More on Nader

Billmon asks the fundamental question—why has Nader stabbed the left in the back? And I think he's answered it too.

Billmon: Unsafe at Any Speed

[U]p until the past few weeks, I've never questioned Nader's motives or his sincerity. As destructive as I think his actions have been, and as much as I detest his stubborness and his increasingly bizarre egoism, I've taken it for granted that Ralph's objectives were exactly what he said they were: to give the voters a progressive alternative to the Republicrat political duopoly.

I may have thought he was wrong - disastrously wrong - but I always assumed Nader was basically an honest person, and a man of the left. And as high as I know the stakes are in this election, it still made me uncomfortable to see the Dems using hardball tactics to try to keep him off the ballot in as many of the key states as they could. In my book, the Democratic Party was (and still is) just an instrument, a tool - a weak one, but the only one we've got - for fighting the movement conservatives. Ralph, on the other hand, was more like a crazy uncle - a real pain in the ass, but still, when it comes right down to it, family.

But Nader's increasingly open and shameless alliance with the GOP - as demonstrated so flagrantly in Michigan - leaves me with the sinking feeling that I've misjudged him. Simple stubborness and egoism can't explain everything - Ralph is too smart and too worldwise for that, even if his followers aren't. He knows what he's doing. And he knows who he's doing it with.

Which leaves me with just two questions, really: When did Ralph switch sides? And why?

The answer may surprise you. Or, maybe leave you smacking your forehead and saying "Of course". Why does a 70 year old man whose been at the head of a movement that was actually pretty successful do anything?