A commenter in Matthew Yglesias' thread sums up Nader's career well, with my links:

Taking republican money and accepting republican assistance to further republican electoral victories. But hey, he did something or other to GM fifty years ago. And he started the PIRGs! Those are awesome. Awesome guy. High fives all around.

It seems to me Smith in the video and you have problems with the phrase "Uncle Tom." Has this become like the "n-word" a phrase that can no longer be used by any person?

You spent a lot of time listing your critiques of Nader. Perhaps you're saying that the phrase "Uncle Tom" can be used but only if someone has earned the right somehow?

If this phrase can no longer be used should I now start calling it the "U-T-phrase?"

Shep Smith: "Really?"

I was watching returns with a friend while assuming my usual position in front of our laptop and just turned to the TV and called out F you, Ralph Nader! At first I wasn't sure I heard what I thought I heard but my friend confirmed it.

Having long ago opted to forego the Sunday AM talking head shows because they left me feeling so upset or depressed or both, my infrequent outbursts directed to the TV screen these days had been saved for sporting events in which I have a strong rooting interest.

The other talking heads listening to it clearly were also flabbergasted. One of them said, in a stunned sad sort of way something like "Well, this is it, isn't it? He's finished now." Others were kind of like, I mean, what can you say to that?

I'm probably not the only one wondering if Mr. Nader will be able to summon the humility necessary for him to issue an abject and heartfelt apology. Probably many would be just as pleased if he doesn't, the better to keep the amount of media oxygen sucked up by this ugly incident to a minimum at this time.

Most people don't know what "Uncle Tom" means, let alone what "Uncle Tom for the giant corporations" means.

I swear I don't remember Scientific writing about when Emil Jones (Obama's "political godfather" in Illinois) actually did call a black Clinton delegate an Uncle Tom for supporting Hillary. Oh well. Selective reporting.

Btw, I highly recommend reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. My favorite characters were the Quakers.

I also highly recommend reading Uncle Tom's Cabin . ... and Google "Abolitionists opposing slavery and tobacco" to learn a whole lot more about it.

As for Ralph Nader, I don't think he deserved to become the scapegoat in 2000---because Gore won by over 540,000 votes, and would have won Florida in an honest, statewide recount (blocked by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris & Co.)

Nader, just as you or I, has First Amendment rights, and can run for president just like Harold Stassen did, perpetually, and doesn't deserve hatred for that.

REVERSE "NADER EFFECT"

---North Carolina has just been placed in the Obama column . . . because Bob Barr, ex-GOP congressman, running as the Libertarian nominee,got more votes than the margin of difference votes between McCain and Obama.

That may have happened in other states too . . . although this year such alleged "siphoning" of votes didn't make the difference the way people think it did in 2000.

First Smith felt the need to add a disclaimer on Joe-the-friggin'-Plumber's endorsement of the "Death to Israel" comment (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_0bdh2GQiI ), and now he calls out Nader with "What was that?"

Is it possible that Shepard Smith has a conscience? A soul?

Damn, I guess change IS possible. Who knew? Next thing you know, Bill O'Reilly will stop shouting down his guests! Rush Limbaugh will advocate middle-of-the-road policy! Michael Savage will come out of the closet!!!

I am, for the first time in a long, long time, very happy to live in these times. I feel positively energized by the change in the air. Hell, I might even get off my ass from in front of this computer and go volunteer for a couple of hours before I go to work!

...Well, that's not gonna happen. Today is for blog fishing. Tomorrow, though. Heh.

and i apologize for the double-post. (blushing)

Nader is stuck in the racial dialogue of the 60s and 70s. Like everything about his politics, his comments are outdated and harken back to the days of yore when Nader could get press without blackmailing the dems.

Obama would not be an "Uncle Tom" to the corporations, he would be a partner, a willing participant who reaped the benefits of cooperation through campaign contributions.

When Nader evokes the imagery of a subservient Obama saying "yes boss" while lowering his head and slashing the minimum wage, he is indulging in the worst kind of racism there is, implying that the black man has a binary choice: to be subservient to or in opposition to the system, but always outside its confines of power.

Nader is "irrelevant"??!!??
Look at TPM's election map. Obama lost Missouri by about 6000 votes. That is exactly the number cast for Nadar minus the number cast for Barr! Don't think Nadar screwed us again, check it out.

Stupid Nader, trying to make a valid point and blowing it by choosing to phrase it as if Trent Lott had said it. I am sure he thought the uncle this/uncle that was a slick verbal gimmick, too insensitive or just too clueless to realize the racial implications. And he couldn't have expected to be called out on that one by Fox, of all networks.

That was just a bizarre clip. Strange to watch. I can't stand Nader, but that clip was just sad. He's really become a cartoon character.

Sorry, but I've got to go with Nader on this one, however unfortunate his wording. I worked hard for Obama, but only as the lesser of two evils. And the evil with Obama is precisely what Nader is targetting, FOR OBAMA'S OWN GOOD! Obama must quit his support of Wall Street's suicidal efforts to reflate the bubble, if he is to realize the greatness to which the American people have called him, a greatness which will sometimes require the people's firm guidance, which in this case might go something like, "Let the dead bury their dead."

I wish that this was surprising. Ralph Nader has shown a lack of discipline in expressing himself for sometime. It undermines his message and the basic sloppiness of it all makes me wonder whether Nader has decided that feeling righteous is good enough. He will not be holding anyone's feet to the fire, that requires the sort of unimpeachable integrity a person possesses through rigid ethical conduct and clarity of both thought and action.

Nader's nadir is bottomless. It's not just that he jumped feet first into the Terry Schiavo circus on the side of Sean Hannity, he issued his proclamations in a press release hosted by the creationist theocrats at the Discovery Institute, co-written by Wesley J. Smith (the husband of opinionator Debra Saunders):

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/strange-bedfellows-commenter-ken-cope.html