Pat Buchanan & MSNBC

Leave it to Randy to defend Pat Buchanan, someone I have little in common with politically. I have to say, I have NOT read his latest book, "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" I have read some reviews of the book. Buchanan was with MSNBC/NBC as a political commentator for about a decade, offering various views, some considered to be rightwing (I concur), on all sorts of political and international events. For the last few years he was more associated with MSNBC's "Morning Joe," an early morning talk/discussion show on the cable channel, where he became a regular.

Just briefly, Buchanan worked for President Richard Nixon and later for President Ronald Reagan. He was on the original "Crossfire" show on CNN in the early 1980s (I watched it regularly), just before he went to work in the Reagan White House. He ran against fellow Republican and incumbent President, George Bush (Sr.) in 1992, and caused the President numerous headaches during the primary campaign, and later at the Republican Convention. He also ran in 1996, emphasizing the loss of American jobs due to poorly negotiated trade deals, a position which seemed to garner him some Democratic votes. He criticized both major political parties on this and other issues, often "social issues," like abortion, gay rights, and immigration policy, and he proudly proclaimed his staunch Catholicism and support of Church dogma. As I recall (and I may need to be corrected on this), polls showed much of Buchanan's support from white men, some even being dubbed "angry white men." When Republican President George W. Bush proposed immigration changes that would have permitted eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants who went through a process taking several years, Buchanan dubbed it "amnesty," and he and his supporters (and others) so battered the proposal, it went nowhere. Highly polarizing, Buchanan has been a red flag to Blacks, Latinos, Jews, gays, and many women, and that doesn't count the many white men who were also turned off by his heated rhetoric.

Last October Buchanan's book was released and MSNBC suspended Buchanan as some of the topics in the book sparked heated retorts from Jews and other minorities, including gays, as Buchanan charged that America is in decline because of minorities, and the decline in percentage of the population of white people of European heritage, as well as the decline of "European Christianity." Interestingly he laments that "Mexico is moving north," but Mexicans are overwhelmingly Catholic, the religion brought there by European Spaniards. Hm, I must have missed something. Anyway, a little over a month ago, MSNBC terminated its relationship with the outspoken Buchanan. "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough (a former Republcian congressman) and Mika Brzezinski (daughter of foreign policy analyst and author Zbigniew Brzezinski) both offered personal support for Buchanan, while noting the differences they had with many of his opinions, especially those opinions offered up in this book. They countered that a debate of Buchanan's ideas is the best way to expose his fallacies (this is not a quote, but my take on their remarks). I totally agree. I'm not too keen on firing commentators, columnists, etc over their views. I'm not afraid of views contrary to my own, rather I like the debate over such things. Now, some might well argue that Buchanan's views fire up some of like mind, including racists and bigots, but they will always find things to be fired up about, and making him something of a martyr does the same thing, but without input from those with other viewpoints. That is far more dangerous, in my opinion.

WORD HISTORY:
Woman-This word is really a compound, which was then contracted into the modern form. It is an English creation and is thus peculiar to English among the Germanic languages. In Old English (Anglo-Saxon), the common word for a female human was "wif," which is obviously still with us in the modern form "wife" (this will be the next "Word History"). English put together "wif" and "mann" ("man" in the sense of "human being") as "wifmann" for a "female human." Pronunciation variations as the "f" sound died out later made this "wimman" (also spelled "wiman") and "wumman," before the modern version. The process whereby "woman" replaced "wife" for a "female human being" took a few centuries, but since "wife" came to by applied more and more to "a married female, a female spouse," "woman" finally triumphed, as many men already know.

Some Perspective On Political Donations

Word History updated very slightly December 20, 2017 

Recently I made note here of donations made to Republicans, namely to the Republican Governors Association, by Rupert Murdoch, owner of many things, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. Within hours of that article, it was announced that MSNBC talk show host, Keith Olbermann, had been suspended without pay by the cable channel's parent company, NBC, for violating company policy about political donations. Olbermann recently made donations to three Democratic candidates. There was great uproar over this suspension, with even some conservative voices siding with Olbermann, and there were the inevitable charges that it was a violation of freedom of speech. For those unaware, Olbermann is politically a liberal/progressive, originally known for covering sports. NBC has since reinstated Olbermann.

The whole incident brought out that MSNBC host of "Morning Joe," Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, previously contributed to a Republican congressional candidate, and that Fox News talk show host, Sean Hannity, has also done so. From what I've read, Fox also has a similar policy to the NBC policy about political donations. Neither of these two has been suspended (at least not as I write this).

