Nader stopped just short of calling Bush a war criminal. "That's to be determined," Nader said.
In a C-SPAN appearance on Tuesday, Nader said "it would be nice" if Democrat John F. Kerry had a plan for responsibly withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. But he saved most of his criticism for President Bush:
"If we don't retire George W. Bush," Nader said, "we're going to be run again by a messianic militarist who has turned most of the world against the United States, even though most of the world was with us after 9/11."
Nader bemoaned the expansion of the U.S. military budget; and he said the administration's emphasis should be on American cities -- rather than Baghdad. "We've got to pay attention to this country; and we've got to retire George W. Bush," he repeated.
Nader said he would like to see Sen. Kerry "adopt a number of our positions." But Kerry is surrounded by "corporate Democrats" -- and that's why he doesn't always say what he thinks, Nader commented.
Aside from their positions on the war, Nader said "many things" distinguish him from Kerry:
Nader mentioned the PATRIOT Act ("a severe incursion on civil liberties," Nader called it).
Nader also said he favors a "major crackdown on corporate crime, fraud and abuse, which Democrats and Republicans "don't seem to be emphasizing."
And Nader called for an overhaul of the tax system, shifting the burden from "work to wealth." Nader believes that people earning less than $100,000 should not pay federal income taxes. And he favors a tax on "pollutants."
Nader noted that one out of every three voters consider themselves independent, and he called for the removal of "ballot access barriers" that protect the two-party system.
"The country does not belong to two parties, even though the two parties think they own America," Nader said, adding that "they're not doing very well by America." He accused both parties of turning the country over to "big business domination."
Contrary to some recent polls, Nader said he believes his campaign is going to take more votes away from President Bush - or at least encourage Bush voters to stay home.
"The voters that are Democrats -- they're going to come back into the fold and support John Kerry," Nader said. "But there are a huge number of voters up for grabs," he noted, and instead of whining and carping, the Democrat Party ought to be going after those people.
Nader said he's not a politician -- he's a citizen-advocate who cares about making government and corporations more "accountable and responsible." But he said he's been increasingly blocked in his efforts to do that -- and that's why he's running for president.
"My purpose is to try to galvanize everybody in this country...to the point of view that we need a new politics; we need a clean politics; we need a politics that will abolish poverty in this country, that will give people a decent standard of justice, a decent standard of living, and in order to do that, you do have to run at the presidential level."
Nader said he's running for president to "demonstrate a major opportunity for a political movement in this country, if enough people will work together to make that critical difference."
