UPDATE: He's now officially off MSNBC, prompting this question: why couldn't conservatives keep Pat Buchanan on the air?

From this:

MSNBC's top executive said Saturday that he hasn't decided whether conservative commentator and author Pat Buchanan will be allowed back on the network.

Buchanan, a former GOP presidential candidate and a paid MSNBC contributor, hasn't been on the network since the publication of his book "Suicide of a Superpower" last October. The book has chapters titled "The End of White America" and "The Death of Christian America" and its author argues that the United States is in the "Indian summer of our civilization."

"When Pat was on his book tour, because of the content of the book, I didn't think it should be part of the national dialogue much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC," said MSNBC President Phil Griffin. The minority advocacy group Color of Change has circulated a petition urging MSNBC to fire Buchanan.

1. This is yet another in a long line of minor victories for the elites and yet another in a long line of minor losses for the vast majority of Americans, even those who've been trained to reflexively oppose Buchanan. Buchanan is one of the few people given a microphone who actually opposes massive and illegal immigration, something that most Americans oppose and something that has a highly negative impact on lower-wage Americans (including those trained to oppose him).

Buchanan is generally right on trade and globalism and about increasing U.S. manufacturing. Almost all others given a microphone are globalists in one way or another; Buchanan is one of the few nationalists to be found on television or in print. (Note that I'm not counting phony nationalists: the types who bedeck their hats with American flags made in China). It's unfortunate that his domestic economic ideas aren't more in line with where most Americans are, and some can have an honest disagreement with him on multiculturalism, but he's been consistently right about the impacts of a range of topics.

2. This is a minor victory for the elites: those who'd send U.S. manufacturing overseas, those who'd open the borders, and those who'd flood the U.S. with cheap Chinese products no matter the impacts on the vast majority of Americans. That includes elites from "both" sides: the Katrina vanden Heuvel types as well as the Freedomworks/libertarians types. For an example of the latter, here's Doug Mataconis ( peekURL.com/zeJzXwP ):

I can't say I'm sad to see Buchanan go. He didn't really bring anything interesting to the conversation, and he did not represent modern conservatism at all. Recently, we've seen MSNBC bring on pundits like Matt Lewis, S.E. Cupp (SE Cupp), and a host of people from National Review. Say what you might about them, but each one of them is better than Pat Buchanan.

"Represent[ing] modern conservatism"?? Who cares. What I want is someone who represents the interests of most Americans and the two named hacks aren't it. While some at National Review fall on the Americans side when it comes to Americans vs. Globalists, others don't.

3. This is a somewhat major victory for the anti-speech authoritarian far-left and one member of that class in particular: Van Jones of Color of Change. Jones is easy to discredit; see the link. And, doing that would have had an impact on his campaign: those who aren't credible tend to have less power than those who are.

4. This is yet another in a long line of indictments of those who should at least partly support Buchanan but don't or who do support him but won't do anything effective or anything at all. The Tea Parties movement could have kept Buchanan on the air and could have embraced his most popular issues. Instead, they take the actions extensively discussed at the link over dozens of posts, such as embracing fringe economic ideas that only serve the interests of the rich and which most Americans oppose. Teapartiers simply lack the smarts and sanity to be an effective counterweight to the elites and the far-left. They could have helped me discredit Jones (see his name's link), but that's simply beyond them. Instead, they support people like Mitch Daniels, someone who'd declare a "truce" on "social issues" and cede the field to the far-left on issues that don't have an immediate financial costs or payoff to the elites. Obviously, Teapartiers won't understand this point and try to change for the better. Instead, they'll do what they always do: flying into fits of lying and smearing. Ask them why they did nothing against Van Jones and nothing that would have kept Buchanan on the air.

1/10/12 UPDATE: Interpret it as you will, Buchanan now says he isn't off MSNBC, telling Hugh Hewitt this yesterday:

"Well, you know I've had some medical issues at the end of the year which were pretty problematic, and so I’ve sort of been out of speaking and things like that... I've started back writing the column in December, and I've got the column going. I'm doing McLaughlin Group. But we haven't gotten up on MSNBC... On Drudge Report, somebody said I've been suspended... I don't know anything about that. I hope to get back full up here in January, but I've been out for a couple of months."