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Well, we got rid of this bigot on MSNBC, but he's still out there week after week on PBS with one of their other right wing relics, John McLaughlin, once again showing he's not quite ready for the 21st century with his hopes that we don't have a woman in the Oval Office for another few decades: Pat Buchanan Says, "Let's Hope" U.S. Doesn't Elect A Female President Until "2040 Or 2050," Then Claims He's Joking.

What's really sad relates somewhat to what Eleanor Clift pointed out, which is that politics is such a dirty game these days, you've got a lot of potentially good people who don't want to put up with the negative campaign ads and their name being dragged through the muck whether they're men or women. What did not get mentioned here is the issue of just how much money it takes to get elected and the impediment that is there to prevent anyone of any sex, gender, religion, party, or walk in life from having a chance to serve in elected office if you're not rich already or have the backing of those who are.

It is really pathetic that the United States is lagging behind a good portion of the rest of the world with the number of women in elected office or heaven forbid leading a country. It was sad to hear Buchanan hoping it remained that way for our highest office for decades to come, whether he claimed he's joking or not. I guess he's still bitter his girlfriend Palin didn't have a chance to get in there after she helped blow up John McCain's campaign.

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This weekend on PBS's The McLaughlin Group, we were treated to host John McLaughlin hoping for the return to the days of special prosecutor Ken Starr investigating another sex scandal. McLaughlin asked his panel what the probability that another special prosecutor would be assigned to investigate the recent sex scandal with members of the Secret Service hiring prostitutes and was met with a resounding "No!" by every one of his guests.

Pat Buchanan, who is still a weekly regular on this show on PBS despite his firing from MSNBC, told McLaughlin that there's no need for a special prosecutor unless the government is failing to do their job and investigate the matter themselves, which is not the case here. And Mort Zuckerman, who they had placed on the wrong side of the aisle as usual with Eleanor Clift, responded that "one Ken Starr was enough" in his lifetime.

That did not deter McLaughlin from proclaiming that there was an 80 percent chance that one would be assigned.

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Well, we managed to get Pat Buchanan off the air on MSNBC, but that didn't stop him from rearing his ugly head on PBS over the weekend to sing the praises of one Charles Murray, along with host John McLaughlin and The National Review's Rich Lowry.

John McLaughlin opened the second segment of the show bemoaning the decline of marriage in the United States along with the number of children who are born out of wedlock.

For a little refresher on just who Charles Murray is, I'll just refer back to David Brooks singing his praises earlier this month on Charlie Rose's show which I posted here -- David Brooks: The Villagers' Mr. 'Common Sense Center'.

As was linked and quoted in that post, Charles Pierce took apart Brooks' op-ed preceding that interview in his article here -- Our Mr. Brooks Finds Another Very Important Thinker. Rich Lowry in the clip above failed to mention the entire title of Murray's book just as Brooks did, which is as Pierce noted Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. Somehow that whole "state of white America" portion of the title didn't seem to be very relevant to either of them. Imagine that?

As Media Matters documented before Buchanan finally got the boot from MSNBC, and as Buchanan mentioned in the clip above, Buchanan cited Murray's work in his recent book -- Pat Buchanan Won't Disavow Idea That Minorities Have Inferior Genes:

In his new book Suicide of a Superpower, Buchanan cites The Atlantic article and the work of Charles Murray, who co-wrote The Bell Curve with Herrnstein. The Bell Curve argues that there's racial differences in intelligence. Buchanan wrote in his book.

It seems trying to mainstream Murray's ideas are nothing new for our corporate media or for The McLaughlin Group in particular. From FAIR back in Feb. 1995 -- Racism Resurgent - How Media Let The Bell Curve's Pseudo-Science Define the Agenda on Race:

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On this weekend's The McLaughlin Group on PBS, after host John McLaughlin asked his panel whether or not the Occupy Wall Street is going to have any impact on the upcoming presidential race next year and whether the movement is "transitory or enduring", Pat Buchanan responded by comparing the movement to the demonstrations we saw in the 1960's, proving once again that he still hasn't quit reliving his days from back in the Nixon White House.

BUCHANAN: It's going to be very damaging to the President for this reason if he gets too close to it because it’s going end very, very badly with these folks in the winter, and they’re not going to be getting publicity, they’re going to be acting up and acting badly, like the worst of the demonstrators in the 60's.

MCLAUGHLIN: You mean overnight camping? Things like that?

BUCHANAN: Well not just overnight camping. They’re going to start fighting with the cops.

Eleanor Clift followed up by noting that it was a Iraq veteran and not the police who was harmed during the Occupy Oakland protests and asked Buchanan which side he was going to blame for that. And both Clift and Page responded the they believe the group has staying power. As Page noted, they've already succeeded in changing the debate in America from deficit reduction, which is all you heard from these Villagers in the corporate media, to income disparity and the wealth gap, as demonstrated by the fact that they were even having that very conversation during this segment.

