As Steve mentioned in GMN, last night, with regard to the Bush tax cuts, Pat Buchanan told Al Sharpton, "let me tell you, your boy, Barack Obama, caved in on it in 2010 and he’ll cave in on it again.” He then almost immediately apologized for calling Barack Obama anyone's "boy." Here's the offense and the apology in one handy video, via Politico:


Was Pat Buchanan really intent on making an ethnic slur on live television? No, I don't think so. Jesus Christ, look at him! The man is a shambling mound of rotten meat and Brylcreem. If he ever stopped talking, he would deflate into a puddle. (I saw Buchanan once, in real life; he's the closest thing to a zombie that I've ever seen with my own eyes.) When your job is saying stupid things at cameras all the time and you're as old as the inexorable march of time itself, you're going to fuck up every once in a while.

Granted, this was a bad mistake and I'm glad he apologized. But if you were to create a computer program that assembled words at random a million times a minute, I guarantee you some of those words would be offensive, too. This wasn't a malicious act on Buchanan's part. If it's anyone's fault, I'd blame MSNBC for giving this roving windbag and professional inexpert a platform to blather for what feels like 24 hours a day.