It is pretty startling how people can ignore certain facts to fabricate from nothing an argument to support their position, but that is what Pat Buchanan did on Rachel Maddow Thursday night.  He created this imaginary world with selective historical accounts to develop a grand theory of White Entitlement.  I have to type this with cellophane over my key board because I am just spitting mad about how, 140 years later, we continue to fight the Civil War and have such a long road to travel to make a more perfect union because of delusional, old, white men like Pat Buchanan.

For reference, you can watch the debate/shriekfest here. 

http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2973685&ref=fpblg

If one agrees with Mr. Buchanan, then one believes that from the very outset the Founding Fathers intended freedom to be a blessing they would keep to themselves, white males, always and forever.  Mr. Buchanan declares that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were composed of 100% white men, implying there was a deliberate effort to keep other races and genders from ever rising out of their unrepresented status. Evidently, these other segments of society would be best represented by white men anyway, in his distorted estimation. 

Mr. Buchanan later emphatically stated that that those killed at Gettysburg and Vicksburg were 100% white males,  It's an interesting proposition, considering that nearly 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Civil War, nearly 10% of the military.  But we can ignore this statistic because these two battles were only a very small part of the four year conflict.  As critical as they were in leading to the final outcome of that war, there were hundreds of battles and within them there are several instances of the United States Colored Troops performing distinguished service, including a horrific engagement at New Market Heights, Virginia, wherein 14 black soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  If research is too much for Mr. Buchanan in his senior years, he might consider watching the movie Glory, a dramatic interpretation of an actual regiment of Colored Troops, the 54th Massachusetts, bravely storming Fort Wagner in a doomed assault.  With Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington among that actors, it's really very well done.  And did I mention the movie is based on fact?  I suppose I could also mention another little piece of trivia, that the South lost the War, but let's move on.  Blacks have fought bravely in more wars then that.

Buchanan also falsely announces that whites were "probably close to" 100% of those killed at Normandy.  Well, gee, here's a photo from the archives of the All-Black 320th Battalion on the beach at Normandy, June 6, 1944.  

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/05/2009-06-05_allblack_battalion_that_landed_in_normandy_france_on_dday_to_be_honored_on_anniv.html?CFID=17854669&CFTOKEN=44715724

These guys look black to me!  The caption states that many of these men perished.  If the battallion is All-Black, it is safe to assume some of the soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice at Normandy were killed while black.  Of course, there are all those Holocaust pictures too, and I'm not sure whether Buchanan is willing to admit to that tragedy either, I mean just because there are hundreds of evidentiary photos, but that's another topic.  {Author's note:  I do not know whether these brave men prefer to be referred to as Black, Negroes, African-Americans, Sable Soldiers, Buffalo Soldiers, or some name, but having served in battle, having assaulted the beaches of Normandy, I am willing to call them any name they wish.  They have earned at least that much.  In the meanwhile, I shall refer to them as black. though only for brevity sake.  I certainly mean no offense.}

With the war theme, I could continue to explore our involvement in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.  We could ennumerate the contributions of blacks in these conflicts as well, but I believe that history is so recent, even Mr. Buchanan would be hard pressed to deny blacks have fought in these wars with distinction.   I would simply refer him to General Colin Powell to explain these historical facts over a mint julep on the porch some cool summer evening.  

This post, so far, has been related to Mr. Buchanan's racist bent and focused on blacks, but the Hispanic population is given a similar disdainful and resentful treatment.  This critical moment in history, when a Latina will be elevated to the US Supreme Court, has apparently unleashed Pat's racist genie and his unrelenting fear of people not of his race.  But he fears her gender as well, which may be even more frightening to Mr. Buchanan as can be revealed in this quote regarding Sonia Sotomayor.  "She was appointed because she was a Latina, an Hispanic, and a woman."  Mr. Buchanan is so incensed with this insult to racial purity and so overcome with his sexist tirade, he repeats himself.  Latina already denotes hispanic. Those are not two separate "offenses", and Latina also denotes woman, for that matter, but if you listen to the video, Mr. Buchanan is blinded by his rage against the injustices to white males and fails to realize his redundancy.

