Pat Buchanan: Where's the what?

In wondering how Sen. Barack Obama would be able to explain away Rev. Jeremiah Wright's views -- as if forcefully rejecting them wasn't enough -- Pat Buchanan went one better: He acknowledged that "350 years of slavery and segregation" were upsetting.

"We hear the grievances," wrote Buchanan in his treatise on cluelessness, "A Brief for Whitey." He continued, "Where is the gratitude?"

And for what is it that black Americans have failed to show proper thanks? Glad you asked.

" ... no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans," writes Buchanan. Sure. After bringing them here in chains to start with. But never mind that. Buchanan lists food stamps and Section 8 housing as the charitable handouts for which black America should give thanks, even though we're fairly certain that the Housing Act of 1937 wasn't designed to help black Americans. It was meant to help the poor of any race.

So where's the gratitude?

Well, it might've evaporated along with the sweat rolling off the backs of slaves who helped build a country that treated them like chattel. Maybe it floated down the streets of New Orleans with the homes the government couldn't be bothered to save in time after Hurricane Katrina devastated predominantly black communities. Perhaps it's hanging nooses that swing from trees and hang on doors, a menacing reminder of years of savage lynching. Maybe gratitude went mad from syphilis in Tuskegee. It could be languishing in an underfunded inner-city school, or maybe it's taking some time to think about why a white man can shrug off calling a group of black women "nappy-headed hos" as "comedy."

Either way. We're sure that long overdue expression of gratitude Buchanan is expecting from black America will arrive any day now. We advise that he hold his breath in anticipation.