Patriot: The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
– Mark Twain

Ralph Nader will always be remembered by his critics as the man whose bid for the White House in 2000 gave us eight years of George W. Bush. The disdain many liberals have for Nader still runs deep nearly a decade later. I wrote a version of this story for Gambit Weekly back when under the headline: Testing the Environment.

But according to my friend Jason Leopold, there’s no denying the positive impact Nader’s activism has had on this country over the past half-century. Without Ralph Nader there wouldn’t be an Environmental Protection Agency, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a Consumer Product Safety Commission, a Safe Drinking Water Act and so on. He has a new novel out called Only the Rich Can Save Us.

Jason Leopold interviews Ralph Nader about his new book…

Beware the people with the biggest Bibles marching in the streets against health care for the poor. Surely they are confused about what Jesus would do. Twitter that…

Why is anyone listening to Rush Limbaugh?

There is a principle in American law that says free speech is allowed as long as it doesn’t endanger lives. The example often used to show speech that would not be allowed is when someone cries fire in a crowded theater, causing public panic. Much of what this radio ditto head does is equivalent to that.

He is an uneducated, uninformed idiot who is only there because about 18-22 percent of the country is just as uneducated and uninformed as he is. We have long advocated that real news outlets go after him and show how stupid he is and how destructive his BS is for the country. Now MSNBC is doing that on a daily basis. We applaud that effort and say keep it up!

Maybe we should take a short break and revisit this. It’s Black Monday on Wall Street and in D.C.

So it turns out Bush’s “brain” ain’t so brainy after all. After belittling the town of Richmond and Virginia’s governor Sunday on the CBS News show Face the Nation, Rove may have done more to hand the red state over to the Democrats in the 2008 election than all of the money Obama is spending to try and win the state come November.

The local reaction to Rove’s “patronizing” comments was swift and not kind, making it look like the former White House political aide Bush liked to call “turdblossom” had stepped in one gigantic pile of doodoo.

“As finance director of the Virginia GOP, Karl Rove lived in Richmond during the mid-1970s. But he didn’t learn much about our city,” according to a local commentator. “How else do you explain the political hatchet man’s patronizing comments about Richmond during an attempt to denigrate Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the former Richmond mayor who is being considered for Barack Obama’s running mate?”

ThinkProgress.org covered it this way:

Richmond Residents Chastise Rove For His ‘Patronizing’ And ‘Belittling’ Comments About Their City

Last Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Karl Rove attacked Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) by offering the following “patronizing comments” about the city of Richmond, Virginia:

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done.

He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town.

The residents of the Virginian capital are not taking Rove’s comments lying down. In an article entitled, “In belittling Richmond’s size, Rove shows he’s out of touch,” Richmond Times Dispatch journalist Michael Paul Williams writes, “Wow. And Republicans call Democrats elitist.”

“It appears that Karl Rove will swiftboat anyone, including cities,” said Del. Dwight Clinton Jones (D), a candidate for mayor.

City Council President and mayoral candidate William Pantele added, “Richmond has more in culture, history and business than all those cities [cited by Rove] put together. And so, perhaps Mr. Rove would like to come see how terrific a place this is, the capital city of Virginia, rather than just taking shots on a news show.”

Williams notes that if physical size is such an important consideration, the current Vice President shouldn’t have been selected. It should be pointed out that Cheney’s political career began in Wyoming, the least populous state in the nation. With fewer than 525,000 residents, it’s less than half the size of the Richmond metro area.

In a web-video posted on the Richmond Times Dispatch site, Williams calls Rove’s comments a “cynical and misguided viewpoint, out of touch with America and the real people with real problems who reside there.”

The backlash from Richmond continues today: Dear Karl Rove, Ain’t You Got No More Sense Than That?

Karl Rove On Face The Nation, Aug.10.

We report you decide.

Should Rove be on TV making these kinds of political comments? Or in jail for contempt of Congress?

Comments welcome…

Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient trees;

Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

‘O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.

‘Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor,
The watery shore,
Is given thee till the break of day.’

One source for Blake poems

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”