In keeping with his fabricationist history, if you will, Buchanan attacks Ms. Sotomayor's education and achievements suggesting that it is probably that her grades were fixed in the spirit of affirmative action.  This is a mean-spirited assumption.  While Mr. Buchanan tries to avoid being labelled a racist because he would not assume the fastest men in this country were not selected for the track team because they were black, but the fastest runners, and that he would not assume that the all white hockey team from MInnesota was selected for being white rather then the best hockey players, he is willing to assume that Mr. Sotomayor was given good grades because she was a Latina, and not because she dedicated herself to studying and deserved them.  He questions her achievement of summa cum laude  when she graduated from Princeton.  Therefore, this is not simply an insult to Ms. Sotomayor, but to anyone graduating with that distincton from Princeton.

This post is about false entitlement.  It is clear Mr. Buchanan feels he is entitled to cast these aspersions around because he is a white male, history's latest victim of prejudice.  Why he is given a national stage to present these lies is beyond my comprehension, but as one commentor noted in my last post, at least now we get to illustrate how twisted and sick these ideas are.  So, in a spirit of unbridled generosity, thank you, Mr. Buchanan, for that.  And thank you, Oleeb, for reminding me of a position I had taken regarding the Reverend Rick Warren when he was invited to speak at the inauguration.  Pastor Warren made a great object of derision and enabled us to express his distorted view of society for days.

Freedom of speech?  Yes, Mr. Buchanan has the right to say what he wishes.  We do not put people in jail for that.  But we also have the right, no, the obligation, to declare that we will not move forward if we cannot face the truth of our shared history and the many contributions that have been made by people of color. 

Thank you, Rachel Maddow, for so emphatically defending a quest for real greatness for this nation in which we can utilize a much greater human population to locate the best and the brightest.  They are not all white and they are not all male, but they are all American, and our best and our brightest can come from anywhere as has been proven historically time and again, whether these fabricationist historian choose to acknowledge this or not.       

It's time to do something!!! 

In some cases, it really is a matter of life and death.  In others, it is about the quality of their life.  What is it in your case today?  What will it be in your case in 20 years?  30 years?  How will it be for your children and grandchildren?  If you want to have a voice in how things are going to be for you and yours related to healthcare, there is no more critical time to make a difference in the future of your health care then right now!

Below is the link to an organization, Healthcare NOW!, dedicated to single-payer healthcare.  They are working hard to coordinate with all organizations supportive of Single Payer Healthcare. 

There will be a multi-organizational rally in Washington, DC, July 30th to express the voice of the people who demand a single-payer healthcare system.  Do you want your voice to be heard?!? 

If you would like to go and have the means to do so, the Healthcare Now link below will give you information on the rally, hotels/places to stay, and help you find a bus from states close by that will take you, and others like you, to this historical event.  Be the difference! 

 If you can't attend personally but would like to contribute and send a fellow TPM person to represent you, we are coordinating collecting funds to cover expenses to sponsor people with the motivation but not the money to attend.  They will bring your voice by proxy to this important gathering/demonstration.  You can use this link to contribute:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6816319 

It is linked to an account set up for this purpose, or contact synchronicity@yeswecan.com if you have any trouble using the paypal link.  (Synchronicity will provide an accounting of all that we accomplish).

If you are a person who really WANTS to be at that rally but would need financial assistance to do so and you would like to represent others here at TPM, please tell us WHY in a comment below so that the community will know AND please contact synchronicity@yeswecan.com.  You may also comment on those who wish to go to help decide who we send.  We will send as many as we can.  {Note:  If we send you, we will want a full report about your experience to share here at the TPM Cafe.} 

Healthcare - NOW! is coordinating people to ensure every Congressperson on the Hill is individually visited by people who are determined to have a single-payer healthcare system implemented here in the United States. 

We are up against a powerful, well-financed lobbying effort, but we beat them with our numbers! We beat them with our votes!  We have a voice that can drown out their dollars, because every Congressperson knows, their job ends when they fail to get re-elected.  We need to remind them who votes and what it is the voters expect them to do... represent the people!  We are the people and we want a single-payer healthcare system. 

Visit the website and decide whether this is something you want to support.  Buy a ticket and go, or send a donation so we can sponsor someone from TPM.  When?  NOW!  Right now..  This is probably the most important legislative decision that will come from Congress in the 21st century.  Let your voice be heard. 

