NOTRE DAME — Libertarian candidate for president Bob Barr told students Friday that there is a general lack of leadership among our governmental leaders in Washington. Barr said many national leaders don’t understand the meaning of liberty.

“The role of leadership is to protect liberty and freedom,” said Barr. The former congressman from Georgia made a campaign stop at Washington Hall where about 150 Notre Dame students gathered to hear him offer his views on leadership and similar topics.

Barr criticized the atmosphere surrounding the recent debates between the candidates for president and vice president, saying there is too much attention being paid to how comfortable the candidates make the voters feel.

“We’re denigrating the entire notion of what it means to be a political leader,” Barr said. "We’re talking about the qualifications to be the leader of the greatest nation, the greatest concept of governance on the face of the Earth. And yet we seem to, as a nation, by and large, to be satisfied with simply whether or not we feel comfortable with that person. Whether that person can relate to a group of us sitting around in a bar or standing on the sidelines as we watch our kids play hockey or soccer.

“It’s not only the candidates themselves. It’s the medium and the media that is a part of in providing the forum for these what are to be, or should be, interchanges of ideas.”

Barr said candidates use the debates to profess their political views and evade tough questions from the moderators.

“Being a leader is not about staying in your comfort zone. It’s about being able to lead when you’re not in your comfort zone. The purpose of a debate is to place you in that environment so that the people, in this case, those who you’re seeking to lead, that is the people of the United States, can properly gauge you.”

Barr said that the world forum presents many life-and-death problems with which the next president will have to deal.

His name will be on the ballots in Indiana and Michigan on Nov. 4.

Barr made news in early 1998 when he led the charge to impeach President Bill Clinton. At the time, he was a first-term Republican congressman from Georgia’s 7th district, near Atlanta.