Better late than never

Tony Norman at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has had an epiphany:

Glancing over back columns, I'm ashamed to say I did my share of Nader-bashing during the 2004 presidential election, too.

In an Oct. 15, 2004, column, I applauded a Commonwealth Court judge's decision to knock Mr. Nader off the Pennsylvania ballot.

While conceding that Ralph Nader was the candidate who truly reflected my values on the issues, the headline of my Feb. 24, 2004, column lacked any sense of nuance: "Principled vote for Nader isn't what this nation needs."

In retrospect, it was easier to scapegoat Mr. Nader than to question the values of a so-called progressive political party that would nominate candidates as beholden to corporate interests as the incumbent we were desperately trying to unseat.

Norman had actually started veering in this direction nearly two years ago (as I wrote about at the time), though he was still actively planning to swim in the Democratic cesspool one more time.  I give him enormous credit now not only for seeing that he was wrong (and why), but for admitting it so publicly and with such humility.

There seems to have been a marked increase in the number of people making public declarations like Norman's—a good sign on its own, but also pretty extraordinary considering that it's happening in the honeymoon phase of a freshly-minted Democratic president.  Whether it will lead anywhere is another matter entirely, of course, but it still warms my cockles.

Comments

[Duncan]

Now is a good time to have such epiphanies, so that they can be well and truly forgotten in 2012. Surely, comrades, you do not wish Bush back?

[ms_xeno]

What Duncan said.