Nadir of Ego Politics

Ralph Nader has apparently declared for president as a third party candidate again. On the Green Party, no less.

Asked for a reaction, Hillary Clinton reminded us: “Well, you know his being on the Green Party [in 2000] prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we’ve ever had,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And I think that’s really unfortunate.”
Quote and photo from http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/nader-to-run-again/.

I could not agree more. What if Nader's irresponsibility manages to elect John McCain and keep the country from having its first African American or female president?

There was a brilliant blog on this at DailyKos, which looked at the role of responsibility in politics, referring back to Max Weber on "Politics as a Vocation," (which John Downing and I co-taught in my first graduate theory course at UT in 1998--so I am impressed at how this blogger applies it to the nadir of Nader). In a nutshell, good politics requires both passion and responsibility, which Nader seems to have lost sight of, but check out the blog at
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/24/122941/145/621/463149.