I commented on the Maddow/Buchanan 'heated discussion' in an earlier post saying that I hope Pat Buchanan keeps talking. I hear the cries from the Left to have Buchanan permanently removed from MSNBC, but I think this thinking is wrong, because many of our fellow citizens agree with Buchanan and subscribe to his views.
And then, there are those among us who struggle with the validity of these viewpoints, get lost and tangled, mired even in the emotional content and are unable to ascertain truth from fiction. Worse yet, we assume were given facts when we were actually fed a large dose of distortion, or pure fiction.
I have counted myself in that group in the past. I have wanted to know and understand what the facts are, but because of limited brain power, time, energy, as well as other priorities, television news analysis was where I went to distill the facts for me, and what I came away with for the most part in the past was a deepening confusion. There are still people out there who look to this analysis in order to draw conclusions and decide where they stand, and I suspect that there always will be.
These views cannot be challenged unless they are aired. It is the way we challenge opposing viewpoints in the public forum that has concerned me in the past. I believe Jon Stewart has also been disturbed and disgruntled about this too. Oh and yeah, that guy... um if I remember his name correctly. What was it? Oh yeah. Barack Obama!
Rachel Maddow does an efficient and effective job of debunking Pat Buchanan's statements without attacking the man himself. Rachel's style and presentation of fact is reasoned and reasonable, and although she may not be everyone's cup of tea, she is an important and valuable voice in the conversation.
Pat Buchanan and others should be afforded time to keep talking on MSNBC, and any other news source in my opinion. The focus of the opposing viewpoint should always be on finding and developing people with the ability to take on those opposing viewpoints with facts, um, kind of just like Rachel Maddow does in this video.
Just my opinion. That's all I got.
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