"They had wounded an adversary and drawn blood -- without pausing to ask how so talented a young man could have found himself in such a mess."

Do you have any other questions I might be able to help with, Ms. Buchanan?

If you haven't yet done so, I recommend reading Ms. Buchanan's entire post. It's charming to read her concern (even empathy) for her employee's depression.

It would have been even more charming if her brother Pat had shown this level of concern back in 1972 when Thomas Eagleton was running for Vice President and his treatment for depression surfaced.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 12/28/2008:

Rumors of Eagleton's psychiatric treatment long had been whispered about in Missouri political circles. On the night of the nomination, a Time magazine reporter approached an Eagleton aide on the convention floor and mentioned rumors of the hospitalizations.

"It was obvious to me that a number of fishing expeditions had started, but it was not possible to know how many or how intense they would be," Filippine wrote in an internal campaign memo.

If the FBI was spreading the rumor, they weren't the only ones.

Five days after the nomination, a Nixon supporter from St. Louis wrote a letter to Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, that alleged Eagleton had been in and out of a St. Louis mental hospital.

The letter, from Sam Krupnick, owner of a Clatyon-based advertising firm and Jewish community leader who died in 1991, made its way to Pat Buchanan, then a Nixon aide. Buchanan forwarded it to Charles Colson, then Nixon's chief counsel. Buchanan, now a political commentator, wanted to investigate the information and meet to discuss the timing of its release.

"Perhaps it should come rolling out, in the fall or in October," Buchanan wrote.

Colson, who later would be implicated in the Watergate scandal, responded: "No need to worry about it; I've already taken care of it."

http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2009/01/thomas-eagletons-fbi-file-offers.html

What happened next was a modern day lynching by a faceless, angry, ignorant mob who reveled in the collective assault on their victim.

Lynched? - bloggers dragged him through the streets, stripped him, and then hung him from a tree, setting him afire before he was dead? Maybe castrated him for good measure? OK, well that IS news!

Bay - You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

So much IOKIYAR goodness here:

(1) Violence motivated by racism - IOKIYAR. If the most disingenuous reading of one's judicial record gives a hint of racial bias - not OK.

(2) Empathizing with a racist - IOKIYAR. Empathizing with people get screwed by the law - no OK.

.... who wants to tack on 3, 4, 5?

man, that buchanan household must have been some emotional shithole when they were children.

Please God!, Please, please, please put her in front of a TV camera and get her to explain why she thinks that Judge Sotomayor is a bigot, but Marcus Epstein is not.

Bay displays quite a bit of empathy for Mr. Epstein (why do I keep think about "Welcome Back, Kotter" every time I see his name?), which is laudable. It's important to understand the reasons behind a person's actions, and to see the context behind what people do and say:

In his final semester of college Marcus awoke in a deep depression. He had no idea what was happening to him. He only knew he couldn’t do his work. Some days he couldn’t get out of bed. That summer he began the long process of diagnosis -- bouncing from one doctor to the next, from one medicine to the next.

While his intelligence and ability were evident, Marcus had serious problems. He drank to excess and suffered periods of deep depression. One Sunday early in 2007 Marcus called and asked if he could come to my home to talk. He was afraid of what he might do if he were alone another minute.

As he sat in my living room my heart broke. Never had I seen a person in so deep and dark a place. He spoke for hours of being a failure and disappointment to family and friends. He didn’t think he could live in this tomb of despair any longer.

After exhausting himself emotionally he went to one of my spare bedrooms to sleep. He stayed several months and left only when he felt he was strong enough to be on his own again. But the demons were too great.

Of course, empathy can only take you so far:

Imagine if Justice Roberts had delivered a speech entitled “A Male Anglo-Saxon Judge’s Voice” in which he said: “I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latino (or Black) woman who hasn’t lived that life.” The Left would have screamed “Racist!” from the roof tops until Roberts’ name was pulled from consideration.

And what is all this nonsense about “the richness of her experience.” This lady was born in the Big Apple, went to Blessed Sacrament grade school (the Buchanans went to the DC version), Cardinal Spellman high school, Princeton University and Yale Law School. That’s a Catholic education, followed by the Ivies. She’s a member of the elite, for goodness sake. So let’s cut the “compelling story” crap.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32075

After all, one person's "compelling story" is another person's "anti-white male racists who support a radical agenda of massive illegal immigration, reverse discrimination and gun control."

hmm so the facts aren't disputed? Well he gets what's coming then. Maybe he'll become a hero for the right!

After exhausting himself emotionally he went to one of my spare bedrooms to sleep. He stayed several months...

But he only came to say he must be going.

Well I'll give Marcus Epstein this, if you want to turn a slight propensity for self-pity into a full fledged socio-pathy, heavy drinking is the way to go. I wonder how big a dent he put in the Buchanan cellars before he felt strong enough to leave.

I saw the word "lynching" and thought that Buchanan was complaining about the man in Philly who was beaten to death this week after being identified as a "person of interest".

Silly me. Clearly "lynching" means "people saying mean things".

The only reason Bay Buchanan can call Epstein's treatment as 'lynching' because she's never known anybody who has been lynched.

I wish someone would send her some of the photos of lynched blackmen hanging from a tree while the men who lynched him pose with their families as if this was some church picnic.

Perhaps some blacks could ACTUALLY lynch Epstein so Bay Buchanan would learn what a lynching really is.

