January 15, 2002

The Nader Factor I caught

The Nader Factor

I caught Ralph Nader on the O'Reilly Factor last night, and so did Andrew Sullivan: his quotations and commentary are spot-on and worth reading. Favorite Nader quote:

See, what we weren't smart enough in doing is pitting the Taliban survival against the al Qaeda. You see? That's what we weren't smart enough to do, because we had a West Texas sheriff in the White House saying we're going to get them. We're going to smoke them out.

This is Euro-rhetoric, pure and simple, and the anti-American European Left is clearly Nader's true spiritual home. What Sullivan doesn't spell out is that this was in response to O'Reilly's persistent prodding and stressing that the Taleban were presented with an ultimatum that they flatly turned down. If I remember correctly, Nader's response was that we should have given them more time to comply, and he tried to disguise the wobbly character of this position with the above pose of "hard-headed smarts" and realpolitik.

For all I know Nader actually does see himself as some sort of brilliant grandmaster of the geo-political chessboard, though most of his foreign policy ideas appear to be lifted uncritically from the Chomsky playbook. But it's probably just more disingenuousness, playing to "his base," such as it is. He knows full well that the scenario he adduces (allowing the Taleban to continue their reign of terror and oppression as long as they comply with a few limited demands) would have been a moral and strategic disaster, and that the ultimatum wouldn't have been offered if there had been any chance that it would be accepted. Even if you buy the dubious notion that the Taleban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan were separate and mutually exclusive entities, and even within the Cloudcuckoo Land of Nader's professed world-view, such a strategy of playing off one evil force against another evil force would be, under these circumstances, morally and pragmatically ludicrous. Trouncing the Taleban has sent a powerful message to other evil-doers, no doubt; but negotiating with them would have sent the opposite message. "Taleban survival"-- good idea, Ralph.

What I don't see is how this adds to Sullivan's on-going case against the claim (of Kinsley, et al.) that the notion of a dangerous, massive anti-war American Left is a figment of the "right wing imagination" and, perhaps, abiding desire. The fact that Ralph Nader has expressed anti-war sentiment is hardly an earth-shattering revelation. Crackpots like Nader and Chomsky abound, of course, and they have a degree of influence on some misguided souls, but their marginality weakens rather than strengthens Sullivan's case; ditto Rall, Kingsolver, Sontag, etc. I agree that there is a craven, soft streak of unreconstructed and ill-considered ideological idiocy running through the outlook and rhetoric of people in "the enclaves." By pointing it out and exposing it to well-deserved ridicule, Sullivan and others perform a valuable service. Yet I believe that 9/11 has probably destroyed "this Left" as a viable political force in America (though it's still alive in Europe.) It's anybody's guess what will rise from its ashes in the future, and this situation bears close watching, of course. This forced re-alignment, where the non-insane members of "the left" have been compelled by events to specify content for their attitudes and poses, is one of the most interesting peripheral phenomena of the new post-9/11 world.

I may be mistaken about this, just as Kinsley may be mistaken about his claims: but Ralph Nader doesn't prove it in either case. Everyone knows he's a nut. And if "liberal" spokesmodels like Kinsley have repudiated the traditional anti-war cliches of the loopy left, isn't that a good thing?

Posted by Dr. Frank at January 15, 2002 02:24 PM | TrackBack