Nader

Tom Tomorrow has a pretty good treatment of the Nader thing over on his blog. The important point (imo) comes at the very end.

"But here's the thing: I think the damage he will do is in re-igniting the liberal/left Civil War of 2000. To expand on something I wrote a few days ago: Nader's critique is, essentially, that there is a cancer on the body politic--and he's right about that. The problem in the year 2004 is that the body politic is also suffering from multiple wounds and blunt force trauma, we're in the emergency room and it's a damn mess and there's blood everywhere and the doctors are working furiously but it's anybody's guess how things are gonna turn out. We are in triage, and we have to deal with the immediate problems, or the long-term ones won't matter anyway." [emphasis mine]

I know no one likes choosing the lesser of two evils, but we have to operate within the paradigm we are given, even if that paradigm sucks and needs to change. Because if we ignore it, or attempt to operate outside it, then we lose any chance we have of changing it.