The Funny Looking Congressman From Cleveland

Q&A with Dennis Kucinich per The New York Times Magazine

Before you ended your quiotic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in January...did you believe you could really be president?
No one runs unless they think they can.

But you're a vegan. Do you think America is ready to elect a non-beef-eating president?
I think America is ready for a president with blood pressure of 90 over 60 who could beat most people half his age in a sprint.

I see you are scheduled to speak at the convention on Tuesday, at the Pepsi Center, which sounds like the name of a soda plant. Why is it called that?
My guess is that Pepsi probably bought the naming rights. Naming rights are another thing my subcommittee — the Domestic Policy Subcommittee — is looking into.

You've met with opposition from Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats for continuing to push for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
The process of democracy is a slow process, and it's important that I do what I know to be the right thing.

Why bother with impeachment when Bush is on his way out of Washington anyhow?
This president is capable of taking us into war, in October, on the eve of an election. We need to keep the ability to impeach at the ready in the event that this president continues to exercise a wanton approach toward the use of power, particularly the war power. The events in Georgia are a premonition.

A premonition of what?
A premonition of an attack on Iran. When Georgia moves against South Ossetia as the Olympics are starting, the Bush administration begins its own Olympics — the war Olympics.

Are you saying the Bush administration is likely to declare war soon just to help Republican candidates pick up some votes?
Well, you know, they increased the funding to Georgia a while back for military purposes.

Have you had a chance to talk to President Bush lately?
The last time I had a word with him was at the State of the Union address. I told him, "Mr. President, I wish you peace."

How did he respond?
He said, "I know you believe that."

What should we make of Shirley MacLaine's recent memoir, in which she mentions that you once spotted a U.F.O. at her house?
I saw something, absolutely. I don't know what it was. It was unidentified.

What did it look like?
End of story for me. Around Washington, the truth is an unidentified flying object.