Hey, What's 25 Grand to a Bigshot Columnist? Eric Alterman, the affluent pundit who makes his living skewering other pundits, ran an MSNBC piece on Aug. 10 that was just as silly as anything Paul Krugman has written in the past year. Alterman, allegedly one of the most disliked journalists in the business, is still steaming that Ralph Nader had the temerity to run for president last year.
You'd think that a fully indoctrinated leftist like Alterman would applaud third, fourth and fifth parties in local and national elections-especially Nader's "green" platform that favors birds and seals over human beings-but the specter of another Bush in the White House tipped him over the edge. Alterman broke with many of his cocktail-party companions during the campaign and vociferously attacked Nader as an intrusive narcissist.
He's even at odds with Tim Robbins, one of those talented actors who get mixed up in politics when they'd be better off studying movie scripts. Alterman wrote: "Ralph Nader is back in the news, holding rallies announcing that he is unrepentant about his role in electing George W. Bush to be president. He's asking a million people to give him a hundred dollars each so he can do, who knows what? Get Jesse Helms re-elected in North Carolina?"
Alterman's not even up on current events: Helms is on the cusp of announcing his retirement and encouraging Elizabeth Dole to run next year for his seat. The New York Times, by the way, demonstrated its splendid model of objectivity last Sunday by publishing a photo of Helms in his motorized scooter, holding up his hands and looking like a madman.
Alterman lurches on, making the unbelievable pledge that he'll spend $25,000 of his fortune (the beneficiary wasn't mentioned; perhaps a grant to fellow misanthropes like Mark Crispin Miller, Sean Wilentz and Todd Gitlin) if Nader promises not to run again in 2004. The Michael Moore-populist continues: "Come to think of it, I'd do the same for Al Gore. Anyone who allowed that election to be close enough to let Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court steal it for a guy like George Bush should not be allowed to run for anything more important than worst beard since Mick Jagger grew one. As a patriotic American [Eric's hip to post-post-irony], I'd willing to pay at least $25,000 to see Al and Ralphie off on say, a ten-year sailboat trip around the world. (If they are worried about their nautical skills, perhaps they might want to invite William F. Buckley Jr. along. I hear he comes with his own cook.)"
I guess the grub isn't so swell on the Nation's troll-for-dollars cruises that Alterman attends, but I hear there's plenty of booze on hand. Just ask Molly Ivins or Christopher Hitchens, the Brit expatriate who delights Hardball's Chris Matthews with his witty Socialist crap, but will write for any publication, ideology be damned, that coughs up a paycheck.