Pat Buchanan On The Drinking Age: "(18) Beer and Wine, 21 Whiskey"



If you watched The McLaughlin Group, where the increasingly out of touch John McLaughlin -- "Boy, the way Glenn Miller played" -- did a rather saucy segment on the drinking age controversy mentioning, with Methuselan flair, that the Fall semester means more underage drinking on college campuses and the "Rebel Yell(Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment)." What the fu-uuck?!

What Fall semester, Padre John McLaughlin? Fall '56 matriculation at Ole Miss?! As Archie Bunker and Edith sang: ".. Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days."

But his old Nixon-in-mischief pal and fellow Good Ole Boy Pat Buchanan really stole the goddam show. Increasingly irrelevant in his paleoconservative rantings, Buchanan, full of Scots-Irish piss-and-vinegar excoriated Georgia's foolish President, the American-educated Mikhail Saakashvili for messing with the Russian Bear. "Stupid," is how Buchanan characterized him on the program, with real hate percolating. Pat, however, reserved a special Jacksonian ire for everyone's favorite neoconservative President, George W. Bush, saying, "The President should have got on the phone instead of fooling around with the volleyball players."



Oh snap! (image via wonkette)

But what really made us sit up and take notice was when Buchanan -- no doubt not entirely alien to fine spirits and ales -- weighed in on the drinking age controversy by delivering the most celebrated line of the evening, "(18) Beer and Wine, Whisky 21!"

Which is, no doubt, Buchanan's boozy "54-40 Or Fight" moment.

Buchanan is also not entirely alien to college shenanigans and skirmishes with the "Po-Po." From notable biographies:

"Buchanan attended a Catholic elementary and high school, following in the steps of his father and brothers. Deciding to stay in Washington and to continue at a Catholic school, he enrolled in Georgetown University in 1956, studying for a degree in English. In his senior year he received a traffic ticket. Believing that his ticket was wrongfully given, he verbally and physically assaulted the police. He was then arrested and fined, and the incident left him with a minor police record. The university also suspended him for a year."

Just so you know ...