Nadar is “elder” in the sense of being senile. We don’t saddle you guy with the rantings of Pat Buchanan anymore, do we?

This is the first time I've read any lefty anywhere call Nader the Pat Buchanan of the left, and otherwise impugn his sanity and integrity. I sense a convenient new meme.

Well, they are/were both Reform Party candidates for president.

Convenient? Are you implying that it is somehow untrue? Nadar left the Democratic Party far behind a long time ago. He veered too far too the left for the GREEN party some time around 2001. The man today is an oddity-- a curiosity. Even if he’s still alive in 5 years (he’s getting old, you know), we won’t be hearing from him then...

" He veered too far too the left for the GREEN party some time around 2001."

Nonsense. In fact, he had to move some of his views "leftward" (i.e., drug legalization) in order to conform to Green Party positions.

The criticism of Nader from the "mainstream" left has never been that Nader is too extreme, but that he's a spoiler. His views are not dismissed as fringe, but in fact are accorded a degree of seriousness if for no other reason than that they subtract a certain number of votes from Democrats. Buchanan, however, is mostly ignored by the right. The comparison is weak at best.

No, I mean "convenient" in the sense of _convenient_. I am sure that you and other leftists (liberals, whatever) are sincere in your new belief that Nader is now a wacky hack from beyond the Pale. Re-education and accepting the new party line -- oops! I mean "rethinking one's position and updating one's beliefs in a mature way" are standard left-spectrum MO.

I don’t know why I bother reading your comments, Ms. Harris. Do you get a bulk discount on Straw? It seems the only way you can make your arguments. Once again you are responding to a real, live human being, and mistake that person for a mythical “lefty”, one with all the characteristics your fevered imagination assumes the Left is hatched with...

Well, as it happens, I think Mr. Nadar is an eloquent and engaging speaker, and a terrible, sloppy thinker. I have ever since the mid 1990s when I picked up one of his books. The last few years have shown all of us on the left how much of an egomaniac he is, and the vast majority of us are disassociating from his policies. I’m glad to see that so many people who would like to see the country move in the same direction I would are beginning to see him the same way I do...

Now, begone demon! Back to the flames with you...

Oh don't be such a big old girl. "you are responding to a real, live human being..." Yawn. Oh, and you aren't a "lefty" -- 'kay, you may notice (if you'd wipe the tears away) that I added "liberal, whatever" for tender souls like you. I just sort of assumed that you tended toward the left side of things because every single comment I've seen from you anywhere has taken that position. But exsqueeze me, you're an IN-DUH-VIDUAL. So noted.