Conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan charged to the defense of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday by calling President Barack Obama “a drug dealer of welfare” who seeks to keep Americans dependent on the government.
The remarks of the often-controversial Buchanan came in the wake of this week’s release of a secretly-recorded video that showed Romney’s disdain of Obama supporters by saying they were part of the 47 percent of Americans who were “dependent on the government” and were going to support the president no matter what. He also asserted that that same group of people didn’t pay taxes and believed they were “victims” entitled to government handouts.
Romney added that it wasn’t “his job to worry about those people.”
Buchanan acknowledged the clumsiness of the remarks, but took to the offensive in his defense of Romney by assailing the president for trying to maintain power by keeping Americans on welfare.
He asserted during an appearance on Fox News Wednesday that, “government relief was viewed as a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. If it is narcotic, then in my judgment, Barack Obama is a drug dealer of welfare.”
Buchanan drew a comparison between Americans born during the Great Depression in Washington D.C and those living there now.
“Of the 800,000 thousand born in the ‘30s and raised in the ‘50s, nobody in D.C. was on food stamps,” he said. “However, of the 600,000 living in D.C. now, one in five live off food stamps.”
While conceding that Romney’s off the cuff remarks disregarding 47 percent of the voters was not the best approach, the conservative political commentator and former GOP presidential candidate said he believes that Republican policies are better suited for Americans, especially the elderly and the service personnel that encompass the portion of the electorate Romney appears to have written off.
