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Nader's blowing smoke again

We can stop wondering what would have happened if Ralph Nader had been elected president. Actually, what wouldn't have happened.

Likely 2004 third-party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader thinks the 9/11 terrorist attacks wouldn't have happened if he had been president. He claims that amid all the big decisions new presidents have to make after inauguration, he would have ordered cockpit doors to be hardened against attack. He says an old report warning about how easy it is to get in the cockpit still sticks with him. What's more, he would have wiped out Osama bin Laden and his gang without a shot being fired. How? Bribe Osama's friends to hand him over.

Unfortunately, we do not have a time machine nor an Ouija board worth it's price that could tell us if Nader is blowing smoke up our asses. If I were a betting person I would say turn around and look at your ass because there's a big puff of smoke trying to get in your pants.

It's very easy for someone to say what they would have done. I'm thinking Nader's first act as president would have nothing to do with cockpits or Osama. Do you recall seeing anything about airline safety or terrorist organizations in his speeches? No, neither do I.

But the Green Party platform calls for universal health care, making our school system non-competitive, stripping down our military, abolishing our defensive weapons, hand-holding criminals and babysitting illegal immigrants.

Somehow I think that cockpit doors don't fall into any of the categories of Nader's pet projects. In fact, I don't see anything about combatting terrorism at all on the list of Green Party issues.

Like everything Nader stands for, his revisionist dreams of the past are just pie-in-the-sky fantasies.

Instead of saying "how can I help this country have a safe future," Nader and some of his fellow politicians can only talk about how they would have made the past better. Get with the program, guys. The 2000 election is long gone and now 2004 will get away from you if you insist on bragging about what you could have done and not what you will do.

Even though I was considered a "liberal" at the time of the attacks, I still was ever so thankful that Bush and not Nader, not Gore, not anyone else, was in the White House at the time, and I grew ever more thankful as time went on.

If Nader had succeeded in his pipe dream of presidency, you can bet that not only would 9/11 still have happened, but Saddam Hussein would still be ruling Iraq.

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Comments

Nader wouldn't make a good President. He would make a good advisor if they actually listened to him though.

Was randomly going thru various blogs when I came to yours.

I totally agree with you regarding Nader. Bribe Osama's friends to hand him over huh? If $27 million still ain't doing the trick, I wonder just what exactly ol' Ralph had in mind (http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/topten/fugitives/laden.htm)

Incidentally, whenever my cousin or my old roommate complains about Bush (OT:I voted for Gore) I ask them, "Who did you vote for?"

Cousin: Ralph Nader
RM: I didn't vote

My response: Don't even talk to me.

If Nader had succeeded in his pipe dream of presidency, you can bet that not only would 9/11 still have happened, but Saddam Hussein would still be ruling Iraq.

... and the Taliban would still be ruling Afghanistan, and Bin Laden would still be making public appearances and calling for death to all Americans, and would still be funding and planning terrorist attacks on the US with impunity.

On the other hand, the French would be making more of an effort to hide their contempt for us. So I guess it's a trade-off.

I don't know what a Nader presidency would be like. It's too remote and hypothetical to ponder.

However, in fairness, the issue positions were culled from the 2000 Green Party platform. By comparison, John Ashcroft didn't mention counter-terrorism as a DoJ funding priority as recently as September 10, 2001. (Adam Clymer NY Times article, 2/28/02).

Further, the GOP platform (http://www.rnc.org/GOPInfo/Platform/2000platform8.htm) barely mentions Islamic terrorism, but does have this corker: "The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration’s diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries."

Sorry to be so partisan, but some points writes themselves.

You forgot that hallmark plank in the "Green" party's platform: the minimum and maximum income.

That's right. They claimed that every American deserved a minimum annual income of $25,000 (working or not) and the government should supplement anyone not earning that minimum. How to pay for it? A very stiff progressive tax, of course, including a 100% rate on all income in excess of $250,000.

Funny how red "Green" can look sometimes, eh?

Norby, he was talking about what he would have done in 2001, so I thought the 2000 platform, on which he ran that year, was fair game.

Fair enough. Like I said, great consumer advocate, horrible Presidential candidate other than as a curiousity.

On a related, post-tying-togther note, I unfortunately sense in our media coverage of today's events eerie parallels to the coverage of events in August/early September 2001. I hope that easy military victories and a number of pop-culture distractions (in light of state and municipal funding woes for front-line security) are not causing another national lull.

Ralph Nader is absolutely right! Finally, someone is willing to speak truth to power! The Big Oil junta currently in the White Hosue deserves to be called into the light for their treason! Run, Ralph, run!

But then, I will say anything as long as it keeps the far-left radicalized and hyped-up about Howard Dean and his ilk.

Divide et impera.

Tasty Manatees

eerie parallels to the coverage of events in August/early September 2001.

It's just the silly season. Except for California's recall, there is no election activity going on, and since most of the national media are based on the east coast anyway the recall fits right in with the silly season mentality.

The resemblance to 2001 is most likely because that's the last time we had a no-election-year silly season.

As with virtually every other issue he confronts, Ralph Nader is completely out of touch with reality.

The problem wasn't a lack of "hardened cockpit doors". It was that airline policy towards terrorism was based around the assumption that terrorists wanted (a) the plane to be intact and (b) the passengers to live. So the pilots, crew, and passengers acted under the assumption that if their best chance of survival lay in cooperating.

Even if scientists from the Marvel universe had crossed through a rift in space-time and constructed all of our airplane cockpits out of indestructable Adamantium, 9/11 would still have happened. How? Easy -- the terrorists would have started killing passengers until the pilots voluntarily let them in.

Nader wasn't serious when he said if he were elected, that would have stopped 9/11?... He was kidding, wasn't he?... I thought he was auditionaing for Saturday Night Live (they have gone down hill, after all)... You know, monologue stuff and... Wait a minute... You're sure?... Well, I'll be.

Of course, if I'd had money to invest at the time, I would have put it all in the stock market around 1997 and started selling short in February 2000.

If you'd sold in February you'd have missed the Cisco peak on the 27th of March. That was the day to sell, they were worth $555.6 billion...

Wouldn't the world have been better off if Aaron Sorkin's Prez Bartlett had been in control of it? Or maybe Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan... oo! How about Harrison Ford? "GET OFF MY PLANES!"

Nader can claim all he wants, he can only be Prez in fiction.