Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Remind us. Which candidate is for corporate greed? Pentagon waste? Bad health care?


So asks Eleanor Randolf in an Editorial Notebook blog for the New York Times.

She is asking with a pen full of irony. The non-ironic answer is "all of them." Not one of the candidates has fully denounced, in word and action, the role of corporate power in politics, nor has voted to reduce the Pentagon budget, nor has introduced a single-payer universal health care plan (because that would harm the insurance companies, you see).

What is so scary about Ralph Nader that a competent candidate (and I believe Barack Obama is one) would have trouble addressing. Hell, I'd invite Obama to debate Nader just to get the issues on the table.

The Hartford Courant offers the opinions of Trinity's Adrienne Fulco on the topic, and while her essay is carefully considered, and far from the previous adolescent Nader name-calling on the Courant's editorial page, the headline screams something that's not stated in the article (Nader Crashes Party Again, Should Quit Race).

If I read another bad pun in an anti-Nader piece about Nader's nadir, I'll puke. I don't need to know, once again, that he's a 74 year old, over the hill hero who is soiling his own legacy. Why not write about a legacy that's spoiled from the start, like that of George Bush or Karl Rove?

Finally, I'll remind editorial writers, that every piece about Nader brings more attention to his candidacy (Mark Silva of the Baltimore Sun realizes this) and the ideas he has about American politics, the American economy, and American liberty and freedom of expression.

So keep on writing. Keep on writing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this bit of sanity! I like to think I'm a peaceful person, but if one more idiot tells me about how Nader is going to spoil the race, I swear I'll have to resort to fisticuffs.

You nailed it: "Why not write about a legacy that's spoiled from the start, like that of George Bush or Karl Rove?"