Please Crawl Back Under Your Rock

Every four years, like the cycle of a destructive pest, Ralph "Nadir" Nader reemerges from under his rock. In 2000, Nader votes in Florida totaled over 97,000, effectively giving Bush the election when Florida's votes were "counted." Polls say that he siphoned those votes primarily from people who, given the choice only between Gore and Bush, would have broken for Gore by a wide margin. He ran again in 2004, but received barely one-third of one percent of the total vote cast.

Today, in an interview with the Rocky Mountain News, Nader accused Sen. Obama of talking "white" to appeal to "white guilt," and of not addressing issues important in "the ghettos." Aside from the factual errors in his remarks, "Nadir" reveals a condescending, racist attitude that African Americans should be talking like African Americans, not like him. He thinks Obama should be more focused on "black" issues, and leave the "white" issues to white folks. He's a sad, narcissistic buffoon, who has a habit of leveling regular assaults against Democrats but seems shy about taking on the Republican candidates. Maybe if John McSame tried to "talk black" he'd get "Nadir's" attention, too.

(Village Voice photo of the incredibly shrinking "Nadir")

Sunday News Roundup

Crazywing spoiler Ralph "I'm Still Relevant" Nader announced he's running for president as a third-party (Loons?) candidate. Poor Ralph (pictured at left with our prediction of the number of votes he'll get this time around). The dotty, 73-year-old egomaniac thinks he's leading a parade. Let's see how many state ballots he gets on.

Also today, the WaPo joins with the RNC and its willing handmaidens in the MSM to begin its effort to de-construct Barack Obama. You know the familiar pattern: first the media is enthralled with a candidate; then it becomes sensitive to (Rethuglican) criticism that it has swooned; then to reestablish its creds (with the Right), it begins the skeptical, de-mythification process. Today was the WaPo's "Barack, we hardly knew ye" day, with two articles (the one above and one nearly identical by Chris Cillizzard and Shanunu Murray) and a Broderesque editorial ("The Obama Enigma") wondering where, oh where, would Obama lead us, asking "So is Mr. Obama a standard liberal clad in the soothing language of inclusiveness?" The WaPo (Hiatt, Broder, or Gerson?) may not have noticed, but "standard" liberalism is a political philosophy of tolerance and inclusiveness; it's the right wingers that want to cast everything into an us-or-them format, that seek to divide and polarize. What is it about the last 7 --hell, 15-- years that these numbnuts don't get?