Carl Bernstein says he heard it from Karl Rove, so it must be true. Rove is Bernstein’s new Deep Throat. Is he that desperate for a fresh Watergate to jumpstart his career? He says Ralph Nader’s progressive presidential campaign is dangerous for the young and poor voter in America. Nader’s campaign translates their needs into a political agenda that may get Nader some votes. It is subversive because it operates under the radar, but that’s only because it has been ignored by Big Media, already satiated with millions from the major party campaigns. Bernstein should know that.
While his Watergate Partner, Bob Woodward, has gone on to write a stream of books first flattering, then trashing Bush and his administration, Bernstein can’t be bothered by the mountain of facts that have emerged from the research by others to explain the many and complex reasons why Gore lost Florida in 2000. A new book suggests when Gore refused to commit to stop an extension of an airport into the Everglades National Park, local environmentalists decided to teach him a lesson. We forget Gore’s caution at matters environmental in 2000 and his silence on global warming during his campaign.
The aggressive Republican Party post-elections strategy to put operatives on the ground to win at all costs and the feckless Democratic retreat in 2000 has been detailed. Most of us know the US Supreme Court decided a presidential election and got away with it. In their White House shouting match about Election 2000, Gore blamed Clinton’s shenanigans with Monica and Bill blamed Gore’s failure to run on Clinton’s record. But Bernstein still blames Nader and sees danger ahead because Karl told him so.
He claims Nader has a personality disorders that requires that he persist in his call to demand a living wage, repeal of Taft Hartley, single payer health care, prosecution of Wall Street crooks, a new Israeli peace policy, an end to the wars without end and all the rest. He is bad because he influences the young in Ohio and Missouri with this crazy thinking, issues rejected entirely by Obama and McCain as unsafe at any political speed.Even the polls which predict an Obama landslide don’t faze Bernstein.
Moving from the 2000 lie to the next lie about 2008, the Ralph Nader Bernstein likes should be like Carl Bernstein. He should accept his deserved rewards and become a Cable Talking Head. Don’t get me wrong. Carl Bernstein was very good as Dustin Hoffman in his movie. But Ralph Nader played a great Ralph Nader in “An Unreasonable Man” and still does Ralph Nader well on the campaign trail. After the inauguration, Nader promises that his 2008 grassroots campaign organization will press the new President and his Congress to return to a Progressive agenda, the Democratic candidate and his advisors either let slide or disavowed during the Presidential campaign.
A vote for Ralph Nader is a vote to hold true to a detailed progressive agenda, not a cabal. If it bothers Carl Bernstein that Nader is reaching out to a new generation with a precise definition for the change Obama predicts in the abstract, well, that’s democracy for you, dangerous because it is still alive.
STEVE CONN lived in Alaska from 1972 until 2007. He is a retired professor, University of Alaska. His e mail is steveconn@hotmail.com.