Yesterday, during a discussion about the Congressional Black Caucus on MSNBC’s Tucker, radio talk show host Bill Press called long time political pundit and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan a “white supremacist.”
Buchanan’s long history of racism has been well documented by the media watchdog group FAIR. Here is a sampling:

- In his 1988 autobiography, “Right from the Beginning,” on race relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s: “There were no politics to polarize us then, to magnify every slight. The ‘negroes’ of Washington had their public schools, restaurants, bars, movie houses, playgrounds and churches; and we had ours.”

- In a 1990 column that attempted to justify apartheid in South Africa, he denounced the notion that “white rule of a black majority is inherently wrong. Where did we get that idea? The Founding Fathers did not believe this.”

- A 1989 column referred admiringly to the apartheid regime as the “Boer Republic”: “Why are Americans collaborating in a UN conspiracy to ruin her with sanctions?“

In an interview with Beliefnet.com, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee “clarified his view that the Constitution should be amended to be brought in line with God’s will — and he directly equated homosexuality with bestiality.”

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

At first glance, Huckabee’s argument sounds homophobic, on closer examination it betrays the former governor’s willingness to place his private religious creed above rational decision making– the very basis of a secular democracy– and a personal inability (or unwillingness) to make logical and rational distinctions within law.

As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick points out, polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality “are illegal because, [unlike gay marriage], they cause irreversible harms.”

…there are sound policy and health reasons to ban sex with animals…one can plausibly argue that there is a rational basis for states to ban polygamous and polyamorous marriages in which there has been historical evidence of an imbalance of power, coercion (particularly of young girls), and an enormous financial burden placed on the state. None of these arguments can be made against gay marriage.

Similarly, Andrew Sullivan highlights the importance of distinguishing between rational decision making and Huckabee-style hysteria.

The precise challenge for morally serious people is to make rational distinctions between what is arbitrary and what is essential in important social institutions…If you want to argue that a lifetime of loving, faithful commitment between two women is equivalent to incest or child abuse, then please argue it. It would make for fascinating reading. But spare us this bizarre point that no new line can be drawn in access to marriage–or else everything is up for grabs and, before we know where we are, men will be marrying their dogs. It is intellectually laughable.

Huckabee’s demeaning and intellectually dishonest answer trivializes, patronizes and demeans homosexual relationships and reveals that the governor is more than willing to insert his personal religious interpretation into government. More alarming still, is his inability to make the obvious distinctions between gay marriage (a union between two consenting adult men or two consenting adult women) and a union between “a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal.”

Because Huckabee is unable to make the kinds of rational distinctions necessary to govern America, he is unfit for office.

In his second inauguration address, President Bush committed the United States to spreading democracy and freedom throughout the world.

It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture…Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world: All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

And while Bush spoke of the importance of freedom in the Middle East during his recent eight-day tour of the region, he nevertheless excused political “oppressors” in a failed attempt to win greater backing for a Middle East peace deal and convince America’s Persian Gulf allies to isolate Iran. The president even awarded Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all of which received a “not free” or “partly free” rating from a recently released Freedom House report, with a $20 billion arms deal and avoided publicly criticizing the regimes’ poor political rights and civil liberties records.

But Bush saved the bulk of his admiration for Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, “an autocratic leader in power since late 1981.”

President Bush lavished praise on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on Wednesday, emphasizing the country’s role in regional security and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process while publicly avoiding mention of the government’s actions in jailing or exiling opposition leaders and its severe restrictions on opposition political activities.

Bush’s praise, like the arms deal, undermines his lofty inaugural rhetoric. According to the Freedom in the World 2008 Report, “Egypt received a downward trend arrow due to the security forces’ ruthless suppression of political dissent.”

President Hosni Mubarak postponed municipal elections, fearing a large showing by the Muslim Brotherhood, and extended the 25-year-old Emergency Law despite earlier pledges that it would be replaced with specific antiterrorism legislation. Security services ruthlessly suppressed dissent by political activists who protested the government’s reversals. Extremely limited reforms related to judicial independence and press freedom were enacted for the sole purpose of deflecting criticism and consolidating state control.

As Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh wrote of Bush’s rhetoric,  “Don’t plan a major democracy speech when you know you’re not going to act on it, with not even a symbolic move of any kind to accompany it. There’s a word for this kind of thing. It’s called hypocrisy.”

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is “using an image of his adopted daughter in a new campaign mailing” to highlight his conservative pro-life voting record ahead of the South Carolina primaries.

In a mailing showing up at homes Thursday, the Arizona senator’s wife, Cindy, is pictured holding a baby in a blanket as she walks with a woman from Mother Teresa’s orphanage.

“Cindy cradles little Bridget, a baby she and John adopted in 1993 from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh. Bridget has been a great blessing to the McCain family,” the mailing says. “Today, Cindy and John work together to promote adoption and to help women facing crisis pregnancies.”

But the flayer’s picture of “little Bridget” contradicts McCain’s bold assertions against using family members in political campaigns. In an interview last year, McCain argued that it’s “inappropriate for us [political candidates] to mention our children. I don’t want people to feel that, it’s just, I’d like them to have their own lives. I wouldn’t want to seem like I’m trying to gain some kind of advantage. I just feel that it’s a private thing.”