"Nader is Crashing the Party Again"

[jpgpenn]

Nader Is Crashing the Party Again

By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
February 24, 2004

No, not Nader again. In an act of pure egotism, Ralph Nader – who has been largely silent on the main issues of the day, nursing his wounds since the last time he messed up an election – insists on another chance to play at electoral politics on the national stage. Does he have no sense of accountability or shame?

Yes, Al Gore shares responsibility with the U.S. Supreme Court for the fact that George W. Bush ended up as president. But without Nader in the picture in 2000, Bush's narrow Electoral College victory would have been impossible to scam. The arguments that Nader made last time around seem absurd this time, when it is all too clear that there are significant differences between the Democrats and Republicans on the issues Nader has spent a lifetime effectively raising. The Republican Party marches lock-step in a campaign against the environment, working people, the poor, civil liberties and world peace.

The vital issue in this election is that a Republican sweep may make permanent the damage to the constitutional principle of checks and balances. How dare Nader ignore the reactionary cast of Bush's judicial appointments and the refusal of a Republican-controlled Congress to challenge the mendacity of this president on issues as varied and important as global warming and the preemptive, deceit-driven invasion of Iraq?

The two-party system has its shortcomings, but we are up against one-party domination. For Nader to cavalierly dismiss this concentration of power in the hands of right-wing ideologues attempting to roll back the clock on the bipartisan accomplishments of the last 50 years is dangerous nonsense. How glib to grade the difference between the two parties as that of a D-plus and a D-minus.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17936


I pity this poor man after this election!