NADIR

My gut reaction to the news that the self-righteous narcissist, Ralph Nader, will be running for president as an “Independent” is to demand that he cease and desist despoiling a perfectly respectable political position. He’s not an independent. He’s a far-left, paranoid Democrat who delights only in hurting his own party.

PRO-LIFE ORWELL: Not everyone who opposes abortion does so for religious reasons. Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, was one of the secular opponents. Here’s the money quote from the under-rated novel, “Keep the Aspidistra Flying,” where the protagonist consults a science text-book to think about the problem:

His baby had seemed real to him from the moment when Rosemary spoke of abortion…. But here was the actual process taking place. Here was the poor ugly thing, no bigger than a gooseberry, that he had created by his heedless act. Its future-its continued existence perhaps-depended on him. Besides, it was a bit of himself-it was himself. Dare one dodge such a responsibility as that?

Mark Stricherz explains more here.

GORE DID IT: The former vice-president’s un-Midas touch is now given even more credence by Joe Trippi, in the New York Times Magazine:

If you were to give one reason for the campaign’s collapse, what would it be?

TRIPPI: You have a party that’s tried to make every rule that it can to stop an insurgent. But at the same time — it’s not Al Gore’s endorsement — what I’m saying is, him endorsing us was a good thing. But at the same time, the unintended consequence of it was that the second Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean, alarms went off in newsrooms and at every other campaign headquarters. At the campaign headquarters, they all had meetings and said, ”We’ve got to stop Howard Dean right this second.” That’s what the Al Gore endorsement meant. It meant, We’ve got to kill this guy or he’s going to be the nominee.

C’mon, Joe. Stop being so nice. Gore killed off Dean. Some big Democrat should get Al to endorse Nader – soon.