The Illuminated Donkey

I read the much-discussed Eric Alterman's Altercation for the first time today, and have to say that I'm a bit confused. Here's the current opening piece:

ABC.com’s The Note reports that Ralph Nader has requested to be included in Grover Norquist’s regular ‘war-room’ Wednesday meeting of right-wing lobbyists and high-powered Bush supporters. The request has been granted and Nader will be there today. If true, and I trust just about everything I read in “The Note,” Nader has finally shown his true colors, people, or publicly lost his mind.

Either way, this argument is over. Nader is, for all practical purposes, a supporter of Bush and his extremist agenda. (Perhaps even the most important one.) Anyway, let the final stage of the Greens’ welcome self-destruction commence.

Well, this seemed to be quite the turn of events, so I headed over to the ABC story in question to find out more about how Nader has teamed up with the right wing. It seems that while Alterman might trust everything he reads, he may not understand it. Basically, the story on ABC is that 1) Norquist actually invited Nader to the Wednesday meeting; 2) It seems to have been a one-time thing; 3) When it was his turn to speak to the crowd of conservatives, Nader basically said a whole bunch of Nader stuff like decrying the "sink or swim" ethic of capitalism and commercialist culture. Hardly a shocking turn of events or revelation. I realize that I might be entering in the middle of the story, but is this post pretty representative?