Transcript of Buchanan vs. Sharansky

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

for those who missed this morning's Meet the Press:
--
MR. RUSSERT: Well, let me talk about the realism that Mr. Buchanan brought up, read something that he wrote, and then give both of you a chance to respond. This is Pat Buchanan.
"The president now plans to hector and badger foreign leaders on the progress each is making toward attaining U.S. standards of democracy. ... This is a formula for `Bring-it-on!' collisions with every autocratic regime on earth, including virtually every African and Arab ruler, all the `outposts of tyranny' named by Secretary Rice, most of the nations of Central Asia, China and Russia. This is a prescription for endless war." Do you agree?

MR. SHARANSKY: No. First of all, I believe that all the people, when given opportunity to choose between living in fear or living in freedom, choose to live in freedom. And when I was a dissident, I heard from some of our American friends that Russians don't want to live in freedom. We can give examples how advisers of Truman were saying in '45 the Japanese people don't want to live in freedom and so on and so on. The moment of the test when the people can choose between living--to continue to live in fear or to live in freedom, if they have an opportunity, they always choose to live in freedom.

MR. RUSSERT: Prescription for endless war?

MR. BUCHANAN: Certainly it is. Look, the United States of America--I dissent strongly from my friend. The United States of America has always been free and always been secure. There have been despotisms from time in memorial. There are 22 Arab states, not one of which is democratic, and the United States has not been threatened by any of them since the Barbary pirates.

In my judgment, what happened on 9/11 was a result of interventionism. Interventionism is the cause of terror. It is not a cure for terror. The idea that the president of the United States, as he said in his inaugural, is going to help democratic institutions in every region in every nation on earth is a formula for permanent war, Tim. And look, the president of the United States has no constitutional authority to do this. Where in the Constitution do we get the right to intervene in the internal affairs of countries that do not threaten us and do not attack us? If they don't, their internal politics are their own business. As Quincy Adams says, "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the champion of freedom everywhere, but the vindicator only of her own."
--
more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6954712/

[blm]

1. When has ANY Bush adhered to the Constitution? No laws restrict the Bushes

Not for the last 60 years, anyway.

[Darranar]

2. Sharansky has a point here. He just muddles it...

He is right that very often dictatorships are only stable when supported by supposed members of the "Free World," which is why a consistent analysis would criticize Ronald Reagan. Central America in the 1980s provides the reasons.

He is wrong about "appeasement," by which I assume he means being willing to exist along with the other nation; it would indeed take endless war, and costly, ineffective war at that, to really end it.

Buchanan is utterly wrong to say that the US has always been free, but then again, considering his opinion of minorities and the poor, this is quite easy to understand. Rich white Christian males do tend to have been free throughout US history.

[detroitguy]

3. Am I nuts to say this?

I think Pat Buchanan is a hateful old coot re: domestic issues. He fired some of the first salvos in the "cultural war," which was unforgivable. And I think he is a bigot.

BUT (here is the "crazy" part): I think he made a lot of sense when he talked today about the proper role of U.S. military power the the root causes of terrorism.

It creeps me out to agree with the guy. Am I losing my mind?