Jillian Rayfield January 11, 2012, 12:54 PM

Pat Buchanan’s explanation for his problems at MSNBC is exactly what you might expect: “Militant gay rights groups” and “people of color, Van Jones” are responsible.

On Saturday, MSNBC President Phil Griffin addressed Buchanan’s recent absence from the network, where he hasn’t appeared as a pundit since October, saying that Buchanan may not be allowed back because of some of the views in his book, “Suicide Of A Superpower.”

“Pat and I are going to meet soon and discuss it,” Griffin told Bill Carter of the New York Times.

The book is Buchanan’s latest treatise on the decline of America at the altar of diversity, and in it he waxes nostalgic about the segregation era, among other things. Sample quote, from the chapter “The End Of White America”: “Those who believe the rise to power of an Obama rainbow coalition of peoples of color means the whites who helped to engineer it will steer it are deluding themselves. The whites may discover what it is like to ride in the back of the bus.”

Read more selections from the book here.

For years, the civil rights group Color Of Change (which was founded by Van Jones) has been calling on MSNBC to fire Buchanan, who has a long history of making racist and anti-Semitic comments in his books, and even in his appearances on the network. At one point he referred to President Obama as “your boy” during a discussion with host Al Sharpton. At another time he called the President’s Nobel Peace Prize an “affirmative action Nobel.” Then there was his column — briefly promoted by MSNBC on its website — that argued that Hitler didn’t really want war.

In October, Color Of Change, as well as gay rights and Jewish groups, upped the pressure on MSNBC after Buchanan released his book — and even appeared on the white supremacist radio show The Political Cesspool to promote it.

“During the period of the book tour I asked him not to be on,” Griffin said of the hiatus. “Since then the issue has become the nature of some of the statements in the book.”

“The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC,” he added.

Buchanan has denied that he is suspended, appearing on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show to claim that he’s “had some medical issues at the end of the year which were pretty problematic, and so I’ve sort of been out of speaking and things like that.” He added that “on Drudge Report, somebody said I’ve been suspended. But I don’t know anything about that.”

And, on Wednesday, Buchanan offered a different explanation for his troubles. “Look, for a long period of time the hard left, militant gay rights groups, militant — they call themselves civil rights groups, but I’m not that sure they’re concerned about civil rights — people of color, Van Jones, these folks and others have been out to get Pat Buchanan off TV, deny him speeches, get his column canceled,” he said on Sean Hannity’s radio show. “This has been done for years and years and years and it’s the usual suspects doing the same thing again. But my view is, you write what you believe to be the truth.”

Here’s the audio, via ThinkProgress.

Color Of Change, MSNBC, Pat Buchanan, Racism, Van Jones