First my disclaimer...I'm not a lawyer, so this is purely my opinion based upon what I understand the Constitution to mean about "freedom of speech." The Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech." The situation here did not involve Congress making a law to suspend Olbermann, Murdoch, or any one else. The television networks made their own policies. You may like or dislike those policies, but that's what this issue is about, not freedom of speech. If you own a business, you set the policies for your employees. How those policies are implemented, carried out, or acted upon can certainly come into legal question, however.

Now, whether Murdoch should have made his million dollar contribution to Republicans is not a legal matter, and I never indicated that it was in my comments. He has EVERY RIGHT to contribute to any candidate or cause. Whether this was a smart thing to do, is a matter for discussion, as Fox News has promoted itself to be "fair and balanced." It now seems that it is "fair and balanced" in choosing which Republican causes and candidates to support. Unlike Olbermann or Hannity, Murdoch represents his whole media empire, and it is my understanding that some Fox News "employees" were not thrilled to learn of Murdoch's political contributions. Let's be honest, we all know where Fox News stands, despite their "fair and balanced" protests to the contrary. Murdoch hired former GOP political operative Roger Ailes to head the station. In just this past election campaign, some Republican candidates made remarks about just appearing on Fox News for interviews; the implication being that they get softball questions. Further, one candidate literally said that they permitted her to make appeals for contributions. Murdoch's donation just confirmed the "fair and balanced" slogan as a total joke, something that was already happening anyway.

We also know where Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann stand, Joe Scarborough, while a Republican, is more temperate in most matters, but they do not own their respective outlets. They are all "talk show" hosts, or "commentators, " not really reporters, as such. They are on the air to make comments, even provocative comments, and that they do. From what I've read, and this is always subject to change, up until now, no reporters for any of the networks were found to have made political contributions. The main problem I see with Olbermann's political donations (which were not known to MSNBC at that time, or so I understand) was that he co-anchored the election night results, which does not give an impression of objectivity (to be clear, I did not watch MSNBC's election coverage, so I have no idea of how Olbermann or anyone else came across). It might have been better for all networks to leave "commentators" in that role during election coverage, and not make them anchors or co-anchors. BUT there's no law against them doing otherwise.

WORD HISTORY:
Donation-This noun goes back to the Indo European root "do," with a long "o," which meant, "to give." This produced "dono," which meant  "gift." The Latin offshoot was "donum," which likewise meant " gift." The Latin verb form seems to have been derived from "donum," and was "donare," meaning "to give as a gift." The noun form gradually became "donatus, and then "donation," which passed into Old French as "donacion." English acquired the word via French in the early 1400s, originally spelled "donacioun," before evolving to the modern spelling. "Supposedly" English derived its own verb form, "donate," from the noun in the early 1800s.

"Morning Joe" and Me

Weekdays, I frequently watch a part of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC. It has had some of the best discussions I've seen on television about many of the issues confronting the nation. The show appeared a couple of years ago as a replacement for the "Imus Show," which was televised on MSNBC. It is hosted by Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, and Mika Brezinski, the daughter of former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brezinski. There are a variety of regularly appearing participants, like Pat Buchanan and columnist Mike Barnicle, among others, who sit in with Joe and Mika, commenting on some current events and asking questions of guests. Some very pointed questions are often asked of the various guests making appearances on the show, and to be quite honest, at times, things can get a bit chaotic. Unfortunately too, the group can get off topic, at times, not always, leaving a scheduled guest or two with little time to express their views or offer their expertise on what was supposed to be the matter at hand. Frequently these guests are asked if they can stay longer, or return to the show in the future. I'm not particularly fond of the show's tendency to have some participants in New York, and others in Washington. This adds to the "chaos" at times, as participants from both locations begin "talking over" each other.

