Buchanan Ad Backfires

Pat Buchanan used a quick image of the exploding Challenger in a TV ad to show he helped the country heal after a national crisis. But in Concord, where the decade-old image is more than a distant news event, it has opened old wounds, and Buchanan said Thursday he would change it.

“It looks like we are being used,” Michael Garrett, assistant principal at Concord High School, where astronaut Christa McAuliffe taught, said of the ad.

Buchanan tried to highlight his role as an adviser to Ronald Reagan, who was president when the Challenger exploded. The Republican presidential candidate’s ad contains a clip of the explosion, followed by a photo of Buchanan at Reagan’s side.

Buchanan said he will delete images of the explosion “out of sensitivity” for the family of McAuliffe.

She and six other space shuttle crew members were killed in the disaster 10 years ago this month.