Nader: LBJ Would Have Plugged the Hole

I started my day with the extreme long-range GOP 2012 hopefuls, so I'll end with one Leftard sorta-hopeful. Ralph Nader is sick of Obama and he's not ruling out another presidential run.

Ralph Nader denounced President Obama's lack of leadership on Monday and said he was leaning against, but would not rule out, a 2012 presidential bid.

In a radio interview with liberal activist Mark Green, Nader said that Obama had resorted to "mealy-mouthed, well-composed rhetoric" on the BP oil spill but hasn't backed it up with real action, like banning BP from doing business with the government.

He added that a stubborn Congress is no excuse for not passing a strong climate bill.

"That's a cop out. Would LBJ not be able to get it through when he had 59 Democrats and an independent? [Obama] doesn't know how to deal like LBJ did. He doesn't have that fervor," Nader said.

Unfavorable comparison to President Johnson? Oh my.

Here's the thing I love about Ralph Nader. Actually, it's not really about Nader. It's about my favorite novel, Lucifer's Hammer...which bags on Nader a little bit. That book came out in 1977. When I first read it in the mid-to-late 1990s, I thought, "same Nader?" Oh, very yes it is. His call-back to LBJ is just an extension of his same old program, though it has a bit of that old geezer "when I was young" quality to it.

I'm outsies for a while, so entertain yourselves quietly.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 06:10 PM

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