Oddly enough, we agree. :-)

Hmmmm, I'd love to hear someone (anyone?) answer those questions he posted though!

Dennis Kucinich has some free time. You could run it on cable access.

Shame on Ralph, asking tough questions. Wolf would be embarrassed to ask those questions. Corporate would be disgraced in front of beer-swilling voters.
Better to keep it on a Walt Disney level.

Corporate would be disgraced in front of beer-swilling voters.

You mean beer-swilling non-voters?

Asking leading questions does not make the questions "tough" nor more informative to voters.

I don't mean to deflate Nader's clearly-oversized ego, but I thought the questions that Obama and Clinton were asked about the distinctions in their health care plans, how they would face Republican election tactics, what their votes on Iraq signaled about their leadership qualities, and how immigration affects minorities who might be expected to vote Democratic were far better questions than any of Nader's.

When the superfluous language is removed, he wanted to ask about:
- Israeli actions in Gaza (no distinction between Obama & Clinton)
- Missile Defense (no distinction between Obama & Clinton)
- If Congress should impeach Bush (no distinction between Obama & Clinton)
- If the senators have taken action to crack down on corporate crime (a huge softball question that either would hit out of the park)
- Why Obama doesn't favor a single-payer system (the only good question, and one Obama answered at the debate when distinguishing his policy from Clinton's)
- Why do tax loopholes still exist? (another softball. They exist for the same reason that all of Nader's non-profits don't pay any taxes)

As the list shows, all of Nader's supposed "tough" questions were, in my opinion, either softballs that would give either candidate an easy opportunity to talk tough, or questions where both candidates have stated agreement on the policy in question. Having the candidates say "I agree with him/her" all night does not help voters.
And neither does prefacing each question with a paragraph of factual information whose veracity could be questioned.

For short debates, the questions should be focused on policy (not facts) and attempt to show differences between the candidates. For all their failings, Wolf & CNN did that in California.

D.J.

I couldn't agree more with this post. This guy is one of the primary reasons we have had a chimp in the oval office for 7 yrs. I don't care how Nader spins it.

Not a fan of his, but he seems to make some good points.
Debates are always softball, questions & topics screened. Its a bunch of BS fluff.
Honestly, I wouldnt be surprised if they were scripted.

I hope he runs :D

The "Kucinich and Cable Access" comment has be pretty pissed off, frankly.

Are you really asserting that the constitutionality of the last president, military spending, and the other issues presented in that article are "grassy knoll society" material?

Did you simply not read the article because you are so mad at Nadar or do you really think these issues aren't substantive enough to be brought up in the debates.

It's likely that Bush --and Cheney for sure--have committed impeachable offenses. One that no one ever brings up is that a government bean counter was ordered by Cheney to lie about the true cost of the Medicare prescription drug plan in testimony before Congress.

But the political backlash from starting impeachment hearings could totally derail any chances the Dems have of retaking the White House, so they are avoiding the issue.

I haven't understood how people hold the belief that Nader pulled too many votes away from Gore, FLA-2K, and so and blame that as Gore's undoing ... when the ballot count showed Gore got more votes than Dumbo. Irrespective of Nader.

So Nader could have impaired Gore, but in fact didn't. Emphasis on fact.

And if all of Nader's votes had gone to Gore -- that is, if Nader hadn't been there 'screwing things up' -- Dumbo's dictatorship goon squad deployment was set and still was going to cheat it out, deny Gore and the people, rig the ballot counting, assassination, invoke the Supreme Court, whatever whatever it took and with bruther, or rather son Jeb to do the 'stuffing.' Since, in 2000, the perps -- George Hitler Worker Bush and the boys -- were already underway with their plan (Jeb as gov, Dumbo as prez, were 2 pieces of the plan), and committed to their Nine-Eleven Op, which they had already written, documented PNAC (which was GHWB's creation, instigated in '93 after Billy C. 'upset' the prior schedule), which came to bringing 'a new Pearl Harbor' after the sense that the original had been and was the most indelible memorable experience in GHWB's life (during his senior year in high school and altering his mind of his fate -- simply from 'nothing' to 'something'), and had worked out so well for him ... in his personal estimation. I mean, the obviously requisite 'spark' to be avatar and commence advent of world 'real-politick' societal change, (the sense expressed cliche as 'the new century' or 'new millennium' or 'Aquarian Age'), that hallmark / milestone / watershed moment could have as informatively, instead of "new Pearl Harbor," been called the 'new enlightenment' or the 'new 97 Theses,' (although Martin Luther King, Jr., likely held copyright on that invocation), or the 'new New Deal' or merely the 'Newer New World' or (my favorite) the 'Consti2tion, release 2.0.' Or a hundred other formulations of wording the sense of a 'turning,' a 'revolution' in earthly erudition, but for the fact that the necessary precipitous moment wasn't called any of those and was called 'new Pearl Harbor' because that was the most impactive experience in GHWB's life, and in that documented mindprint fingering the trigger, proving his sentience and hand and act in cause, and staging, of said moment: Nine-Eleven Op. He conceived the PNAC, '93, convened the PNAC panel, '94, and instructed what they wrote, 'new Pearl Harbor.' (With a little help from his business partner/twin, Henry the Killing-er.)

