MSNBC's Bashir Challenges Pat Buchanan, Loses Badly

Someone at MSNBC should tell Martin Bashir that he might not agree with Pat Buchanan's politics, but he's not one to challenge about a matter of fact.

On the show bearing his name Thursday, Bashir mistakenly tried to refute the conservative's claim that former Mayor Ed Koch accused President Obama of throwing Israel under the bus (video follows with transcript and commentary):

PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC: The interesting district is the one in Queens, Brooklyn that you mentioned where Turner, conservative Catholic won, and one of the reasons he did was because Ed Koch, who’s a Democrat, very pro-Israel and identified as pro-Israel, said that Turner ought to be elected in order to send a message to the president not to throw Israel under the bus.

About three minutes later as the segment was drawing to a close, Bashir foolishly challenged Buchanan on this point:

MARTIN BASHIR, HOST: Pat Buchanan, thank you. And just a mild correction, it was actually Mitt Romney who said the president was throwing Israel under the bus and not the former mayor of New York, but thank you nevertheless.

BUCHANAN: I think Mayor Koch said it as well.

BASHIR: He did?

BUCHANAN: Yes sir.

BASHIR: Okay. Thank you.

Of course, Buchanan was correct. Koch said this during an interview with Newsmax in may.

But far more embarrassing for Bashir, this reported was in a New York Times editorial Thursday:

Some analysts -- and eager Republican critics -- are also claiming it was a repudiation of President Obama's policies toward Israel. On Wednesday, an article on the Web site of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that ''in politics it is the perception that counts,'' and that the Democratic loss ''will be portrayed, as the outspoken former Mayor Ed Koch put it, 'as a message to President Obama that he cannot throw Israel under a bus with impunity.' ''

And the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday:

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat with a history of endorsing across party lines, urged voters in the district to support Turner as way to send a message to Obama about Israel. Koch said voters should rebuke Obama for saying Israel’s pre-1967 boarders should be the basis for a peace agreement.

At Turner’s victory party Tuesday, Koch said Obama “threw Israel under the bus.” The voters of the district, he argued, turned the election into a referendum on the president.

Don't feel bad for Bashir. There's absolutely no requirement for liberal commentators at MSNBC to be right about anything.

They just have to bash conservatives.