Matt Yglesias has a very funny reaction to the announcement:

After all, there's not a dime's worth of a difference between a candidate promising tax cuts, pushing more health risk onto individuals, a re-invigoration of George Bush's campaign to dominate the world through military force, and an industry-friendly approach to environmental issues and his rival who's promising substantial socialization of medical risk, a 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions, and end to the war in Iraq (and to the mindset that led to war!), universal preschool, etc. Well, sure, there's judicial appointments -- abortion, gay rights, etc. -- and some small fry stuff about whether or not the NSA will have unrestrained surveillance powers. But basically it's just the same two corporate clones running on virtually identical platforms.

Thank God for Ralph Nader.

I don't think I could have said it any better than that. Methinks enough people learned a pretty stark lesson after the last seven years of this administration. Vote for Nader at your own peril.

yawn...

Does anyone give a shit about Nadar?

Seriously.

There's still time to save your reputation, Ralph.

Ummmm.....no there's not.

Name one thing Nader has accomplished in this decade. Other than perpetrate the monstrous lie that Bush and Gore were one and the same.

Anything?

Hell, name me something concrete that he's accomplished since the end of the Nixon Administration. Something more than found an endless stream of issue-oriented non-profits that is.

Let's keep it clean huh? :-)

The only thing I like dirty is my sex... like any good Dem.

Seriously: Do I know that Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq with 100% predictive accuracy? Of course, not. But neither can you tell me he would have gone in.

What I can tell you is that Gore did not have a record of associating with the neo-cons who put out paper after paper in the 90s about going into Iraq. These are people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. People that GWB were tight with.

I can also tell you that Gore wouldn't have gone on a war with science (one of the really good lines that HRC got into the debates the other night). That's a pretty huge difference right there.

As far as the environment: we are currently past peak-oil. Neither the left nor the right want to admit that this means some pretty austere times -- as in giving up driving, not giving up an SUV. Whomever is in the White House will have a crisis not seen in this country since 1860. It will probably be the issue that defines whomever attains the POTUS next. Congress will be driving that issue onto the Executive as their constituents want cheap easy energy that is no longer available.

I can't take you seriously, however, when you say something like:

Bush has brought us Obama and a fresh start. Would Gore have done the same?

Do you put yourself in bankruptcy on a regular basis to start again?

It seems you want a real socialist society. I won't debate the relative merits of such a state, but anyone who thinks that the US will ever become one doesn't have a sense of US history. It's not even clear if you can organize a society like the US (large and very heterogeneous) around such a principle. And either way, most people in the US don't want to live in such a place.

It seems you want a real socialist society.

Don't you mean commie-pinko traitor?

Like that old commie-pinko traitor Truman, who proposed a real national health care plan and had an actual socialist as a cabinet member. Lots of you wingers hated Truman. Funny thing though. So did liberals. Most everybody did. Except the people.

How to figure?

Best, Terry

clearthinker

Geeze, Terry, I thought you said "keep it clean".

I can't use the word "socialist"

I am from a time and place where calling someone a socialist was little different than calling them a commie-pinko, fellow-traveling, bed wetting traitor. I guess it was somewhat akin to calling someone a liberal today.

That I am not remotely a socialist is perhaps beside the point. I was not upset. Just helping you out with definitions. :-) You can call me anything you like.

All such categorizations are elusive. The lead columnist for The Nation, which is generally labeled a socialist magazazine, is as close to a Jeffersonian capitalist as you can get these days. You seldom have a chance to read much of Alexander Cockburn's own eccentric ideas. He is too busy pouring fire and brimstone on others.

Wanting to replace the health insurance companies with one-payer is as socialist as having wanted to rid Iraq of Halliburton. Capitalism was never supposed to encourage waste, corruption, inefficiency and vast bureaucracy. Why would anyone think otherwise this side of wingers?

I'm happy to engage you in a debate, but already you have called me a "winger"... and my name isn't even Deborah.

Noted. :-)

For what it's worth HST left office with the lowest approval rating of any president since WWII. So I don't buy your statement that "the people" liked Truman.

Considering Truman was despised by right, left and inbetween, perhaps you would like to tell me how he got re-elected. I never knew any president for whom the hatred was more visceral and no one is likely to ever find a more blunt speaking politician, let alone president. He is a marvel to this very day.

The people who vote for Nader would rather the purity of their own essence rather than get something done.

I may have you fooled but I fear St. Peter will be much tougher to convince.

I ain't voting for no Republicans, Light or Heavy.

What good exactly does it do to elect somebody who is against everything that is good because the other candidate is even worse?

My mother used to tell of two cereals that dominated the market when she was a young girl. Campaigns were waged over nutrition and goodness, partisans talked of theirs tasting better and fresher. Both cereals were made in the same vats in the same factory and poured into boxes with different labels like Republicans and DLC'ers.

Best, Terry

I thought this was a pretty smart little production...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIFEceopAUI

Whatever you think about Nader's choice to run, if you are anti-war and you want to move this country to the Left, you won't be supporting him this time around.