Letters to the Editor
BryanS
Published Letters: 365 Editor's Choice: 1
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Lyndon LaRouche was right!
[Read the article: What will Nader say on "Meet the Press"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I highly doubt that Ralph Nader will make even the slightest ripple in the 2008 election, no matter how much money and free legal help the right wing shovels at him. I voted for Nader in 2000 (in California, 15 minutes before the polls closed, with Al Gore projected to take the state in a walk). My main reason for doing so was because, at the tender age of 24, I'd been spoiled by a strong economy and a relatively moderate administration for the entirety of my short adult life. I wanted more than I thought Gore was willing to offer. I still do. But I no longer think that throwing votes away on unelectable extremists is the way to get there.
In the last seven years, I've done a lot of growing up, and so has my country. We now see How Bad Things Can Get when you flush your vote down the toilet of a vanity campaign. Nobody thought Nader had a chance of winning the presidency, but he didn't even succeed at his secondary goals: to create a legitimate third party, and to pull the Democratic party back to the left. The Greens are no more viable now than they were when Nader found them, and the Democrats spent most of the last eight years rolling over and showing the Republican party their bellies. I was one of the few who actually cast a ballot for Nader once upon a time, and even I think the guy's a joke.
If Barack Obama winds up being the Democratic nominee (which is a safer bet every day), Nader won't hurt the Democrats one bit, because for the first time in decades, the Democrats would actually be fielding a legitimately inspiring candidate who's talking big and refusing lobbyist contributions. I find it highly unlikely that a meaningful number of voters would switch their vote from Obama to a disheveled, discredited crank who looks and acts like he just crawled out of his own grave.
At this point, the only voters who Ralph Nader appeals to are protest voters who would never vote for a mainstream candidate under any circumstances. Rather than accepting the challenge of choosing an imperfect but viable option and taking partial responsibility for their candidate's failings, they opt for the easy way out and cast a meaningless ballot for an unelectable straw man who will never win, and therefore never embarrass them. The music fans among us recognize the indie snob mentality: nobody with a legitimate shot at success could possibly have any integrity, so we're only going to listen to bands that you've never heard of.
I would love it if we lived in a world where Nader's ideas didn't occupy the extreme fringe of our political reality. But we don't, and no Ralph Nader candidacy has ever brought -- or will ever bring -- us even one step closer to it. Go ahead and vote for Old Man Crotchety if you want. Just don't pretend that you're actually accomplishing any of your stated goals by doing so.
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I'm no Hillary fan, but this is low
[Read the article: Newsday's cheap shot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm a big Obama supporter, and nothing would make me happier to see Hillary drop out of the race immediately. That being said, this is not the way I'd want it to happen.
While it hasn't been perfect, the Democratic primary has done a remarkable job of staying fairly high-minded and issue-oriented (at least by the standards of modern politics). Criticizing Hillary for remaining objective and vigorously defending the most sacred tenet of our legal system -- innocent until proven guilty -- is incredibly unfair and should have no place in the dialogue. I'm happy that this doesn't appear to have been leaked by the Obama campaign, and I'd be very disappointed if that were proven to be the case.
Then again, I just saw that the Clinton campaign is emailing pictures of Obama wearing traditional Somali garb, in a shockingly transparent attempt to propagate the ugly "Obama is an America-hating Muslim" rumor. So if Hillary's trying to drum up a xenophobic reaction against Obama for showing respect to foreign cultures while touring them as a representative of the United States, it's hard not to see this as a bit of karma.
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Yawn
[Read the article: Dems condemn Nader]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think George Stephanopoulos said it best on Good Morning America this morning: "Yesterday was the high moment of his campaign in 2008."
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Whoa, my Dad was right
[Read the article: Obama shows that dismissing slimy right-wing attacks is not difficult]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Apparently standing up to bullies really is a better policy than running away from them on the playground. At least, I hope so. I'd hate to see Barack get his lunch money stolen.
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In the name of fairness and balance...
[Read the article: Newsday's cheap shot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...I assume that the next War Room article to go up this morning will cover the Clinton campaign's distribution of a photo showing their African-American opponent wearing traditional African garb, in an attempt to make political hay from the "anti-American Obama" rumors. That's got to be at least as relevant to the coverage of the campaign as a third-party attack against Hillary, no?