MSNBC Boss Hints Pat Buchanan's Been Banned (After Liberal Censors Demanded It)

January 9th, 2012 11:35 AM

Last October, liberal groups who want MSNBC to be "purified" of conservatives -- like Color of Change, the group that lobbied to get Glenn Beck removed from Fox News -- demanded a purge of Pat Buchanan from the MSNBC airwaves. In the past, MSNBC used Buchanan as a shield against the idea their network was going to be as hermetically sealed against conservatives as the old Olbermann show. Now, Buchanan's days at MSNBC "may be over," reports the New York Times.

Over the weekend, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin told Deadline Hollywood that Buchanan's views are toxic. “I don’t think the ideas that [Buchanan] put forth [in his latest book] are appropriate for the national dialogue, much less on MSNBC.” Griffin continued: "Pat’s a good guy. He didn’t like [being removed from the air], but he understood."


Griffin said much the same thing to Bill Carter at the New York Times:

“During the period of the book tour I asked him not to be on,” Mr. Griffin said. “Since then the issue has become the nature of some of the statements in the book.”

Mr. Buchanan argues in “Suicide of a Superpower” — which has the subtitle “Will America Survive to 2025?” — that the “European and Christian core of our country is shrinking,” which is damaging the nation “ethnically, culturally, morally, politically.” The book also contains a chapter titled, “The End of White America.”

Mr. Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.” The network has set out to brand itself as a network meant to appeal to progressive and liberal viewers.

The blog Inside Cable News sees a network out to please its liberal-activist base: "If you piss off MSNBC core demographic audiences and they start going ape, as Color of Change did over Buchanan, you may end up being taken off the network, whereas five years ago such a tactic probably would not have succeeded."