Buy a ticket! Send a proxy!  Let your voice be heard in Washington, DC!  It's time to get this done! 

http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/single-payer-rally/

Updates

* Jason Everett Miller lives in the area, will be attending the rally and has offered to host a meetup for TPM folk attending.  Miguelito2o is going and can give a ride from Southern PA.  Kfreed is paying their own way from CO and has already actively jumped in to participate in and sponsor the event and has volunteered to take photos etc in chronicling the event for us.  So far, we are sending one person who needs financial assistance, Gumbun.  You can read her personal story here to learn why we are so excited about sending her to represent us.  That makes four rep's so far... and we are just getting started.  Donations are definitely needed and appreciated to cover Gumbun's costs:)
The sooner we buy her airline ticket the less it will cost us!

**Rep. Anthony Weiner of NY is going to offer an amendment for single payer in the Commerce Committee so please take some action in support of that amendment if you would:)

***This blog is the idea of and co-sponsored by several bloggers here at TPM :)

It's shocking really.  In the 21st century, after America elects an African-American President in a landslide, Pat Buchanan insists the GOP can win if they court the white vote more aggressively. 

Two days ago, Mr. Buchanan wrote a piece in RealClear Politics that you can read here, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/14/how_to_handle_sonia_97442.html if you wish to detonate your cranium.  But I can summarize his insanity here and we can all celebrate and have a beer, or other festive beverage.  Because if the GOP remains on this track, we're going to hold the White House and Congress for a very long time,  Now we cannot let this post get out!  That is why I am posting it here.  If the GOP ever submits to a rectal cephalectomy, they may change course.  Then they would challenge us once again.  I want them to continue doing exactly what they are doing. It is so good for us.

At the heart of his argument, Pat Buchanan states the following:

Pundits here gets hoots of appreciation for doing to a white Christian woman [Sarah Palin]what would constitute a hate crime if done to a "wise Latina woman." But, as no Republican who followed the script of the mainstream media ever won a national election, why should the party pay them mind?

The imperative of the GOP is not to appease a city that went
93-7 for Obama, but to win back its lost voters.

It is no surprise a relic like Pat would see the world this way.  Mr. Buchanan is reported to have had an ancestor who fought for the South and is a member of the Sons of the Confederacy.  {And I had thought he himself had fought in the Civil War.  Goes to show you that even a shallow wikipedia search can teach a person something.}  Historically speaking, it is not unfair to note Mr. Buchanan's comments on record have revealed a longing for the days when America was more, well, white.  If only we could turn back the clock to the 1950s!

Mr. Buchanan is encouraging the conservatives to underscore the racial aspect of Sonia Sotomayor because he feels that the GOP is losing the white voters, so if the GOP behave more favaorably towards whites, then they will achieve a greater percentage of those white votes and that will be the winning strategy in an election. 

Here's are some things Mr. Buchanan misses and, again, don't tell the GOP.  The GOP is blinded with the meme about  the mainstream media, the liberal media. He fails to realize that's just something Rush Limbaugh says so people stay tuned to his program and FOX at the expense of all else.  BUt the MSM, has some very conservative tendencies.  It doesn't tkae long to see that if one actually explores those other networks.  

As Mr. Buchana above-notes, "why should the party pay them mind?"  It seems to this writer that one might pay them mind as they have influence on the public and therefore the vote, to be pragmatic about it.  But it also seems that the MSM is a reflection of the population and that population is not eager to embrace a racist rationale.  That bit about Obama 93-7 might indictate this is a reasonable conclusion.

It would seem Pat Buchanan assumes all whites are racists.  He provides all these statistics in his editorial about how McCain got the lowest percentage of the white votes then any prior GOP candidate.  So his answer is to go deeper into what smacks of white supremacy to encourage more white voters to think GOP.  He ignores the fact that the white voters have spoken.  They are not attracted to these racially-based arguments and they do not anticipate any increase in white influence in the coming decades anyway, to be blunt.

This is all very encouraging to me, with my liberal tendencies.  We, the American people, {and us white folks too!} are judging people based on the content of their character.  Obama is but one piece of evidence this is our present state of being, multi-cultural. Mr. Buchanan wants  "to win back its lost voters".  He thinks if the GOP pursues more racists, they will increase their popularity.  Don't tell the GOP, but America is already multi-cultural and that includes the white population. I think the GOP already has all the racists, and, in a very real sense, their voters are lost.  Pat, there's no sense going after the lost voters, you already have them.  Good luck with that strategy!  Shhhhhhh.