Buchanan and his ilk have been using the tactics of divide and conquer and fear for political gain in order to divide the working class against each other for decades now. I'm sure he's hoping they'll manage to do the same thing by demonizing the Occupy Wall Street movement as we've from him and his cohorts on Fox and in the right wing media ever since the movement started picking up steam and they could no longer ignore them completely.

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MSNBC isn't the only network that needs to hear from their viewers that Pat Buchanan ought to be taken off the air. Buchanan is also a regular guest on PBS's The McLaughlin Group and this week was no exception with Buchanan and the other panel members being asked to weigh in on whether President Obama is going to have any trouble being reelected because of his failure to get some sort of immigration reform passed.

After one of the other guests, Susan Ferrechio pointed out the obvious, that there was no way Obama was ever going to get any type of immigration reform past a Republican filibuster and wavering Conserva-Dems in the Senate, it didn't take Buchanan long to go on a little tirade here about amnesty and whether the children of illegal immigrants who were brought here at a young age should be allowed a path to citizenship.

Eleanor Clift rightfully pointed out that any backlash that President Obama might be facing is likely to be more than offset by the likes of Buchanan and his ilk who have been hammering on the issue of illegal immigration for political gain for some time now.

After Clarence Page pointed out that what really has the Hispanic community upset is the number of deportations that we've seen soar under the Obama administration, host McLaughlin asked why we're not talking about just what activities they're doing that are considered illegal and what they actually contribute to our society and said we should welcome them with our aging population here in the United States.

After McLaughlin asked if easing refinancing for homeowners would earn him any Hispanic support back, Buchanan responded:

BUCHANAN: No and the immigration should be cut John because we've got twenty five million unemployed and underemployed and you're bringing in workers? […] Send them home and tell them to file their papers and get in line!

MCLAUGHLIN: It would ruin the economy! It would depress it even more! They're at the top of their profession, some of them.

BUCHANAN: They're agricultural workers!

As Eleanor Clift rightfully pointed out following that remark, immigrants whether legal or illegal are not the ones destroying the economy and if anyone wants some proof of that, just look at what happened in Alabama where farmers had crops rotting off of their vines.

Buchanan is the last person the viewers on PBS or any other network need to be hearing from when it comes to the topics of immigration, racism, or minority rights in the United States. As Nicole wrote here, Color of Change is asking that everyone sign a petition to MSNBC to get Buchanan taken off the air there. If you'd like to send PBS the same message, you can find their contact information here.

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During a discussion on PBS's The McLaughlin Group where the panel of Tim Carney and Pat Buchanan on the right and weekly lonely representative of the left Eleanor Clift and someone that didn't belong there with her on the left side of the aisle as usual, billionaire Mort Zuckerman, I caught something unusual that we don't hear every day when Zuckerman is allowed on the air, and that's someone asking him just what he's worth.

John McLaughlin did just that during a discussion on President Obama campaigning on the co-called "Buffet rule" and asking millionaires and billionaires to start paying their fair share in taxes. Zuckerman really did not want to discuss just how much money he makes every year, but said he was more than happy to discuss Warren Buffett's finances if McLaughlin wanted to do so.

Zuckerman also resorted to the usual nonsense that we'd have actually gotten some meaningful "reform" on taxes done if President Obama had just gone to the Republicans in private and asked them kindly if they'd be willing to quit obstructing and trashing him in public on a weekly basis and kissed their rings to get some "bipartisan" cooperation on changing our tax code.

As Clift rightfully pointed out here, it's been obvious for a long time that they're not willing to work with him on anything, even when it's him embracing what were formerly their policies, so he's basically been left with no choice but to take his case to the voters for the next election.

Excuse me please if I share Clift's sentiments here that heaven forbid we hurt these poor rich people's feelings by asking them to think they should contribute to our society in America by some similar or greater percentages than the middle class and the poor are taxed right now.

Of course, Zuckerman claimed that he supports the rich, such as himself paying their fair share as well, but I'd be curious if anyone pushed him on the specifics of that support on just what those specifics would be just how well that claim actually holds up. Of course none of those specifics were asked for by McLaughlin here.

Zuckerman was a lot more interested in bashing the president for supposedly not trying to work with Republicans, when he has, and pretending like the Republicans in the Congress are ever going to work with him no matter what he does, and having a hissy fit about that supposed lack of cooperation during this segment.

How pathetic is it that we've got in the United States a network, PBS, that is trashed as being liberal by Republicans, when it's not and someone like a billionaire Mort Zuckerman allowed to supposedly represent the "left side of the aisle" of the political spectrum, instead of this show ever putting anyone that you could rightfully call a progressive on the air in one slot, much less two of them?

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Another week, another day for Eleanor Clift to get ganged up on as the lonely representative of the “left” on PBS's The McLaughlin Group. This week one of the topics was Gov. Rick Perry's statement during the GOP debate that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Naturally, Mort Zuckerman, Pat Buchanan and Rich Lowry all came to his defense.

ZUCKERMAN: Yes, well you know there was a cartoon in The New Yorker and somebody was asking Bernie Madoff, “What was your inspiration?” He said “Social Security.” I'm not making that up. Okay, so that's in fact what you have in Social Security is we all know, you have millions of people who are going to be beneficiaries over the next several decades, and the funding still isn't there. And nobody's being willing to address this, either by postponing the age at which you get it. So in one sense it is clearly a false basis for the financial structure of it.

