Ralph Nader rallies forces to rescue D.C. Public Library. (News Fronts).(District of Columbia Public Library)

The cash-strapped District of Columbia Public Library, the sorry state of which was documented during 2002 in the Washington Post, may have found its champion in Ralph Nader. The consumer activist and former presidential candidate hosted a $10,000-a-table benefit dinner at the Carnegie Institution December 11 to rally philanthropists and business leaders around the library.

"If I don't do it, no one is going to do it," Nader told American Libraries, lamenting the abysmal state of support for the library. Less than .07% of the city's budget goes to DCPL, he said, noting that the system had 200 more staff members in 1976 than it has now.

The initial goal of Nader's …