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July 02, 2004

Nader the traitor

This one is much sweeter than the whole Jack Ryan thing, if not as scandalous. After all that time, Nader's candidacy finally makes sense to me.

On March 8, 1975, Jacobs arrived at the office to find the contents of two large file cabinets missing (including his personal diaries and documents relating to "financial matters") and his desk drawers ransacked. Nader arrived at the office a short while later to tell him he had ordered the files removed. In a state of near shock, Jacobs tendered his resignation and demanded to know what was going on. According to contemporaneous notes written by Jacobs, Nader said he had confiscated the files because a year earlier, Jacobs had signed checks for magazine subscriptions without Nader's permission. Nader also accused Jacobs of writing a check to himself for about $75 for expenses. Dismayed and shaken, Jacobs searched for a new job....

According to a statement Jacobs wrote after he was dismissed, Nader told the FBI that Jacobs was fired for skimming money from the Center for the Study of Responsive Law and other irregularities. In the affidavit that Jacobs drafted in the hope of clearing his name with the FBI, he wrote: "I was the only person Mr. Nader trusted with his extensive and complicated financial dealings....

"While I worked for the Congress Project, I had taken an idea to Nader, the only meeting I ever had with him," says Anne Zill. "He liked my idea about investigating how the media reports on things happening in Congress. So I worked on it during my own time, but I wasn't able to finish it."

After her fellowship, Anne applied for a job with Stewart Mott, a public-spirited philanthropist who was on President Nixon's enemies list. According to both Anne and Nick Zill, Nader attempted to torpedo her hiring with accusations that she had stolen notes from the Congress Project. She was hired by Mott anyway, and he even threw a party for her at the Kennedy Center. When Nader showed up at the party, Nick was so incensed he threw a glass of water in Nader's face. Thirty-five years later, Anne still works for the Stewart Mott Charitable Trust.

...While many activists find it easier to criticize a conservative administration than to work with a sympathetic one, what's different about Nader, observes one of his former supporters (who does not want to be named), is that his righteous view of himself "translates into a deeply pathological approach to targeting his allies."

...Claybrook is the president of Public Citizen, an organization that Nader founded in 1971. After Ted Jacobs left his position with Nader, Claybrook took over as Nader's right-hand person, and she remained his closest associate until she was appointed by President Carter to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which was created in the wake of Nader's auto safety campaign of the 1960s.

Within months of her appointment to the government agency, Nader attacked Claybrook. According to a biography of Nader by Justin Martin, "Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon," Nader wrote a vitriolic 11-page, single-spaced letter that was ostensibly addressed to Claybrook but was in fact distributed widely to the media; Claybrook herself didn't even get a copy.

..."We worked with him on [the Clinton] healthcare initiative," recalls a left-leaning activist who now works as a staff member for a Democratic congressman. She asked not to be identified because of Nader's penchant for retribution. "While we didn't necessarily endorse the Clinton plan, we worked hard to make sure it had a single-payer option. Ralph disagreed with us, completely disagreed with us, and spent time attacking us for selling out. It was a very bitter period of time. If you disagreed with him, you could very quickly become a target even if you were fighting for the same thing."

...Zimmerman readily acknowledges Nader's many achievements. But like others who had bitter fallings-out with Nader, he searches for a psychological explanation for Nader's behavior. "In addition to living inside this bubble of fame, he leads a very monastic life. He has no intimate relationships; he lives without emotional ties to other people. As a result, he is isolated from the kinds of things that help people reach emotional maturity. He has childish and narcissistic reactions to things. If he led more of an ordinary life, some of these problems might be mitigated."

And of course, there is this:

Ralph Nader Calls Israel a "Puppeteer"
12:30 Jun 30, '04 / 11 Tammuz 5764

(IsraelNN.com) On Tuesday, as broadcast on the American cable network C-Span, independent presidential candidate and environmental crusader Ralph Nader said the following:

"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."

He made the speech as part of a conference of the Council for the National Interest titled, "The Muslim Vote in Election 2004". In addition to Nader, speakers included Ambassador Edward Peck, former Iraq Chief of Mission and others.

Granted, I wish we were firmer with Israel about some things, too, but calling them "puppeteers" sounds like something I'd expect to hear from Al Qaida, not from a supposed Presidential candidate. And did I mention how the only states Nader is actually on the ballot in are the seven where he received the cynical endorsement of the Reform Party, which ran Pat Buchanan in 2000! If you recall, the Green Party, which is about as far from Pat Buchanan as you can get, is the party that Ralph Nader helped to start and which he ran as the Presidential candidate of in 2000, supposedly to help the Green Party get funding if he did well enough in enough states. So much for that justification!

Posted by Mike at July 2, 2004 03:19 PM

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