After reading that "interview", I have to admit Nader comes off pretty bad. And my impression is that he appears to have some vague sense of knowledge, but refuses to recognize, that Republicans are supplying him with assistance in order to influence the election in their direction.

However, in between the terse exchanges, I think he does raise a couple of good points about media coverage and attempts to keep him off ballots, and also how similar Republicans and Democrats can be in some respects. But mostly clumsily and defensively.

Well, I agree that he has things to say -- and I'm very sympathetic to the aspects of his politics that revolve around, say, opposition to tax breaks for faceless multinational corporations hellbent on harvesting our children's organs as a source of cheap luncheon meat.

But he doesn't seem to grasp that once St. Ralph compromises his spotless integrity, the entire reason for him running goes out the window: he's not trying to build a third party like he was last election, he has no chance of winning, and he's hurting the odds of the candidate with whom his ideology is more closely aligned. He's just down in the muck with the big party boys, screaming about how corrupt everyone else is and generally making a scene. I can't believe he's still polling as high as he is.

Far be it from me to defend Ralph Nader, but I will make one limited argument. From a certain point of view, Democrats are not that different from Republicans. And so it is, in a sense, giving up to not continue to fight for what he believes is right. Especially when his candidacy is marginalized not because his views are so out of touch with mainstream America (they are sort of probably, but no more than Cheney's), but because he has this label of unelectability attached to him by the media. And now the media has the gall to tell him to get out of the race, after allegedly underreporting the dirty tricks involved by others in trying to keep him out of the race. If I were him, I might be a little pissed off too. I find it very unsettling that "electability" has so much hold over who people vote for. That's the only reason I can think of that Kerry is the Democratic candidate.

I think the Brockman quote was actually "... democracy simply doesn't work." But I suppose that isn't really relevant.

I agree with just about everything Mark's saying, but I don't think the hostility he cites is an enormous surprise. Nader's continuing on even though he doesn't have a chance in hell, the media will be giving him only the remotest touch, and Bush supporters are rallying around him to push the split. He knows all of these things—at that point, it's a vanity campaign.