Of Baldwin and Buchanan

The other day I commented, with no particular druthers, on MSNBC's firing of Alec Baldwin. The man's habitual foul slanders were destined to doom the guy's network career, so his termination came as less a surprise than a kind of inexorable fulfillment. Although I didn't much care at the time that MSNBC had sacked Baldwin, I've pondered his firing since, and have vaguely decided--due to one particular--that I was wrong.

Because, at the risk of pulling an Emersonian, hobgobliny consistency, I recalled that I had protested Pat Buchanan's firing by the same network, due to Buchanan's rather steady revelations that he was at least mildly neo-fascistic and, indeed, morbidly xenophobic. Yet I was able to both overlook Buchanan's diseased personal politics and dismiss his narrow stupidities, since, in my opinion, his even older-school abilities at plying disinterested political analysis more than compensated for his episodic paranoia and gleeful authoritarianism.

In the world of cable-network commentary, Buchanan stood virtually alone in his capacity for damning his side and praising the other, assuming such damnation or praise was objectively warranted in the study of tactics. I have come to cringe at the predictability and abject partisan slavishness of network commentators, especially those from my own side. But Buchanan, with all his flaws--and it's undeniable that they ran deep--could stand back from it all and deliver with that old Nixonian steeliness an impersonal reading.

I miss that. And at the time of his firing I protested his dismissal. Yet how in good conscience can I believe that that protest was fair, but also accept as fair the sacking of Baldwin for transgressions no worse than Buchanan's? A studied neo-fascism and explicit ethnic prejudices balanced against a hot-tempered fool's foul mouth?   

Andrew Sullivan wrote after Baldwin's firing "that explicitly homophobic slurs directed at actual human beings as a way to degrade them doesn’t have a 'but-he’s-a-liberal' exception." I quite agree. He added, "It’s ugly and would not be tolerated if directed against any other minority group," thus "MSNBC did the right thing." 

It's here we enter a very gray area, for while MSNBC perhaps "did the right thing" in firing Baldwin--I remain open to persuasion on this--Sullivan also believed, as I did at the time, that Buchanan's firing was misguided. Observed Sullivan: "That his ideas are often repelling should precisely be why he should stay on MSNBC."

Again, I agree, or rather, agreed. And that's a problem.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

This is a difficult issue. When does tolerance imply endorsement and when does it not? Even the most devout believer in the concept of free speech (and I count myself among them) must believe that there are consequences that the speaker must bear. To this we must add the problem of the mote and the beam. There is no limit I can impose on the right with regard to what is acceptable speech without recognizing limits on the left. Buchanan was banished when he stepped over the line and so was Baldwin. But I have to say that Baldwin was an extremely poor choice of voice for a progressive view as MSNBC clearly intended his role. That was something he just could not do after opening his mouth as he did.

[Mark C]

Sullivan supported Baldwin;s firing not only because he is gay, but he is a gay who thinks it's still the 80's and everyone from the President on down is out persecuting him personally. Buchanan probably hates gays but never publicized the fact. That's it. It's all about Sullivan and his tender feelings; facts and principle have no place in the discussion.

[Marcus]

What the hell?