Last night.
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Bush, Kerry Visionless, Buchanan Says
By KELSEY VOLKMANN,
Indiana Gazette Staff Writer
October 13, 2004Former presidential candidate and conservative political analyst Pat Buchanan said he laughed out loud while watching the first presidential debate in Miami.
President Bush's scowls looked like a student who'd be held after school and was making faces behind the principal's back, except that 65 million viewers were watching, Buchanan told the audience gathered to see him speak Tuesday night at Indiana University of Pennsylvania's Fisher Auditorium.
"It was the single most disastrous" debate he'd ever seen, he said.
"Bush came with 30 minutes of material for a 90-minute debate," said Buchanan, who ran for president in 2000 on the Reform Party ticket. "He could have come out on top - he was on the road to victory - had he simply tied in that debate."
Buchanan also dished out criticism of the Iraq war, calling it "utterly unnecessary and unwise."
Al-Qaida is responsible for 9/11, and Saddam Hussein had no role in it, he said.
Buchanan doesn't believe Saddam would have used weapons of mass destruction against the United States either, saying Saddam had his chance in the first Gulf War and refrained because he knew he'd be "blown to kingdom come."
"How is (Saddam) a threat?" he asked. "He's an evil thug, not a fool. You invade Iraq and you inherit your own West Bank."
Buchanan's criticism was not limited to the president. The nationally syndicated newspaper columnist often faulted both presidential candidates, saying both men are running campaigns without vision and both support unsustainable foreign policies.
"The two parties' candidates are like two wings on the same bird of prey," he said. "Both are funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by the same corporations, so they are responsive to the same groups of people."
He also cut up John Edwards' performance in the vice presidential debate against Dick Cheney last week.
Buchanan didn't like Edwards' "fast-talking lawyer" approach and likened him to a toy collie yapping on a riverbank around a bull alligator sleeping with his eyes open.
He continued to lambaste the Democrats: Kerry lost credibility by not responding sooner to questions raised about his military record by Swift Boat Vietnam veterans, Buchanan said, casting a cloud of suspicion over the Massachusetts senator.
He thought it a "colossal blunder" for Kerry to call Bush's "Coalition of the Willing," "the Coalition of the Bribed and Coerced." That's not the way to get more nations onboard, he said.
At the meet-and-greet afterward, Jeff Burk, an IUP student, shook Buchanan's hand, shared his frustration with both candidates and asked for advice.
Buchanan plans to vote for Bush because of the possibility of U.S. Supreme Court Justices retiring in the next four years, and he wants Republicans to fill those seats, he told the junior political science student. He also advised Burk to vote for who he thinks would do the best job leading the country.
For Burk, that's neither candidate, and he's not alone in his opinion.
Buchanan expressed America's widespread dissatisfaction with its options earlier that evening.
"America wants a change, but it's not sure it wants Kerry," he said.
Buchanan's visit was part of IUP's Ideas and Issues lecture series, sponsored by the Center for Student Life.
Students can pick up free tickets starting today at the Hadley Union Building ticket office for the series' second speaker, filmmaker and author Michael Moore, who will speak at Memorial Field House on Oct. 26 at 8 p.m.
To accommodate the expected turnout, the appearance by the "Fahrenheit 9/11" director will also be shown through a live televised feed in Fisher Auditorium.
Any remaining tickets will be made available to the public starting Friday.
For all his faults, Pat sure does have a way with words. LOL.
Students can pick up free tickets starting today at the Hadley Union Building ticket office for the series' second speaker, filmmaker and author Michael Moore, who will speak at Memorial Field House on Oct. 26 at 8 p.m.