InstaPundit had this little nibblet on his website today. It seems that Mr. Ralph Nader has been a naughty boy. Although, I must say I got a bit frustrated digging through the links for information, because there didn’t seem to be any cold hard facts that I could throw in the face of my stupid Nader-loving friends. The links in the Radley Balko piece were like nonsense thingies. It’s as if he just pulled up Google, did a little keyword search, and slapped in a link. I mean, I do that, too, but I was hoping that a professional journalist that writes for Fox News might have a better line on getting the facts than I do. [Update 2/24, 9:34 pm – Okay, one nonsense link and a couple of broken links, which isn’t really all that bad. Still…] #

Given that the Balko articles are almost a year old, I went back to the more recent source – Mr. Jacob T. Levy at The Volokh Conspiracy – and I wrote him the following letter: #

Jacob, #

Can you offer any proof of Ralph Nader’s fraudulence and corruptness? The links you gave led only to reports by disgruntled ex-PIRG workers filled with vague assertions and unsubstantiated allegations. Isn’t there a “smoking gun” anywhere? Something, say, actually linking Nader with these policies? His name won’t even come up in a Google search of uspirg.org. (I used the method “nader site:uspirg.org”; perhaps there’s a better way?) Does he still work there? Did he work there when these student fee policies were instituted? Did he write and/or implement these policies? Has he spoken out against them or for them? If he has, I sure can’t seem to find it anywhere. #

Any help you can offer in this matter will me much appreciated. #

Sincerely, #

C. Pickwick #

Then I went to the USPIRG to do a little hunting around, but I couldn’t find anything there about Ralph Nader coercing money out of college students all over the country. So I wrote the following letter to USPIRG: #

Dear USPIRG, #

I am not a Ralph Nader supporter or detractor, but when I ran across these articles by Radley Balko (http://www.techcentralstation.com/030303C.html and http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80925,00.html), it got my curiosity up. The articles claim that Ralph Nader, via PIRG organizations across the country, coerces money from students with mandatory tuition fees. Is this true? #

I notice that the these articles were written last March, so perhaps you’ve addressed this already and can just direct me to your response on your website somewhere. #

By the way, I came to the previously mentioned articles by way of The Volokh Conspiracy – specifically: this post: http://volokh.com/2004_02_22_volokh_archive.html#107757607921219544 #

Any help you can offer in this matter would be most appreciated. #

Sincerely, #

C. Pickwick #

I haven’t heard anything back yet, but I’ll let you know when I do! #

#

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Monday, February 23rd, 2004 @ 6:32 pm Politics Matters
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