Pat Buchanan: Post Mortem…

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter writes about Pat Buchanan’s ouster from MSNBC…

Though Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, denied that the channel’s political identity was a consideration in the breakup, he said last week, “I want MSNBC to reflect America in the 21st century, not the America of the 1940s.”

As cable news channels like MSNBC and Fox News Channel have grown highly politicized, they have become arbiters of the bounds of acceptable discourse — not always a comfortable role for those involved. A corporate allergy to controversy sometimes exists, even though controversy is what sometimes motivates channels to hire commentators and compels people to watch.

Timothy Stanley, a British historian whose biography of Mr. Buchanan, “The Crusader,” was released two weeks ago, said he thought the departure was a “marketing decision” by MSNBC, a unit of Comcast. “They took an opportunity to get rid of someone who was doing damage to their liberal brand.”