Well?
I wish I could give you the video right now. It is just before six o'clock central time, and the discussion on MSNBC just got interesting. Interesting enough that some of you are going to want to write letters to make sure the producers don't do the wrong thing...
Stay tuned!!!
Oh, the short answer: No, of course he does not.
UPDATE:
This all played out on David Gregory's new show, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which replaces the Road to the White House. Today's show was hosted by conservative newswoman Mika Brzezinski, and during the usual discussion with the panel of commentaries, a tiff emerged between Pat Buchanan and Lawrence O'Donnell, my new hero. O'Donnell accused the Republicans of valuing ignorance, and he brought up the issue of "trickle down ignorance" As he did this, Brzezinski tried to intervene with obvious vocalizations and gestures indicating that it was just wrong to say such a thing (though we all know it is true, yes?) ... finally, Lawrence O'Donnell asked Buchanan straight out:
"Do you believe in Evolution, Pat? Do you? Do you believe in Evolution?"
Buchanan's answer was exactly as you expect, a combination of the two usual Answers in Ignorance: I believe god created the heavens and the earth" and "I don't believe that I descend from monkeys."
Pat, I have news for you: The freakin' monkeys don't belive it either. They look at you and they shake their heads in disbelief.
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That's what makes ol' Pat a contender!
More republican fundie stoopidity.
That was Lawrence O'Donnell. Pat also responded rather insultingly, something to the effect of: "Although I wouldn't blame YOU if you thought you came from monkeys."
Thank you Will.
To be fair, O'Donnell made a blanket statement about the Republican Party "valuing ignorance." Granted, it was in the heat of the discussion, and O'Donnell was merely trying to make a point, and that should've been clear to any impartial viewer. But it was nevertheless an overbroad statement.
Mika Brzezinski, BTW and FWIW, has been a barely-concealed Obama fan from the get-go on her daily "Morning Joe" gig. Every so often dad Zbigniew (an early Obama supporter) makes an appearance, and it's always great TV.
I still interpret her as a conservative (for MSNBC). She is on Morning Joe, after all.
And no, saying that Republicans value ignorance is nothing like over the top. It is easily demonstrated in many, many ways that the Republican party promotes ignorance, exploits it, encourages it, works towards spreading it. This is the truth. It is not over the top to state the truth, even if it hurts.
With that last question that Pat asked Lawrence, I feel Lawrence would've made a huge impact if he had said "I don't believe I descended from monkeys".
The answer would just seem so bizarre to Pat - if you believe in evolution, you SURELY must believe that you came from monkeys - that he'd stop dead in his tracks.
And who knows, maybe somebody would be confused enough to inquire into what evolution really says, and one more person would be a little less dumb.
Speaking from the POV of a liberal, I think Lawrence might have actually made the case for evolution weaker among the ignorant by letting Pat have the last word.
Not that Lawrence was wrong. Pat Buchanan clearly and openly demonstrated his ignorance to us all once again by announcing his unknown-to-him misconception. It would just be great if we stopped letting the conservatives relish in their straw men.
If any proof is needed of the intelligence of the 'average' republican, review film some of Palin's campaign rallies. The truth is in what the whackjobs who crawled out from under their rocks said as they cheered Palin and cursed Obama. She is their queen. They were vile, hateful, misinformed, unread, unlearned AND PROUD of it. That's the true republican nature I've seen emerge in the last 30 years.
Perhaps Buchanan is crawling around in the lower tier of trickle-down evolution, with others of his kind.
O'Donnel could have done more, such as saying that it would help if Pat actually understood the theory of evolution before he started to criticize it, or countered by asking if Pat believed we came from dirt, but what can you do on such a show (boy, she sure got off the subject when that came up - probably worried about the viewers in the inbred states). Speaking of that, I suspect that Buchanen isn't descended from monkeys, but from Brothers and Sisters in a long, long chain.
Maybe next time he can ask Pat if he beleives that the White Race needs to keep itself pure...but then, we already know the answer to that one.