blatham wrote:fishin' wrote:Of course there was also the Gore team's assertions that Nader was an Anti-semite [..]
The Gore/Nadar incident is not known by me, and I couldn't find anything on it.
blatham wrote:
I gather the Gore statement(s) occured in a linked TNR article, but having no membership and having spent my last dollar on a lovely Valentines Day gift from SextoysRus, I have not been able to see what Al might have said
Yeh, I "have membership" (of TNR - not, alas, of Sextoys'R'Us), so I can see it. Nothing all too spectacular.
First off, main thing -
Al didnt say anything - not that this article shows, anyway. And as far as I know, TNR wasn't part of "the Gore team", either. (In fact, in the very same issue, a TNR commentator called his candidacy "simply too liberal for the country".)
That means that in terms of how Fishin' was using it - as an example of how the Dem campaigns used tricks that were just as dirty - this link doesnt show zilch.
Also, what
TNR was accusing Nader of was pandering, not anti-semitism as such. And Lord knows (point #3 to make here) that TNR would be among the first to accuse anyone of anti-semitism. (I mean, I really do like TNR, but as soon as the topic turns to Israel, it tends to veer to near-hysteria).
Anyway, this was the dirt: after three paragraphs focusing its fire on Nader's "Republicrats" rhetorics, an Oct 2000 TNR editorial then lambasted Nader for blaming Israel for Middle-Eastern violence. And to go with that, it dug up an article he had written in 1960, for a journal that at the same time also published anti-semitic material - and called it "perhaps" a "youthful mistake".
Ergo, somebody at TNR, annoyed by a politician criticizing Israel, went searching through the archives to see what he could find on the guy on the matter - and found something that wasnt enough to accuse him of anti-semitism for, but was enough to wield a suggestive question mark about. All fairly typically TNR (both the diligent research and the outrage over an anti-Israel position) - but what its got to do with the Gore campaign, I dunno.
Quote:[..] One of the strange things about Nader's notion that he is qualified for the presidency is that he is a man without any discernible views on foreign policy. Or he was until last week, when he proclaimed that Israel is entirely responsible for the recent violence in the Middle East and that Gore is "cowardly" for not saying so. Now that the Arab-American vote matters tactically, Nader has discovered the rest of the globe, and has decided to play the lousy game of identity politics that he used to scorn. "The curious thing of course is that though of Lebanese parentage, Nader has never made himself part of any Arab or Arab-American campaign ... [and] he does not devote much time to foreign policy." Those are the astute words of Edward Said, writing (in praise of the dissident, naturally) in Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo a few months ago.
There is something even more curious than Nader's sudden pandering. (Excuse us, his sudden hunger for Levantine peace.) It turns out that Nader's cheapness on this question, and his conspiratorial view of the world, go back very far. They go back to March 1960, when the left's gaunt hero published an article called "Business Is Deserting America," in which he warned ominously of "our ingrained gullibility to internationalism." The remarkable thing is that Nader published his piece in The American Mercury, an obscenely anti-Semitic magazine. Nader's piece appeared in the same months that the magazine was publishing a series called "Termites of the Cross," which was full of such teachings as:
As soon as anyone demonstrates that he is willing to expose the enemies of communism or world Zionism, their vast machines start working to advance his interests. The Disciples of Judas do not even have to be openly pro-Communist or pro-Zionist to qualify for the big payoff....
The youthful mistake of the saint? Perhaps; but neither Gore nor Bush ever made quite such a mistake. In this respect, there is truly no difference between them.
Make him turn in his hair dye and his pallor RIGHT NOW!!!!! 
dares to put up any numbers yet: Kerry 39, Edwards 34, Dean 18.
