Ralph Nader started out as a righteous man, a crusader for auto safety. Fattened by a large settlement after General Motors was discovered to have attempted to have him seduced and blackmailed, he moved on to inspire a half—generation of college students who joined him a low—paid researchers, called 'Nader's Raiders.' I was one of them for a year. As the years went on, Nader increasingly degenerated into a crank: reflexively anti—corporate, and in thrall to trial lawyers. Although he demands transparency and perfection of corporations, he has never acceded to requests that he divulge who his donors are. Critics suspect that prominent tort attorneys have been supporting him with major donations. Once politics got into his blood, Ralph got much, much worse. Proximity to power often does that to good men. Lyndon Johnson, as portrayed in Robert Caro's monumental biographies, started out as an idealist, too. Now, Nader has crossed the line, and has become a vicious bigot....(Read Full Post)