It's the place lazy people begin one's research, but it would take a long time to really dig into the years of prosecution and imprisonment that Governor Don Siegelman has faced in the state that he had so selflessly served for more then two and a half decades, Alabama.  I am, of course referring to Wikipedia.  Here is the former governor's page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Siegelman

There is a very important precedent here that we should consider, although I am sure there are other examples.  But this is current, and this is relevant to the issues of whether we should look back at the possible criminal and unethical activities of the Bush Regime.  This is the response to any pol, but especially the GOP pols, who suggest we move forward and not back when considering whether to prosecute members of the Bush Regime when concerns arise regarding the legality of their actions, that it is somehow wrong to judge the previous Administration for deeds that may have broken the law because that was so last Administration.  This is an example of exactly that, but I will not ignore the probability that Karl Rove was pulling the strings of this political witch hunt all along.  If anything, I would suggest that here we have karma, and I would not want to be Karl if karma is a real force in the Universe.  I would most certainly want Karl Rove to get what he has given!

Don Siegelman was accused of corruption AFTER he had left the governorship of Alabama.  The charge is that Siegelman appointed Richard M. Scrushy, founder and former CEO of HealthSouth to the state hospital regulatory board for arranging approximately one-half million dollars of campaign donations.  It should be noted that Scrushy had held this position under three prior GOP Administrations. It cannot be ignored, however, that Scrushy was also convicted of many counts related to fraud while with Healthsouth and remains in prison at this time.  Scrushy was the third highest paid CEO in the United States at one time, so evidently his greed truly was insatiable.

The plight of the former governor appears to have been orchestrated by Karl Rove to ensure Mr. Siegelman lost any capacity for political influence as former governor.  There is much evidence of jury tampering and misconduct that has been ignored.  There are even made for TV incidents in which allegedly a private investigator/former police officer ran a key witness off the road on her way home.  Authorities found no evidence of foul play.  Simpson's house also burned down after this incident, but again, the authorities found no evidence of arson there either.   Greater details of this person's apparent harassment can be found in an article at The Nation magazine,  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071105/wilson.

Karl Rove is reported to have been a key influence in placing the federal prosecutors who would pursue the allegations against the former governor.  It is even suggested Karl would expose an affair the governor was alleged to have had.  Karl's relationship with the GOP in Alabama had been longstanding, particularly with William "Bill" Canary, the top GOP operative in Alabama and CEO of the Business Counsel of Alabama.  Canary's wife, Leura Canary, is the US Attorney for the MIddle District of Alabama.  Ms. Canary was found to merit recusing herself from the trial, which she formally did, but it has been proposed she continued to assist the prosecution long after submitting her recusal the court.  Evidence was provided to support this charge and ignored by the court.

Numerous former state attorney genererals decried the manner in which Siegelaman was treated.  He was denied any time after the trial to get his affairs in order, which was typically 45 days.  In addition, they created court room/media theater by having Siegelman shackled with handcuffs and leg irons as he was escorted out of the court building.  This was an unpredented costume change from similar past political trials.   

The reason this post is being written now is because there are reports a deal has been struck wiht the present Administration to allow the prior prosecutors to remain in place for the duration of the current hearings. GOP appointed prosecutors who have apparently behaved in an unscupulous manner on several occassions are being allowed to remain on the case.  The details are abundant related to their contact with the jurors and withholding documents from the defense, much the same as had been the case with Senator Stevens in Alaska.  But again, although Stevens was given a free pass related to this misconduct, no such allowances have been made for former Governor Siegelman. 

Governor Siegeman is the only person ever to hold to hold all four of the top positions in the State of Alabama, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor.  After 26 years of service including his holding each of these demanding positions, this is his reward from the People of Alabama.  This is his reward from the Democratic Party now in power in Washington DC, indifference.    Governor Siegelman was the last man standing with any power in the Democractic Party in Alabama, yet he has been abandoned in some kind of a deal with the GOP.   Once again Karl Rove has manipulated the government to achieve his own ends and we capitulate.

It makes one wonder why we treat our own so poorly?  We have let Senator Stevens off the hook because the prosecution withheld documents and we are letting the Bush Regime off the hook because they were not actually caught WHILE they had their hand in the cookie jar.  So, why is this public servant not given an equal consideration.  Hey, there's nothing the matter with Kansas except they lost their Democratic Governor to the Dept of Health and Human Services.  But there is something terribly wrong with Alabama, and we should straighten it out with a fair trial.  The Democratic, former Governor, Don Siegelman deserves as much.