I must learn to be kinder

I've had a couple of exchanges recently with people who flew off the handle at the prospect of a Ralph Nader run for president in 2008. I already mentioned the one with Tito at The Core 4; the other one was with Fred at Stone Court.

I've seem similar reactions the the existence of a Nader exploratory committee other places, some considerably worse than those above. I didn't get into more arguments, but I did say at one site that I sometimes think Nader has put his name out there just for the fun of watching the Democrats foam at the mouth, shudder, twitch violently, and otherwise go bonkers in response.

A significant amount of the vituperation revolved, as it always does, around the claim that Nader is actually a GOPper stalking horse, supported by the right wing for the sole purpose of electing Republicans. That always struck me as a nutso argument supported by the thinnest possible evidence. It still does. However, I should likely be kinder to those who make the argument because it seems Nader isn't the only one getting that treatment. A reader of Talking Points Memo, in the middle of a lengthy screed about the horrors of an Obama (rather than a Clinton) nomination, said that

[i]t's obvious that the Obama base relies heavily on right wing help, and launders stuff through them and their proxies.

So perhaps it is just endemic to a style of hyperventilating politics driven by, in Carl Jung's famous phrase, "the evil which one does not see in one’s own bosom but always in somebody else’s," as a certain great political philosopher has already pointed out.

:sigh: We are so screwed.

Footnote: If you really want to check it out, this is a link to the Nader Exploratory Committee website. But let me make it clear right here and right now that Ralph Nader lost me with his bizarre, last-minute injection of himself into the Terri Schiavo tragedy with a statement that called for the forcible continuation of her feeding tube. There is no way in hell I will support him in 2008.

My hope is to be able to support the nominee of the Green Party, possibly Cynthia McKinney. But if that nominee turns out to be Nader, I will vote for other Green candidates, but not for him.