What I really like are the tough questions that are asked. We NEED this!!! The show is not tilted toward any particular ideology or political party, although Scarborough is a Republican and is not the least bit shy in reminding the audience of his affiliation. He also claims to be a "conservative," although during the early part of the economic meltdown, I heard him "seemingly" side with Pat Buchanan, who has a kind of "economic populist" streak in him. Joe's biggest problem is his "inclination" to interrupt others and sort of monopolize the conversation, at times; but hey, he's a lawyer, what do you expect? He has some ideas I tend to agree with, and some I tend to be a bit skeptical of, but he's a thoughtful guy and, as I mentioned, he asks some tough questions. I just wish he'd asked some of those tough questions when he was in Congress in the 1990s. In fairness to him, he admits that there were mistakes made about economic matters, and I'm not sure he'll admit it, but while he insists he's a supporter of "free market capitalism," I have heard him utter some support for that word so brought into disrepute by "conservatives" in the last several decades...."regulation." Also, one morning, about two months ago, he certainly sided with Pat Buchanan when Pat mentioned "economic nationalism," regarding the auto industry. Joe also tries to boil down the positions of various politicians of both parties. His "what this really means" offerings are usually none too flattering. I like that, even though I don't always agree with his assessment,*** as I often try to do the same thing here, like when I say, "Is America going to provide national care to all citizens, or are we going to say, "The hell with 'em...let 'em suffer or die?" Bottom line folks; that's what it means!

As to Buchanan, I don't often find myself in agreement with him on social issues, but on many economic matters, he's closer to what I believe, although I think he might be a bit too tight-fisted over trade. Further, Buchanan opposed the Iraq invasion, and many of his concerns turned out to be valid. While he's been known for some maverick tendencies, it still could not have been easy for him to oppose a Republican administration on such a crucial matter. Maybe I'm wrong, but I also seem to detect a bit of weakening on some of his positions on social issues. Is it that he sees things differently now that he's a bit older, or is it that he's not a candidate for president, and therefore doesn't need to pander to parts of the electorate for votes? Maybe a bit of both? Then too, Pat was a regular on CNN's "Crossfire" at various times during the show's life, and he was expected to take strong conservative views. Maybe some of this was just for the show, and now that he's not expected to always offer a hard line point of view, he doesn't?

As to Mika, I like her very much, and she seems to enjoy the spirited and tough discussions, but she likes the discussions to be civil. She also seems a bit idealistic, but then again, I suppose it could be argued that some of Joe and Pat's conservative views are idealistic, too. Come to think of it, I suppose all of our views, if carried to their apex, could be considered idealistic. I'd certainly argue that "Reaganism" went too far after Reagan, although I wonder if he had not developed Alzheimer's, would he have supported the continued pushing of an agenda that dismantled so many regulations of business? That pushed the notion of "the government is the enemy?" That let income disparity grow to 1920s levels? Reagan talked tax cuts, but he raised taxes when he thought it necessary. He talked about "gun owners' rights," but he supported the "Brady Bill" after he left office, if I remember right. To me, the smart politician knows when to STOP pushing an ideological agenda. On the old television show "Fantasy Island," guests to the island got to live out THEIR idealisms, usually with bad results for them.

Anyway, Mika preaches against certain foods, especially sweet and fatty fare. Then, I believe it was Mike Barnicle, IF I remember correctly, who asked one guest, regarding possible health care legislation, that if America gets national health care, do each of us then have a "responsibility" to take better care of ourselves. Ah, we're back to the "idealism," which seems a bit like "nannyism," to me. What will we have... the "Nutrition and Exercise Police?" And speaking of Mike Barnicle, I like him a lot too, but at times, he seems a bit intimidated by Joe's strongly enunciated conservative viewpoint on certain issues. I would have liked to have seen him challenge Joe on some things, mainly economic, but then too, maybe he's lying back because its Joe's show?

Then there's Willy Geist, a regular who provides some comic relief for the show. Willy was once a regular on Tucker Carlson's show. Carlson is a kind of libertarian/conservative commentator, who has been on both MSNBC and CNN, and he makes occasional appearances on "Morning Joe."

If you like good political discussions, I highly recommend "Morning Joe." You can always record the show, if it is too early for you. (A "word history" is below)


***Sometimes I'm about to leap off the couch over his comments!

Word History:
Skirmish-I can't find the Indo European root for this word, at present, but "skirmish" goes back to Germanic, and Frankish, a Germanic dialect, gave a form of their word "skirmjan" to French as "eskermiss,"^^^ which itself was the present stem form of "eskermir," meaning "to fence, fight with a sword." So the French notion may have been "defend yourself with a sword." The Germanic meaning had been "to defend, protect," and indeed modern German has "Regenschirm," which means "umbrella;" that is, a cover/defense against rain, and a verb, "schirmen," which means "to protect, to cover." Whether Old English had a form of this Germanic word that may have died out prior to acquiring it from French, I don't know, but Old High German had "skirmen." English acquired "skirmish" during the 1300s from French.

^^^A couple of sources say that Italian got the word from Germanic and passed it on to French.