the moon every time.

Moment of Geek

Speaking of flying to the moon, Thursday was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch and the who-knows-what anniversary of someone at NASA losing the tapes.

Or, if you’re one of those, the who-knows-what-anniversary of NASA hiding the tapes because you can totally see where the fake stars backdrop is wrinkly.

NBC News space consultant James Oberg dropped in to be very interesting. Enjoy!

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