elected in 2000.
Iraq is Bush's baby. The Dems are stuck now trying to extricate the country, but Bush lied us into this war, and Nader -- with his lies about "Tweedledee and Tweedledum"-- helped throw the election to Bush.
And he did it on purpose, in order to "punish" the Democrats:
http://soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/levine/Ralph-Nader-As-Suicide-Bomber.htmlIn the year 2000, Ralph Nader strapped political dynamite onto himself and walked into one of the closest elections in American history hoping to blow it up. He wanted to punish the Clinton-Gore Democrats for having betrayed him and the causes he believes in. His primary campaign mission was defeating Al Gore, but Nader concealed this from his supporters, even as he went after votes in swing states like Florida. On the day after election day, when everyone else was grim, and many Democrats were furious at him, Ralph Nader was a happy man.
The following essay presents evidence for this large claim and describes how I first learned this in the fall of 2000. Since the election, political discussions about Nader's campaign have often focused on its electoral effect. Did Nader's 97,000 votes in Florida defeat Al Gore making George W. Bush president? Most observers seem to agree that they did, but others insist that many factors defeated Gore. However, independent of the effect of the Nader campaign on the election results, one can ask about what Nader wanted to have happen. Now that he has decided to run again, in what promises to be another very close election, it is worth examining what Ralph Nader intended the last time.
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Nader also said many things that I did not think were true. He returned again and again to how Al Gore and George W. Bush were like "Tweedledee and Tweedledum," Lewis Carroll's obnoxious twins. They look and act the same, so it doesn't matter which one you get. Despite all the indications that this was to be a very close election, Nader also said that he couldn't possibly take the election from Gore -- "only Gore can do that." In effect Nader told people to ignore concerns about the handful of swing states where Nader voters might shift the electoral votes to Bush. Because there had been little media coverage of Nader's message at this stage, (especially in New York newspapers) one had to get close to the campaign to hear these things.
That night I received an email from an old friend, Ira Glasser, who had dealt with Nader occasionally over the years. Ira distrusted Nader and offered his educated guess that Nader would not withdraw anywhere because he "wants to punish the Democrats."
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