And in them and from them was made the myth that Dumbo 'won' and Gore 'lost' and Nader can be blamed the 'spoiler' and massminded folks adopted as their own thought of the matter this totally fictitious yet sufficing mythic 'conventional wisdom' -- so it's 'common knowledge' Nader is pariah, contaminated lepor, despite and regardless of actual facts that he did not steal Gore's votes, (Nader's were his own, his 'peeps'), and that dictator Dumbo as Bushbutcher unlawfully corrupted and 'stole' the ballot count.

--
A personal note: As I was typing this comment, a phone call interrupted -- a snowed-in friend reaching out from Boston (vicinity). He was born in 1935 and conformed in the 1950's Harvard education model, (further reading left to the student's initiative). His purpose was for another installment of our decades-long 'intellectual' conversations, this one lasting over an hour, where he could 'sound out' organizing his thoughts for a paper he has due in his Existentialism class at BU. Mr. Living Erudite, if I may say, and a friendship most treasured.

In the course of our conversation, he made this exact same statement, unprompted -- that Nader spoiled the FLA-2K count for Gore -- and I flew into him the same contradiction as in my comment here. He has heard all my protests of 'brainwashing' and contests of 'facts' before, and always chucks under my chin and pats my head and consigns me to the loony bin but agrees that I do substantiate my position and that he doesn't, and can't, his; and affirms our unique, stimulating, dear-to-each friendship, and defers the topic of my 'sanity' to another discussion, later, with a continuing open mind. This time was different: He listened, he resisted, he reconsidered, and he adopted in mind my position and point of view. His entire thinking changed today, and I don't know what I said differently that he recognized it in what he already knew.

Although the clincher seemed to be my statement of evidences, that the Big Picture rendered as 'GHWB orchestrated Nine-Eleven Op' provides a coherent uniform view of today's events in the unified way of human motivation, incorporating all the incredible oddities and scraps of nonsense such as 'Nader the Misbegotten' (whereas his lifelong record of public service shows the opposite), 'Supreme Court-selected,' 'anthraxed Congress,' 'pre-written PATRIOT Act,' 'bad intelligence,' 'mythical WMDs,' 'uncountenanced Iraq invasion,' 'unarraigned, unrepresented, unhabeas corpus'ed and unconvicted -- and demonstrably tortured -- enemy-combatant terrorists,' 'unallayed questionings,' 'fubar FEMA,' 'hidden hero caskets,' 'gone-goofy exit polling,' 'a noun, a verb, 9/11: electable Giuliani,' 'impeachment's off the table,' 'one-owner massmedia,' 'mislaid nuke-tipped cruise missiles,' and on and on, any wacky one-time 'Wow' you can think of, right up to today's Oregon veteran-of-war buried with no federal attendance, four undersea internet cables severed, or the administration's proposed budget and priorities; ALL of these pieces fit perfectly and capably and logically in one comprehensive Big Picture view, from my position, as opposed to my friend's (popularly said) view where none of them are substantiated or understood except as an arbitrary, random, happenstance stream of 'normal' exceptions ... too lengthy to compile, cross-file, or recall.

Worldview isn't built in a person in a day. My friend rang off (no chin-chuck, no head-pat, no 'get out of here'), saying he had seven years of world news to review and let's talk again when he'd had time to think with his head spun around. And his mind's eye open.

--
A general note: Wednesday's (2/6) New Moon marking New Year's Day, (among lunar calendar keepers, as are the Chinese, Hebrew, Mohammedan, Hindi), is an eclipse of the Sun. There is an ominous darkening in world affairs, for those who put a pinch of superstition into concoctions of consciousness.

(shrugs) Well, I like Nader anyway.

Gore? If he'd have won Tennessee, or if his campaign manager had the sense to steal enough votes (like his daddy used to) we'd be blaming him for this war, economy, etc.

Not that I would dare give Bush a pass for being one of the worst presidents imaginable. He's failed upward his whole life, propped up by family or family connections. His legacy is yet another oil scheme gone bust. What do you expect from a fake Texan anyway?

But we have created the system that attracts these mendacious leeches. Don't blame Ralph. He has his flaws, I'm sure, but I don't see him as being cut from the same cloth as those who will likely lead us, and who owe us accountability. After the last seven years we deserve that at the very least.