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Chris Matthews, who has rarely agreed with Pat Buchanan on anything politically, closed his program Friday night with a tribute to his former colleague who was fired from MSNBC last week.
Matthews: Let me finish tonight with Pat Buchanan. He’s leaving the network, and won’t be working with us from now on. I miss him already. We’ve had drag down fights, right here on this set and I’ve said things that drive him up a wall, and he’s said things that have driven me up a wall. We’ve done it here, in all, in a pretty good spirit most of the time, and have managed to be friendly and friends throughout it all. And obviously I’m going to miss his cheerful fun loving, irascible presence around here.
Matthews then went on to describe his view of the two sides of Buchanan. The first is “highly and wonderfully positive” and the other is “the one that gets him into trouble.” He then praised Buchanan for his fierce loyalty to his friends, citing his testimony in defense of President Richard Nixon during the Watergate hearings, when, as Matthews puts it, “so many others were running for the tree line.”
High praise from Matthews, but he wasn’t finished honoring his former colleague.
Matthews: Name another public figure who has built his public career on being a stalwart loyalist to Richard Nixon. Loyalty is the heart of Pat’s being. He is loyal to country, to church, to neighborhood, to heritage. To Pat the world can never be better than the one he grew up in as a young boy, Blessed Sacrament Church and grade school, Gonzaga High school, Georgetown University. No country will ever be better than the United States of America of the early 1950’s. It’s his deep loyalty to preserving that reality and all its cultural and ethnic aspects that has been his primal purpose and is what has gotten him into trouble, not just now but over the years.
He then showed a clip of the 1992 Republican convention where Buchanan told the delegates that it was time to take back our country, which signaled the beginning of the culture war that also helped define Buchanan for the last 20 years.
While Matthews didn’t specifically mention why Buchanan was fired by MSNBC after 10 years, he concluded his show by saying that for both personal and professional reasons he will miss him, and signaled to the network that he was one liberal who wasn’t in agreement with the decision to let Pat go.
By firing Buchanan MSNBC lost one of its few conservative voices, which only underscored the double standard that exists for conservatives at the network. Even a liberal like Matthews can see that.
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About the author
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.
3 Comments for Matthews: “I Miss Buchanan”
There were quite a few people who defended Nixon. Yes, he lied, but his lie was to protect those who served him. He admitted what they did was wrong, but my father said he would have worked for him anytime, anywhere. He could have sold his people down the river, but instead protected them.
On the day Nixon resigned, his helicopter flew over our house. My dad apparently knew the time, and came home from work for the event. I was an obnoxious middle school kid, but it was one of those times, as a kid, when you knew you did not dare argue. We got dressed up and stood in the back yard and waived. My whole neighborhood did; even those who hated him did Nixon did so.
I am a conservative, and I have not always agreed with Pat Buchanan. However, I never doubted his heart, his sincerity, and his ability to articulate the views held by a particular segment of Americana. You can disagree with the view, but his view is one that is held by a substantial number of Americans; perhaps not the majority, but still no small number. You can fire the man in the hopes that the view goes away, but I fear in doing so, you give the view a revolutionary veneer. And the left has made being a “revolutionary” rather cool.
In my humble view, action on the part of NBC have given Buchanan’s conservative views a new platform. They don’t see it yet, but they will. The right is no longer silent. Thank you Chris Mathews for having some shred of decency.
At least “PJB” spoke from his gut, and mind. No walks on water…except GOD. But “Pat” did all he could to share light to many dark, troubling and hidden issues that exist in America today. “Americans” must continue to strive to do the right thing for the rest of the world …who look at us for direction. “PJB”, in his effort tried to hard. AND I hope he continues – somewhere/sometime soon.
Buchanan is one of the VERY few “conservatives” who are reasonable, rational and realistic … and who do not make their hay, a la the rightwingnut radio rockheads, by doing nothing but besmirching others on a personal level. He apparently neveer bought into lowlife Gingrich’s “Politics of Personal Destruction”.
As someone who once appreciated traditionalist Republicans … I’ll miss Buchanan’s analysis and commentary. And … if he moves over to Fox … the experience will change him … turning him to little more than just another dittohead.