by Thomas Keister

With the political circus in full swing over President Obama's nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, I found it much easier to simply avoid the punditry on cable than hear a hundred talking heads split right down the middle using the same three or four talking points. Wise move on my part. So far, it's boiled down to experience, opposition to military recruiters on Harvard's campus, and some kind of nonsense about lesbianism somehow being tied to softball. Here I was, thinking the height of foolishness had been the pubic hair on the can of Coke.

Thankfully, whenever there seems to be a lack of foolishness, Pat Buchanan is right there, yelling for it to get back on his lawn, right next to the lawn jockey.

I have, for years, unsuccessfully tried to figure out why MSNBC continues to give America's racist grandpa airtime to do anything other than dramatically clutch his chest and topple from his chair. Even Rachel Maddow seems to be powerless to act any way other than happy when "Uncle Pat" is in the same frame. For a woman with a Ph.D., that is just a bit disappointing.

In Buchanan's latest show of proof he either needs stronger pills, or a tripling of the current dosage, in his syndicated column for World Net Daily last Thursday he bemoans the idea that, should Kagan be confirmed, there will be three Jews on the Supreme Court. Buchanan panics that "If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than two percent of the U.S. population, will have thirty-three percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats' idea of diversity?"

Pat Buchanan talking about diversity is like Tiger Woods talking about preserving fidelity in one's marriage. Both men are big on their particular concepts now, yet both secretly yearn for simpler days, when the situations were more to their liking. Granted, I doubt Tiger wishes it was 1955 like Pat does, but the logic is still sound.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Pat Buchanan's scared of a world in which the white Protestants and Catholics are victimized by liberal bias, a world in which, gasp, Catholics only hold six of the nine seats on the Supreme Court. The horror. "Not in living memory," Buchanan swoons, "has a Democratic president nominated an Irish, Italian, or Polish Catholic." And yet, through it all, the Catholics find themselves with six justices. It would be nothing short of inspirational that the Catholics have risen above such obstacles, except for the plain fact that Pat Buchanan does not have a clue what the hell he is talking about. This guy probably still expects Clarence Thomas to park his car for him when he visits the high court.

Debating experience? I always like to say if it were for experience, man would never have walked on the moon. When it comes down to experience for a Supreme Court justice, I would rather take the candidate who's never been a judge, but can at least tell the difference between receiving an email and receiving a page. Who the blue hell even uses a pager anymore?

Debating the presence of military recruiters on Ivy League campuses? I'm not arguing against serving one's country, or recruiting others to do the same, but I do have a problem with those same recruiters trying to convince someone gaining that level of education to go take a chance on getting blown up for $14k a year while propping up the Afghan opium industry. Come to think of it, I have a problem with recruiting for that mission on any campus, college or otherwise.

Debating lesbianism and softball? Not sure where to tell you to go for that. The RNC may have some ideas, but I couldn't even begin to tell you how much a softball game in S&M gear would run your checkbook.

Debating diversity? That's all well and good, unless you are debating with a fine print kind of guy like Pat Buchanan, whose ideal Supreme Court would have a sign on the front reading "Jews need not apply."

Now, if someone could just figure out how to get Pat to retire to Boca...