Ralph Nader started out as a righteous man, a crusader for auto safety. Fattened by a large settlement after General Motors was discovered to have attempted to have him seduced and blackmailed, he moved on to inspire a half—generation of college students who joined him a low—paid researchers, called 'Nader's Raiders.' I was one of them for a year.

As the years went on, Nader increasingly degenerated into a crank: reflexively anti—corporate, and in thrall to trial lawyers. Although he demands transparency and perfection of corporations, he has never acceded to requests that he divulge who his donors are. Critics suspect that prominent tort attorneys have been supporting him with major donations.

Once politics got into his blood, Ralph got much, much worse. Proximity to power often does that to good men. Lyndon Johnson, as portrayed in Robert Caro's monumental biographies, started out as an idealist, too.

Now, Nader has crossed the line, and has become a vicious bigot. The New York Sun  carries the following quotation from Nader, when addressing a Muslim group:

'The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington and meets with the puppet in White House. He then goes down Pennsylvania Avenue and meets with the puppets in Congress,' said Mr. Nader. The Israeli leader then 'brings back millions of dollars' in aid to Israel, he said.

Ralph Nader is old enough, and has been around politics long enough to know exactly what he is doing: pandering to Jew—haters, by invoking one of the oldest anti—Semitic slurs, that Jews secretly run the world. This sort of language is derivative of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Perhaps Ralph needs to be reminded that the popularizer of the Protocols in the United States was none other than Henry Ford, who almost single—handedly enabled tens of millions of Americans to buy their first car, thereby causing hundreds of thousand of casualties in automobile accidents. Ant——Semites may be okay in Ralph's view, but auto manufacturers are something else.

hat tip to Ed

Posted by Thomas  06 30 04

Update: Charles at Little Green Footballs provides another quotation from Nader, on C—SPAN, to the same effect:

'What has been happening over the years is a predictable routine of foreign visitation from the head of the Israeli government. The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington. The Israeli puppeteer meets with the puppet in the White House, and then moves down Pennsylvania Avenue, and meets with the puppets in Congress. And then takes back billions of taxpayer dollars. It is time for the Washington puppet show to be replaced by the Washington peace show.'

Clearly, Ralph has developed a new campaign theme.