Oh, Those Fabian Socialists at MSNBC

I was initially going to write this about Rachel Maddow (I’ll get to her presently). But then Pat Buchanan opened his mouth. And he kept on talking, kind of like the chicken lady in Nevada who wouldn’t shut up, so Keith kept on mocking her. It says right there under Pat’s name, wherever he pops up ‘at another network’ to spout his Teabagger credo of the ‘old angry white male’s last stand’: MSNBC contributor. Or, worse, just plain MSNBC.

Anyway, Pat’s been complaining loudly that with Elena Kagan’s appointment to the Supreme Court and prospective confirmation, there will be too many Jews on the Court. Seriously. I’m not quite sure whether he’s a dark horse water carrier for Jeff Beauregard Sessions, Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose own appointment as a disctrict court judge was denied for making racist and pro-KKK statements. According to Buchanan-chanelling-Sessions (and vice versa):

“If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?”

Buchanan’s bizarre contention is that it’s been nearly half-a-century since the Democrats have nominated a white Protestant or white Catholic man or woman. Well, by my count, once Kagan is seated, the Court will have three Jews and six Catholics, one Yankees fan, one Mets fan, one Puerto Rican, three women, seven white men, one Latina, two Italians, one African American, and at least one bigot. I count, conservatively, 27 Justices.

Brilliant! Buchanan is arguing that Democrats should attempt what they feared Lincoln would do and what FDR tried to do but failed: Pack the Court with liberal Justices! Expanding the roster to 27 will give us loads of 15-12 decisions, with three Justices to spare. No more 5-4 cliffhangers. Plus, with 18 open slots, the Court will more accurately reflect our nation’s liberal, multicultural and religious diversity.

It was a Teabagger who called the folks at MSNBC “Fabian socialists.” Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator from Vermont and proud socialist, might have thought so too until Rachel Maddow phoned his office to apologize profusely for calling him “Bernie” during an interview. Bernie said, “Rachel that’s fine, everybody calls me Bernie.” Still anguished, Rachel made a point of reminding us that she’d called him “Bernie” when it hadn’t even registered. And I’m scratching my head and thinking, “Rachel, Rachel. This is BERNIE you’re talking to. We ALL call him BERNIE. It’s a term of endearment, first and foremost, but second, HE’S A FRIGGIN’ SOCIALIST!”

Hello, anybody home? If you’re having such ridiculous conflicts, girl, you might as well go back to Oxford for some re-education; or is it that you can take the socialist out of Oxford, but you can’t take Oxford out of the socialist? This is America, Rachel. The Constitution says we have the right to call our senators Bernie or rascal, if we like. I’ve never known a socialist to stand on ceremony, but then the Fabian Society and Oxford might be a different thing.

Has Rachel lost some of her mojo? There was that bizarre promo where she talked about being fair to people (I kept waiting for the other shoe –- ‘and balanced’ –- to drop), embracing our “common humanity.” At this point it was really barf bag pukesville. This might be OK for Tamron ‘desperately seeking David Schuster’ Hall, who can’t get her Congressmen straight and never met a racist ‘Son of the Confederacy’ she didn’t roll over for, but Rachel? If this was a plaintive plea for the dregs of humanity you expose on your show to come on and chat with you, it won’t work, Rachel. You don’t do Larry King, and in case you haven’t noticed, politics is a bruising contact sport.

Then, talking to the Nation’s Chris Hayes, Rachel made a serious point about possible schisms in the Republican Party by incredulously elevating Glenn Beck to leader of a libertarian faction. I know, libertarians are peeps too (Dylan Ratigan), but Rachel, Glenn Beck is a lunatic. He is insane. He never graduated college. He studies phantom fascist symbology in public buildings erected by John Rockefeller. He snorted enough coke ($300,000 worth) to permanently scramble his brains and land him a gig on Fox. He is not a well man. And of course, there’s the obligatory ‘Nazi’ thing (‘that’s not me saying it,’ she hastens to add) –- as I picture Rachel doing the two-fisted, two-fingered ‘quote/quote’ John McCain made famous.

But these are minor quibbles; I’m just funnin’ Rachel, whom we all love. Almost all of us, anyway. Maybe that’s the problem. Has anyone at MSNBC noticed a change in Rachel since her People Magazine spread? I mean, it’s the ultimate human interest, celebrity, touchy-feely, embrace our common humanity, puff and pomp pop culture mag. I’m just sayin’ … When she first started out on the ‘TV machine,’ Rachel kept Kent Jones around to give her just enough pop culture to let her out of the house without embarrassment. Now, it seems, Rachel has embraced the pop. I hope that magazine checkout at the supermarket didn’t give Rachel a goody two-shoes, we-are-all-family epiphany. I’m just sayin’.

Now Rachel’s advertising something called ‘Geek week.’ At first I thought Rachel was going on vacation for a week and handing off the show to Chris Hayes. We’ll see. I hope the network’s not going ‘CNN’, what with Rachel’s strange behavior, the CNN clone who replaced Schuster (David is one of the best informed, toughest interviewers in the business, replaced by a ‘side A/side B, we report you decide’ CNN type), and Ratigan, who must be burning a hole in the ratings up against a center-right Cubano. Between two righties, the viewers will opt for the Latino with the fun tweets and the personable manner. Hell, even I tweeted him.

But we’ve still got Keith, and Ed, and Chris too. Or, as Pat Buchanan likes to say, “You used to be Goldwater Youth. What happened?” Here’s a suggestion for the management suits at MSNBC. First, don’t do CNN. Please. Have you checked their ratings lately? Second, bring Schuster back. Your viewers like smart, informed people who ask incisive questions. And we don’t mean just Andrea Mitchell. Third, move Ratigan to 5 am, or some ungodly hour favored by the Atlas Shrugged crowd where he can hang out with his pals Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Marsha Blackburn, et al while trading wet dream fantasies about small government without Social Security or Medicare, but with vouchers and tax credits, and deregulation to unleash free enterprise’s magic sort of like Bush-Cheney did for the Gulf rig operators, only this time it’s John Galt at the helm, not Tony Hayward, so everything turns out just fine.

Why does the same right wing crowd get the economy shows and where is Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s perspective? Note to MSNBC suits: Give Ratigan’s slot to Contessa Brewer. Let her have free rein. I’ll betcha Contessa gives Rick Sanchez a tweetin’ run for his money.