A Weak Debate

This is unusually interesting.

Pat Buchanan is on "The Daily Show" right now, and he and Jon Stewart are debating who should bear more responsibility for the war in Iraq, which, unexpectedly enough, Buchanan opposes. (In fact, he was on the show shilling for a book he's written explaining why he feels this war is, to quote him tonight, possibly "the worst blunder of the past 40 years.")

Buchanan, naturally, followed up his initial condemnation of the war by saying we should be asking ourselves "why John Kerry voted for it." He went so far as to actually commend Ted Kennedy for having the guts to stand up and speak against the resolution authorizing the president to begin the attack. Stewart's response added up to "why blame the people on the bus more than the bus driver?" -- why single out one person of 100 to blame for the war?

But what's interesting about the whole conversation is how obvious are their struggles to find ways to defend their candidates. Stewart rightly asked Buchanan who he'd be voting for, and while Buchanan pointed out he didn't live in a swing state and thus the decision was already made, he gave the impression he'd be voting for Bush. He tried then to speak up for the president, blaming the Iraq war decision on the "neo-conservatives" within the administration who advised the president to go to war. The president, he said, at least "believed in" what he was doing.

But the question remains -- is the president the strong leader Buchanan says he is if he can be pushed around by his advisers this way? Buchanan's clearly in a bind -- he can't say he believes the president made this blunder, but it sounds just about as bad to say the president can't stand up for what Buchanan wants to believe he believes in. But with the alternative candidate being even farther away from his views, he clearly has to convince himself he wants four more years, albeit with these nefarious advisers "fired" (fat chance).

Stewart has the same sort of problems defending Kerry. Kerry didn't speak up against the war until the tide of public opinion started to turn against it. Buchanan makes the point that Kerry apparently said he would still have voted for the resolution, even knowing all we know today about the reasons for war being crap. Stewart tried to posit that the Senate didn't know Bush would use the authorization to go to war necessarily -- but even he said he figured the game was up as soon as the resolution passed. Essentially, Stewart can't find any reason for Kerry having voted as he did, at least not a reason that would sound any good and give reason to support Kerry. And saying we shouldn't blame Kerry for voting for war when he was only one of many is a crummy excuse, no matter how true it is he's not the sole reason it passed. And if it's true that Kerry still stands by his vote (I'm not sure I heard that right), it makes it awfully hard to build a case for the man regretting his actions and having grown wiser from experience.

The whole exchange illustrates well how dissatisfactory both candidates are in this election. The media goes on and on about how polarized the electorate is, but it seems the polarizing factor is not how much each side likes its own candidate but how much it hates the opposition's. It goes to show what a squirmy position every person who has some beliefs outside the center has been placed in.

I noticed it while I was at the Register, too, since it's a libertarian paper. The far right and the far left have a middle ground this time around, it seems, on at least this particular issue of Iraq. They oppose it for different reasons, I'm sure, but nonetheless, they both oppose it. But in digging in their heels against the same issue, they've ended up choosing different sides. It's something to think about.

As an aside, here's what Buchanan had to say about not running for president again: "The people have spoken to Pat Buchanan's political career," he said, laughing.