Add “The McLaughlin Group” panelist Pat Buchanan to the growing list of pundits dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention this week.
“The president of the United States was stale, he was flat, he was repetitive,” Buchanan said. “It’s the same thing we’ve been hearing over and over again, and I think it was a real letdown at the end of the convention, and I think that has given, quite frankly, the Republicans another chance, really, to turn this thing around and win this thing.”
Buchanan, author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?,” added that Obama failed to measure up to the lofty standards set by his performances at the 2004 and 2008 Democratic conventions.
“I don’t know what it was, but he started off, and I just said, ‘This is boring. This is not the Barack Obama that you know — he wasn’t the Barack Obama of Denver, and it certainly wasn’t the Barack Obama of Boston,’” Buchanan said. “[I] think what’s happened he’s been on that road for a year saying the same things over and over again, and it just didn’t seem fresh or exciting or gripping.”
Still, the Democrats put on a better show overall than the Republicans did in Tampa, according to Buchanan.
“[The Democrats] had a terrific convention. It was lively, more exciting than the Republican convention,” Buchanan said. You had some terrific speeches. [John] Kerry was excellent, the first lady was excellent, Bubba [Bill Clinton] was terrific in that. Ms. [Jennifer] Granholm — I don’t know what happened to her, but she was exciting.”