After McLaughlin chimes in and claims the money is not going to be there for young people as well and who also calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme, then we get treated to Pat Buchanan with yet more fearmongering.

BUCHANAN: But John, there is no trust fund. They say, look at the trust fund out in Virginia, they borrowed it and spent it. There's an IOU out there. He's telling the honest, though, hard truth! Is is smart politically? Romney is stomping all over him for having said it.

After some back and forth over whether Perry made a political mistake with what he said, we get this from the National Review contributor and Sarah Palin fan-boy, Rich Lowry.

LOWRY: The Ponzi language is not what's most dangerous to him. If he goes into a general election saying it's a failure and unconstitutional, then it will be hard to defend. But no one believes in the financing of Social Security over the long term. But it is a mistake for Romney to take this on now.

Late in the segment, Eleanor Clift finally got a chance to weigh in and talked about lifting the cap on taxable income to shore up the funding and the difficulties those who do manual labor would have with increasing the retirement age. Of course they all had a good laugh when she mentioned, heaven forbid, any of them possibly having to pay more in taxes. Heaven forbid any of these overpaid rich white men should think they might have to participate in some “shared sacrifice.”

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While discussing the current crop of Republican presidential candidates being forced to run even further to the right because of the "tea party" demanding that they yield to their demands, John McLaughlin asks the Financial Times Richard McGregor "who looks the cleanest to you as far as tea party invulnerability is concerned.” McGregor points to Michele Bachmann as the likely candidate, but also points out that she’s the last candidate that any of them want to win the primaries.

To which Sarah Palin fan-boy Pat Buchanan responds:

BUCHANAN: She and Sarah Palin are both, uh, tremendously acceptable to the tea party, but they don’t pass yet the threshold of being seen as a president by the…

MCLAUGHLIN: Why?

BUCHANAN: Well because they just haven’t gotten there yet.

MCLAUGHLIN: Why?

Buchanan follows up with saying that they’ve yet to prove themselves in debates, like Ronald Reagan did, as if that’s ever going to happen. And McGregor and Eleanor Clift point out the obvious. McGregor says they’re not serious candidates and Clift asks just how much time it will ever take whether it’s Trump or any of the rest of them touting this birther nonsense to ever achieve that level where they’re taken seriously and says “I don’t see that coming.” Thanks for pointing out the obvious Eleanor.

When she also points out that these TeaBirchers might be able to win Congressional districts, but they’re not going to win a presidential election, the best that Buchanan and Monica Crowley can come up with in response is that they’re going to have to cater to that crowd to get through the primaries.

I think sadly they’re right and they are going to have to cater to that crowd, and so are Clift and McGregor in pointing out that it makes anyone who does unelectable. I’m just curious how if the winner ends up being someone who felt forced to move that far into wingnut land, how they attempt to bring themselves back where they don’t look like they're just full out birther conspiracy theory nuts.

This segment just served as a reminder of just how crazy the Republican presidential primary is going to be this year with their TeaBircher, Libertarian, birther wingnut base demanding the type of purity tests out of the candidates that were discussed here.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the fact as Steve Benen wrote about this weekend that the supposed “main stream” Republicans have basically decided that openly admitting that their party wants to increase unemployment and lower wages at the same time is somehow a good idea.

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After Eleanor Clift pointed out that there's no way Republicans want to see Sarah Palin nominated for president because she doesn't have a very good chance of winning, Pat Buchanan names her as his "Person of the Year" and thinks she's got the "polo position" for the GOP primary. Looks like Uncle Pat's going to stick with his grifter girlfriend until the bitter end when she claims the horrible meanies in the "lamestream media" unfairly forced her out of the race.

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From The McLaughlin Group, while discussing whether the Latino community will come out and vote during the mid-term elections or not, Pat Buchanan claims that "some of their leaders are saying don't come out". Eleanor Clift points out that it is ads by Republican groups that are telling them not to vote. She also rightfully points out that Republicans are in a lot worse shape with that voting bloc than the Dempocrats are.

And as usual the always "fair and balanced" McLaughlin had Mort Zuckerman on the show on the "left side" of the panel with Eleanor Clift, pretenting he's a liberal. So we got another week of Eleanor arguing with four wingnuts.

Here's more on the Republican voter suppression scheme Pat was trying to legitimize here. Republican 527 group urges Nevada Latinos not to vote:

Update: Following media coverage, Univision rejects ad discouraging Latinos to vote, ThinkProgress reports

After years of leading efforts to block immigration reform that does not involve severe criminal penalties, Republicans are looking for a new way to message the Latino community.

They may have found it in Nevada.

Attacking Democrats for failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform as promised, a Republican 527 group is running a television ad that urges Latinos not to vote.

Calling themselves "Latinos for Reform," the group is purchasing $80,000 worth of air time on the Spanish-language network Univision, which is already heavily invested in the Ya Es Hora get-out-the-vote campaign. Read on...