TV interview
Alan Keyes on The Edge with Paula Zahn, after the Iowa Forum
December 13, 1999
Paula: If you would, rate for us how you thought the performances went tonight of your colleagues.
Keyes: I always find it a little difficult but I would have to say that I thought the format tonight was a little bit skewed, for several different reasons, but that folks performed reasonably well given that fact.
Paula: Before you go any further, how was the format skewed - what bugged you?
Keyes: Well, you noticed, they didn't tell people when their time was up. And as a result folks didn't know when they were going to intervene and I think it lead to a lot of problems in terms of controlling the flow of the discussion.
Paula: Yea, it seemed like they were insulting our buzzer system that we used the last time around which I thought you candidates kinda liked.
Keyes: Yea, I thought it helped us to discipline ourselves and keep on track, and there was a little bit more confusion this evening. But I thought, over all, the performances were adequate. The only problem is that we need to stop and ask ourselves if adequate performance is enough. Everybody is talking as if it is enough that G. W. Bush goes there and doesn't fall flat on his face. As a Republican I think we need an outstanding candidate and I think it is clear that G.W. Bush is not the outstanding candidate in this field.
Paula: Did you not think though that his performance was stronger than the previous two debates?
Keyes: Well, not particularly. I think he might have appeared stronger to some 'cause he got a lot more time to talk than other people, which I think was, you know, a part of the consequence of the format. But I frankly don't think that that his answers were stronger and some of them were very strange. When he was asked about who the thinker or philosopher was who most influenced him, I was a little taken aback when he said Jesus Christ, because Christ is not a philosopher. The word philosopher means love of wisdom and Christ is Wisdom. He is not the love of wisdom or a lover of wisdom, He is Truth. He is not somebody who seeks truth, He is the truth. And so, it's just a strange, I think, kind of confusion that seems to prevail in Gov. Bush's mind - and he seems to be again taking his cue from elsewhere rather than from his own thinking.
Paula: How about John McCain tonight?
Keyes: I thought that Senator McCain's performance was again, ah, adequate. I think that he fails to answer some important questions about why for instance he supports our continued participation in the World Trade Organization. In spite of the fact that it's an unrepresentative body, of why he continues to favor government's interference with our right of free association through limiting what individuals can do with their money in campaigns. Whereas I think we ought to have that freedom and eliminate the participation of the unions and the corporations who do not have a ballot vote and should not have a dollar vote.
Paula: Before you go any further on that, as some of your critics would suggest, the reason why we had the Great Depression was because of our protectionist policies. And thereby their reasoning goes, aren't you suggesting if we withdraw from the WTO that we will in fact become isolationists again?
Keyes: Not at all, I'm not a Protectionist. I just believe that we should maximize America's assets, because they are created by the sacrifice of the American people, and we shouldn't be allowing foreign countries to come into our market at bargain basement rents when we are having to pay premium prices to get access to their markets. It's just unfair. And I also think it's unfair to suggest that Protectionism caused the Great Depression. I think a good case can be made that it was the imposition of a centralized income tax, of the federal reserve bank and it's centralized control of our financial system which in fact helped to induce that collapse.
Paula: I wanted to give you a chance to clear up something that I don't think you had enough time to expand upon tonight. And that was when you were asked the question about Kosovo, where I thought you were suggesting that United States should have stood by when it has now been proven some ten million Albanians were killed. Is that what you were saying.
Keyes: Paula, Paula, I don't know where you got a figure ten million people were killed. I was just looking at the State Department's report marked December 1999 and the teams that went in according to that report found evidence of 21-2200 graves and talked about mass grave sites of 5 bodies and so forth and so on. Nothing like the number you just cited of ten million folks killed. Not anywhere in the ballpark.
Paula: I misspoke. I meant ten thousand. Of course there are three, obviously you've seen the statistics as well cause they vary from 2,700 to 5,600 to 10,000. But was that what you were saying, that we should have never been there in the first place?
Keyes: We should have not committed aggression, we should not have bombed innocent civilians, we should not have destroyed the regional economy. The harm we caused was way out of proportion to the harm we were seeking to prevent and we did not use the appropriate means to address that harm. It was an immoral intervention and it actually has helped to undermine the moral position of the west now in dealing with the situation in Chechnya, as I pointed out in the debate. We are paying a heavy price for this failure of prudence and moral reasoning on the part of the Clinton administration.
