For the "blame Nader" crowd today, remember....

[Pab Sungenis]

...there was no way that a Republican appointed Justice would have retired under Gore. In fact, there were no vacancies during Bush's first term, so there would have been no changes during Gore's term.

If he had been re-elected (which in and of itself is not a certainty), O'Connor would never have retired. At best, he would have had one appointment with Rehnquist's passing, which would have probably been filibustered by the Republicans anyhow. And then who knows who he would have appointed to the Court?

So if you want to deflect the blame from where it belongs (the Third Way DLC crowd who insist the Left has nowhere to go) maybe you should point it at John Kerry, who ran the most inept Presidential Campaign since Walter Mondale. After all, if he had beaten Bush we wouldn't have had Roberts or Alito, either.

[dsc]

2. nice try

Renquist died, you know as in dead, not alive anymore. He died.

[Pab Sungenis]

3. He died in September 2005.

He would not have let Gore appoint a Chief Justice between 2001 and January 2005.

And if Kerry had won in 2004, he would have appointed the new Chief.

Nader doesn't factor into it.

[dsc]

4. gore would have been reelected but for Nader preventing his election

the simple fact is his whole campaign was based on a lie that the Democrats and the GOP are the same. But since he is a rich white male he is doing just hunky dory under this SCOTUS. One wonders if that might have been his plan all along. He didn't even know about the most important gay rights case decided in the year he ran when he was asked about it (the boy scout case which was named boys scouts v dale). Since it was never his rights at stake he didn't give a shit.

[byeya]

5. I wonder how much of this anti-Naderism is racism because Nader is an Arab/American?

[OilemFirchen]

6. I did some exacting calculations and came up with a definitive result:

Zero.

[leftynyc]

7. I did not know that

Have you seen criticism of him here that brings that up? Or is the criticism due to his being a fucking liar who insists there is no difference between the parties?

[OilemFirchen]

8. As good a place as any to drop this:

Specifically for the Purity Patrol...

In the 2004 campaign, Democrats such as Howard Dean and Terry McAuliffe asked that Nader return money donated to his campaign by Republicans who were well-known Bush supporters, such as billionaire Richard Egan.[81][82] Nader's reaction to the request was to refuse to return any donations and he charged that the Democrats were attempting to smear him.[81] Nader's vice-presidential running mate, Peter Camejo, supported the return of the money if it could be proved that "the aim of the wealthy GOP donors was to peel votes from Kerry."[81] According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Nader defended his keeping of the donations by saying that wealthy contributors "are human beings too."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#2008