RECKLESS DRIVER.(The Talk of the Town)

More than any other single person, Ralph Nader is responsible for the existence of automobiles that have seat belts, padded dashboards, air bags, non-impaling steering columns, and gas tanks that don't readily explode when the car gets rear-ended. He is therefore responsible for the existence of some millions of drivers and passengers who would otherwise be dead. Because of Nader, baby foods are no longer spiked with MSG, kids' pajamas no longer catch fire, tap water is safer to drink than it used to be, diseased meat can no longer be sold with impunity, and dental patients getting their teeth x-rayed wear lead aprons to protect their bodies from dangerous zaps. It is Nader's doing, more than anyone else's, that the federal bureaucracy includes an Environmental Protection Agency, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and a Consumer Product Safety Commission, all of which have done valuable work in the past and, with luck, may be allowed to do such work again someday. He is the man to thank for the fact that the Freedom of Information Act is a powerful instrument of democratic transparency and accountability. He is the founder of an amazing array of agile, sharp-elbowed research and lobbying organizations that have prodded governments at all levels toward constructive action in areas ranging from insurance rates to nuclear safety. He had help, of course, from his young "raiders," from congressional staffers and their bosses, from citizens, and even from the odd President. But he was the prime mover.

More than any other single person, Ralph Nader is responsible for the fact that George W. Bush is President of the United States. Nader is more responsible than Al Gore, who, in 2000, put himself in the clear by persuading more of his fellow-citizens to vote for him than for anybody else, which normally--in thirty-nine of the forty-two previous Presidential elections, or ninety-three per cent--had been considered adequate to fulfill the candidate's electoral duty. Nader is more responsible than George W. Bush, whose alibi complements Gore's: by attracting fewer votes, both nationally and (according to the preponderance of scientific opinion) in Florida, Bush absolved himself of guilt for his own elevation. A post-election rogues' gallery--Jeb Bush, James Baker, Katherine Harris, William Rehnquist and four of his Supreme Court colleagues--helped, each rogue in his or her own way, but no single one of them could have pulled off the heist without the help of the others. Nader was sufficient unto himself.

For the past three years, everything Nader accomplished during his period of unparalleled creativity, which lasted from around 1963 to around 1976, has been systematically undermined by the Administration that he was instrumental in putting in power. Government efforts on behalf of clean air and water, fuel efficiency, workplace safety, consumer protection, and public health have been starved, stymied, or sabotaged in tandem with the shift of resources from public purposes to high-end private consumption, the increasing identity of government and corporate interests, and the growth of a cult of secrecy and arrogance that began well before September 11, 2001. Nader bears a ...