Paula: I know you were saying you would define the performances tonight as adequate. Was there a defining moment in your judgement tonight?
Keyes: Well, I'm not sure. I think it's up to the viewers out there to make their judgements. When I'm sitting in the debates I am not worried about performance and judgements and all of that. I'm just worried about getting the truth across as best I can, as I see it, in the most clear fashion that I can. And then I want the people out there to make their judgements. The priority of this nation's life is not who wins or loses it's whether or not America is going to address the moral challenge on which the future of our freedom depends. And that's what I keep my focus on. I am not worried, if there were not another soul on that stage I would say the same things that I said because I believe that this is what the American people need to focus on, not some horse race competition among candidates. They should be thinking about what's best for America. And whether or not, in what they heard this evening, they perceive the right priorities, the right challenge for this nation's future. I think I'm presenting that challenge, and I'll leave it to the people to make their judgements.
Paula: At the top of the interview you were talking a little bit about the format, and it being a little bit askew. I heard one person observing earlier tonight that each one of the questions forced you, each one of the candidates, to in some way disagree with the Republican Party. Did you see it that way?
Keyes: Well no, I didn't see it that way at all. As a matter of fact, my positions in terms of the Republican Party's national platform are almost entirely consistent. And I happen just to articulate very effectively what is said in that platform on school choice and on the proper approach to taxation, returning control to the people of our country, and on the pro-life issue. I think I stand most effectively where the Republican platform stood in terms of the grassroots beliefs of Republicans at the 1996 convention. If Bob Dole had run on that platform and done so effectively, he would have won.
Paula: Do you get the feeling, as Dick Morris suggested earlier on that this is all sewn up, that there is no way George W. Bush won't get the nomination just because of the way this primary session works in the Republican Party?
Keyes: I actually think that that notion is not only absurd, it's bad for our country. The notion that without regard to merit, on the basis of name recognition and the support of some money moguls around the country, an individual waltzes into the White House undermines what ought to be government of the people, not of the money, by the people, not by those forces of birth that governed in the old world before this country was started. I don't think that's going to be the outcome.
Keyes: I always find it a little difficult but I would have to say that I thought the format tonight was a little bit skewed, for several different reasons, but that folks performed reasonably well given that fact.
Paula: Before you go any further, how was the format skewed - what bugged you?
Keyes: Well, you noticed, they didn't tell people when their time was up. And as a result folks didn't know when they were going to intervene and I think it lead to a lot of problems in terms of controlling the flow of the discussion.
Paula: Yea, it seemed like they were insulting our buzzer system that we used the last time around which I thought you candidates kinda liked.
Keyes: Yea, I thought it helped us to discipline ourselves and keep on track, and there was a little bit more confusion this evening. But I thought, over all, the performances were adequate. The only problem is that we need to stop and ask ourselves if adequate performance is enough. Everybody is talking as if it is enough that G. W. Bush goes there and doesn't fall flat on his face. As a Republican I think we need an outstanding candidate and I think it is clear that G.W. Bush is not the outstanding candidate in this field.
Paula: Did you not think though that his performance was stronger than the previous two debates?
Keyes: Well, not particularly. I think he might have appeared stronger to some 'cause he got a lot more time to talk than other people, which I think was, you know, a part of the consequence of the format. But I frankly don't think that that his answers were stronger and some of them were very strange. When he was asked about who the thinker or philosopher was who most influenced him, I was a little taken aback when he said Jesus Christ, because Christ is not a philosopher. The word philosopher means love of wisdom and Christ is Wisdom. He is not the love of wisdom or a lover of wisdom, He is Truth. He is not somebody who seeks truth, He is the truth. And so, it's just a strange, I think, kind of confusion that seems to prevail in Gov. Bush's mind - and he seems to be again taking his cue from elsewhere rather than from his own thinking.
Paula: How about John McCain tonight?
Keyes: I thought that Senator McCain's performance was again, ah, adequate. I think that he fails to answer some important questions about why for instance he supports our continued participation in the World Trade Organization. In spite of the fact that it's an unrepresentative body, of why he continues to favor government's interference with our right of free association through limiting what individuals can do with their money in campaigns. Whereas I think we ought to have that freedom and eliminate the participation of the unions and the corporations who do not have a ballot vote and should not have a dollar vote.
