Nick, you raise good questions. Take comfort in the fact that we are able to criticize our own government. As often as it's been said, other people simply don't have that right.

The reason that so many other countries criticize our government (not just Bush policies, etc., the U.S. in general...)is that they aren't allowed to criticize their own governments (which are often in a much worse state than we are).

I'm not saying we're the right ones to "fix it", but there have been enough screws loose in the middle east to take the whole world off track for some time.....Don't expect them to solve their own problems anytime soon.

Thanks Justin. It's good to get this out every now and then.

No, it would have shown exactly the opposite. It would have shown he was a man of no convictions and that he did not believe he should be president.

I cant believe there are still people crying becuase Gore lost 4 years ago.
He lost becuase he didnt carry his home state.
If he had won that Florida would not have mattered.

"The fact that he didn't drop out when he saw that Bush was going to win proves that he lacked the stature to be president."

and when exactly was that?!! Nader didn't support either one of them and made it clear that while gore was definitely the lesser of two evils, "picking your poison" doesn't value the life of the system. The sooner we all forget about cliches like that one and get busy addressing the sad truths, the better. It's unfathomable to me that America may choose this idiot bush again, and yet, it may be what the country needs to get off its collective ass and get involved at every level to make some changes that mean something, not just lining the next bunch of pockets!

"having good ideas is a tiny part of being a good leader. Any fool can be right."

that is absurd! great leaders have a plan, integrity and charisma, and 2 out of 3 doesn't get it done, as hitler and others have proved - although you might argue hitler was a great leader, he was a great manipulator. many of our politicians aren't about actually DOING anything to change our country and the world for the better, they're about lying and pretending while really protecting their special interests and manipulating through the media! Preying on fear. Nader does suck at that. That's because integrity isn't something you have when it's convenient. Truth is still truth even when it isn't popular.

OMG I just checked to see 33 people replied to my simply worded post "Bush is a jackass."

Amazing how four words can start a flamefest.

Look I didn't expand on my comment because everybody knows why Bush is a Jackass. Cause he is.

Nuff said.

Hmmmmm.....you're right. Not political...ad hominem.

I also would like it if principle were all that mattered in politics, Michael. I also would like it if there were no crime, and if there were no war because people were smart enough to sit down and talk it out.

That's not this world. Politics has never been that way and it never will. You learn that in the first political science class you take. Look where your ****ing truth got you when it was inconvenient: thousands of people are dead. **** the truth. I'll take someone mediocre over a warmongering cowboy ideologue monster any day.

And yes, I'm still crying that Gore lost the election - which he didn't - because a) the world has gone to hell since then as a result, b) because what the Supreme Court did was probably the low point in our history as a democracy (or at least it's up there), and c) because the electoral college is bogus. I'd be mad at the Supreme Court even if Gore were president - it was an outrage.

How about this one?

Just for fun...


1) If you think you 'know' that the U.S. or the world would be in a better place if Al Gore had won the election, I guess I'd ask you if I could borrow your crystal ball that seemingly allows you to see alternate realities(?) - but it's obviously broken!

2) To say that voting for a non-mainstream candidate like Nader is some type of ill-advised "vote essentially for Bush" is the worst type of selfish, short-sighted political expendiency. The fact of the matter is, the distinctions between Bush and Gore, or Bush and Kerry - or ANY Republican and ANY Democrat - are so freaking marginal that it's almost imperceptible.

Why? Because our closed-loop, two-parties-only system allows it to be a race which is essentially about photegenics and 30 second TV spots - and NOT about a true discourse on all of the issues with ALL of the interests represented.

The only way that MIGHT change is to have more independent candidates. I, for one, would gladly stand by and watch any number of Presidential elections in my lifetime get flushed down the toilet of a failurre to congeal a majority - if that happened in the process of moving towards a true, open airing of all of the issues with several viable candidates running.

Man, I shudder to think where we'd be now if folks like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock and the like actually thought things like: "Well, if we do the RIGHT thing here, for future generations, it will make the next few years really difficult for us. Let's just stick with the lesser of two known evils. Let's not burden ourselves with the difficult task of even trying to make things right, for the future and for everybody."

3) No, I am not a Bush supporter. I think the guy is a moron and has put the U.S. into the worst foreign relations posture that it has been in, in decades. I'm just of the opinion that, under the present system, no matter who gets elected, it'll pretty much be business as usual.

Knife, there's no reason to believe that Gore had plans to invade Iraq from the beginning, that every single decision he made would have been pro-business, that he would have been totally anti-environment, that he would have pushed through the tax cuts for the rich, that he would have screwed up our standing in the world as you say...it goes on and on.

There was a HUGE difference between Gore and Bush, just as there is between Kerry and Bush. I'm not crazy about Kerry, but he's not within light years of being as bad as Bush.

And the choice you're presenting is a false choice. It wasn't between right and wrong. It was between making a statement nobody is going to hear - i.e. voting for Nader - or voting to keep the worst administration ever the hell out of my country.

Nader had no chance to win, so why vote for him?