Gone Fishin’
Comments (0) Pat Buchanan is no more–at MSNBC–and Stanley Fish misses him. The left-leaning network dismissed the right-leaning commentator because, apparently, network president Phil Griffin “declared himself uncomfortable” having a man of Buchanan’s views in the mix. That’s too bad, Fish says. Buchanan offered a perspective on politics tempered by a been-there-done-that ability to put political events in their historical context.
Like Griffin, I sometimes felt uncomfortable with some of the views Buchanan expressed. Unlike Griffin, I would never have dismissed him from my network, if I owned a network. I could never put my finger on the reason why until Fish helped me.
My own disappointment at Buchanan’s departure goes in another direction — in fact in two. First, Buchanan is an extraordinarily acute observer of the political scene. His knowledge of past campaigns — including knowledge of what went on behind the scenes — is encyclopedic. No one is more skilled at contextualizing a present moment in our political drama so that viewers can understand the history informing a decision or action that appears on its surface to be inexplicable, even zany. When Buchanan offers that kind of analysis, his pugnacious junkyard-dog persona falls away and is replaced by a precision that is almost professorial. It is a pleasure to watch, just as it is a pleasure to watch some coaches-turned-analyst who can explain what is going on in an athletic contest because they have been there.
Buchanan has also been there. That is the second thing I will miss: the contributions of someone who is not only reporting on history in the making, but has been part of that history himself.
In today’s world of blow-dried, blond, and busty commentators, a world of college drop-out cum talking heads, I’ll miss Buchanan because his opinions are informed by more than his agenda, his appearance on TV a consequence of his knowledge rather than his looks.
Themocracy