Paula: Before you go any further on that, as some of your critics would suggest, the reason why we had the Great Depression was because of our protectionist policies. And thereby their reasoning goes, aren't you suggesting if we withdraw from the WTO that we will in fact become isolationists again?
Keyes: Not at all, I'm not a Protectionist. I just believe that we should maximize America's assets, because they are created by the sacrifice of the American people, and we shouldn't be allowing foreign countries to come into our market at bargain basement rents when we are having to pay premium prices to get access to their markets. It's just unfair. And I also think it's unfair to suggest that Protectionism caused the Great Depression. I think a good case can be made that it was the imposition of a centralized income tax, of the federal reserve bank and it's centralized control of our financial system which in fact helped to induce that collapse.
Paula: I wanted to give you a chance to clear up something that I don't think you had enough time to expand upon tonight. And that was when you were asked the question about Kosovo, where I thought you were suggesting that United States should have stood by when it has now been proven some ten million Albanians were killed. Is that what you were saying.
Keyes: Paula, Paula, I don't know where you got a figure ten million people were killed. I was just looking at the State Department's report marked December 1999 and the teams that went in according to that report found evidence of 21-2200 graves and talked about mass grave sites of 5 bodies and so forth and so on. Nothing like the number you just cited of ten million folks killed. Not anywhere in the ballpark.
Paula: I misspoke. I meant ten thousand. Of course there are three, obviously you've seen the statistics as well cause they vary from 2,700 to 5,600 to 10,000. But was that what you were saying, that we should have never been there in the first place?
Keyes: We should have not committed aggression, we should not have bombed innocent civilians, we should not have destroyed the regional economy. The harm we caused was way out of proportion to the harm we were seeking to prevent and we did not use the appropriate means to address that harm. It was an immoral intervention and it actually has helped to undermine the moral position of the west now in dealing with the situation in Chechnya, as I pointed out in the debate. We are paying a heavy price for this failure of prudence and moral reasoning on the part of the Clinton administration.
Paula: I know you were saying you would define the performances tonight as adequate. Was there a defining moment in your judgement tonight?
Keyes: Well, I'm not sure. I think it's up to the viewers out there to make their judgements. When I'm sitting in the debates I am not worried about performance and judgements and all of that. I'm just worried about getting the truth across as best I can, as I see it, in the most clear fashion that I can. And then I want the people out there to make their judgements. The priority of this nation's life is not who wins or loses it's whether or not America is going to address the moral challenge on which the future of our freedom depends. And that's what I keep my focus on. I am not worried, if there were not another soul on that stage I would say the same things that I said because I believe that this is what the American people need to focus on, not some horse race competition among candidates. They should be thinking about what's best for America. And whether or not, in what they heard this evening, they perceive the right priorities, the right challenge for this nation's future. I think I'm presenting that challenge, and I'll leave it to the people to make their judgements.
Paula: At the top of the interview you were talking a little bit about the format, and it being a little bit askew. I heard one person observing earlier tonight that each one of the questions forced you, each one of the candidates, to in some way disagree with the Republican Party. Did you see it that way?
Keyes: Well no, I didn't see it that way at all. As a matter of fact, my positions in terms of the Republican Party's national platform are almost entirely consistent. And I happen just to articulate very effectively what is said in that platform on school choice and on the proper approach to taxation, returning control to the people of our country, and on the pro-life issue. I think I stand most effectively where the Republican platform stood in terms of the grassroots beliefs of Republicans at the 1996 convention. If Bob Dole had run on that platform and done so effectively, he would have won.
Paula: Do you get the feeling, as Dick Morris suggested earlier on that this is all sewn up, that there is no way George W. Bush won't get the nomination just because of the way this primary session works in the Republican Party?
Keyes: I actually think that that notion is not only absurd, it's bad for our country. The notion that without regard to merit, on the basis of name recognition and the support of some money moguls around the country, an individual waltzes into the White House undermines what ought to be government of the people, not of the money, by the people, not by those forces of birth that governed in the old world before this country was started. I don't think that's going to be the outcome.