Earlier today we noted Pat Buchanan's complaint that with Elena Kagan's confirmation, the Supreme Court would have too many Jewish members.

A commenter on the post looked a little deeper at the religious background of ALL Supreme Court Justices to show how ridiculous Buchanan's column was on its face:

Overall, Jews represent 6.4% of ALL SCOTUS justices over the years (7 Jews have sat on the bench, total). By contrast, over 32% of justices have been Episcopalians, when only 1.7% of the country is within that religion.

The comment is accurate according to this breakdown of Justices by their faith.

So why hasn't Buchanan been complaining about the severe overrepresentation of Episcopalians and Presbyterians on the bench? They account for 50 percent of all Justices and only 4.5 percent of the U.S. population. Certainly that would enrage someone like Buchanan, right?

Of course not.

With Buchanan this has nothing to do with diversity on the bench. This is all about Kagan's faith. As Media Matters' Jamison Foser wrote last June:

Buchanan has called Adolf Hitler an “individual of great courage.” He also questioned whether World War II was “worth it” and wondered, "[W]hy destroy Hitler?" That wasn't 40 years ago; that was just four years ago. Just last year, he wrote that the Holocaust happened not because of Hitler, but because of Churchill.

That actually may demonstrate a hint of progress for Buchanan: At least he acknowledged the Holocaust did happen. In the past, he has peddled bizarre Holocaust denial claims, and as recently as two months ago, compared suspected Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk to Jesus Christ.

Defending an accused Nazi war criminal is one thing. Relying on the discredited arguments of Holocaust deniers in order to do so is quite another. And that's exactly what Buchanan has done.

In a 1990 column defending Demjanjuk, Buchanan wrote: “Reportedly, half of the 20,000 survivor testimonies in Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem are considered 'unreliable' ” because of “Holocaust Survivor Syndrome,” which involves “group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics.” Buchanan didn't say who “reported” this claim, which would fit in nicely in the most extreme Holocaust denial literature. Nor did he identify a source for his claim that Jews could not have been killed at Treblinka because "[d]iesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody," a claim he purported to prove by noting that, in 1988, “97 kids, trapped 400 feet underground in a Washington, DC tunnel while two locomotives spewed diesel exhaust into the car, emerged unharmed after 45 minutes.” Buchanan later refused to tell journalist Jacob Weisberg where he got that anecdote, saying only, “Somebody sent it to me.” Evidence strongly suggests the claim came from a Holocaust denial newsletter. Regardless of where Buchanan got his theories about diesel engines, the mass graves at Treblinka are rather more persuasive.

Buchanan's bizarre comments about Nazis and the Holocaust kicked into high gear during his time as a columnist, but his questionable approach to the subject began earlier. As an aide to President Reagan, Buchanan successfully urged his boss to visit Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where Nazi troops are buried. Buchanan was reportedly responsible for Reagan's statement that the SS troops buried there were “victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.”

Buchanan's ability to identify real victims certainly hasn't improved. In 2007, after Don Imus was fired for his “nappy-headed hos” comment, Buchanan defended him as “more a victim of hatred than a perpetrator of hatred.”

As a Nixon aide, Buchanan supported the nomination of Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. Four years ago, he complained that Carswell's nomination failed because the nominee was “smeared” as a racist. Smeared? Really? Carswell gave a speech in which he boasted, “I believe that segregation of the races is proper ... and the only practical and correct way of life in our states. I yield to no man in the firm, vigorous belief in the principles of white supremacy and I shall always be so governed.”

That's who Pat Buchanan defends: suspected Nazi war criminals and self-proclaimed white supremacists.

No wonder he's such a popular guest on “pro-White” radio shows that are streamed live on “White Nationalist” websites. And again: That's not something he did 30 years ago. That's something he did last year.

h/t magnolialover