Pat Buchanan made the most outrageous comments on tonight's Rachel Maddow Show regarding the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. One thing that really struck me, aside from Buchanan's typically bigoted fanaticism, was the desperate nature of his rhetoric.

In trying to claim that Sotomayor did not have the intellectual capacity to serve on the court, Buchanan actually picked Justice Scalia, yes Justice Scalia, as an example of the kind of intellectual that should populate the court. Buchanan is absolutely flailing on this one.

Justice Scalia is the Ted Baxter of the Supreme Court. He is by far the least intelligent Supreme Court Justice of my adult life, while Judge Sotomayor certainly is well above average in intelligence. Few things are more embarrassing as an American than having to watch Scalia make a fool out of himself while trying to represent our nation's highest court of law.

Scalia's approach to being a Supreme Court Justice is to repeatedly lie about the Constitution with little or no skill and throw temper tantrums when people don't go along with his nonsense. Facts tend to be missing or distorted in Scalia's argumentation; logic is rare; and even coherency often is lacking from that joke of a Supreme Court Justice. Roberts, Alito, and Thomas are as dishonest as Scalia, but at least they are reasonably articulate.

If anything, Buchanan's choice of Scalia shows that he sees intelligence as a trait of being white rather than something that involves reasoning ability or knowledge. Pat's rant also is an example of how many US rightists are unable to distinguish bluster and elitism from intellectual acumen. Hardcore white supremacists are usually the dimmest of white people. Buchanan certainly fits this description.

At least Pat isn't on the Supreme Court.