Is she by any chance related to Michelle Backman or maybe Liz 'Edipus Schmedipus, I still love ya dad' Cheney? Or do they just get their logic out of the same bag?

Who better to judge a lynching than the Buchanans and their right wing cohort.

Wait, wait - you're telling me that Buchanan's calling for lenience based on Epstein's personal problems? Isn't that kind of touchy-feely, you-have-to-understand-where-criminals-are-coming-from, bleeding-heart-liberal stuff despised by these lawnorder paleocons? Aren't they the ones who are supposed to be all "Objective justice! Throw the book at these young punks and muggers, don't coddle them!" not the other way round?

Oh wait, I forgot - it all depends on whether or not you belong to the Party! Moral relativism FTW!

(Full disclosure: in a benighted past I voted for Pat, because I was a brainwashed prolifer and friends of the family were working on his campaign. I got better.)

The most galling thing in Buchanan's piece is the reference to how we all deserve second chances. If she could really digest the implications of that, 90% of her social attitudes would fall from her like scales.

But this part is just an insane blend of half-formed thoughts & feelings:

Marcus is half Jewish, and half Korean. He has a pronounced speech impediment, an exceptional mind, and a remarkable talent for writing. But it was only after this incident that I came to fully appreciate his finest qualities.

Because, you know, IOKIYAKJDWASIARTFW (Korean-Jewish dude with a speech impediment & remarkable talent for writing).

Along with her brother, Pat, one has to wonder about their childhood upbringing. Rotten fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, I guess.

Brother Pat claimed Trent Lott was being "lynched" for his pro-segregation comments a few years back.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29975

So why did Epstein do this? Was he attacked first? I can't imagine he just walked up to the first black person he saw and karate chopped them. Either way, Buchanan and Tancredo's keeping him on is quite telling.

Isn't the attitude Bay is suggesting we take toward poor Marcus' problems properly termed "empathy?" That we should consider his criminal behavior in the context of his difficulties? Hasn't there been a tremendous GOP brouhaha about how bad and wrong an approach this is? Just recently??

Shorter Bay: I'd better get out and do some damage control, because this is making _me_ look bad.

Once a Pug is in this position, you can fully expect insane inversions like "racist was lynched" along the general lines of "victimizer was actually victimized." You will not be disappointed.

The hypocrisy is just breathtaking to behold.

It is 2009 and STILL cons don't get how INSENSITIVE they are or how to show respect to groups of people that are NOT white southeners.

Bay is a crazy, sick b*&ch liker her brother Pat Bucanan.

Get ready to vomit.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/republicans_and_battered_spous.html

If you think Bay's mewling self-pity was bad, how about the GOP as analog to a battered spouse?

Bay is just resentful that she and her friends can't get away with real lynching anymore because it was a perfectly innocent way for them to let off a little steam. No big deal, really, no worse than being written about on a blog.

Will somebody at the networks that keep allowing Pat and Bay Buchanan on the various shows, please require them to first change into their KKK Outfits that they keep leaving at home before they can utter one word on the show?

It is so obvious what these two people are, it's pathetic!

Well, in Bay's defense, if it was uncovered somehow that Sotomayor had been accused of Karate chopping a white person on the street while simultaneously screaming 'Cracker!!!', she (and her political ilk) would be the first one's charging to her defense to claim what a promising, decent person she was, and how raw of a deal she was getting from people who otherwise don't know her.

while i'm sure that the karate chopping racist is little more than a puppet for the buchanans and tancredo, the fact is that as Executive Director he isn't merely 'on staff' as you say brian. you wouldn't say that the chairman of the board of a corporation kept their CEO 'on staff', you'd say they kept him at the helm. indeed this karate chopping bigot is in fact the chief executive officer charged with running tancredo's PAC and the buchanans' xenophobic nonprofit. as executive director he would report to the board but any staff would report to him.

I despise Pat & now know it's a family trait. Oh, & a party trait still for the party of Lincoln. Waking up & smelling the new millenium would be a great starting point for the last of the racist bigot crowd.
I say it again "how do they sleep at night"?

Actually, I think Bay shows some laudable empathy for the guy. What's intersting is that the empathy of the wingnuts is only limited to each other. They are always capable of excusing each others' worst faults, from Bill Bennett's $5000 slot machine habit, to Newt's infidelity, to this kid's alcohol-fueled racism.

Also, I'd bet anything that he lied to UVA about his criminal record when applying. They would not have withdrawn their admission so quickly had they known about it. If he had been truthful, and they had admitted him knowing about his hate crime, he could now sue them for withdrawing their admission without cause.

The criticism of the more responsible liberal bloggers is of Buchanan and others who continued to employ Epstein and who tried to cover up his actions. Buchanan is attempting to deflect this by making the discussion about Epstein's mental illness.

I certainly hope TPM changes the page on Monday, the one with Bay Buchanan on it. I am sick of looking at her and being reminded of her ugly remarks. What is it with her and Pat Buchanan, in fact with that family?

Actually it seems normal to me that anyone who uses the "N" word would be severely ostracized and put down on the net. But no surprise that Bay would not get this. She and her brother both seem like closet racists and they may well feel smut talk about blacks in not a method of inciting more persecution and incitement of serious treatment of blacks. Actually, it clearly is and besides being hateful, it is totally ungodly. Amazing that Bay seems to condone it.