AN UNREASONABLE ARGUMENT: So I saw "An Unreasonable Man," the documentary on Ralph Nader that is coming out this week. From the previews I was expecting a sharply produced even-handed examination of Nader and his legacy. What I got instead was a kitschy piece of propaganda. The film, which was filled with unintentionally comical images flying across the screen and oddball music choices, gave an impression of Nader that was absurdly skewed in his favor. While the early parts of the film that discussed his work as a consumer advocate were reasonably interesting, its second half was totally bizarre. It said nothing about what Nader has done since the mid 1980s besides run for president four times. It treats the fact that Nader runs every four years with a seriousness it would never show other perenial candidates like, say, Harry Browne. Most egregiously it gives considerable air time to factually false and intellectually dishonest arguements in support of Nader's 2000 presidential candidacy. A few examples: --You see Katie Couric declaring on election night that Nader voters mostly would not have voted if he had not run so he probably did not swing the outcome. There is no mention of the fact that the definitive exit polls results showed that twice as many of his voters said they would have voted for Gore than for Bush had he not been on the ballot, so clearly his candidacy did cost Gore more votes than Bush, and more than Bush's margin in Florida. --An irate Nader supporter demands to know why Democrats complain about Nader instead of noting the millions of Democrats who voted for Bush, or the fact that Gore didn't carry Tennessee or Arkansas. Well, Democrats who voted for Bush, or swing voters in TN or AR presumbaly found Gore too liberal. The way to win them over would have been to tack to the right, which would only have further incensed Nader. So this complaint from a Nader partisan is pure intellectual dishonesty. -A political scientist claims that based on his analysis of which states Nader visited he sees no evidence of an attempt to be a spoiler on Nader's part, that he was just maximizing votes. He does not bother to address the question of whether Nader's candidacy itself was simply a spoiler run. --The film argues that Nader's exclusion from the presidential debates in 2000 was unjust, as if the notion that only allowing candidates who might actually win the election is self-evidently absurd. Why, the film asks, does a candidate who will clearly impact the outcome and can draw thousands to a rally get excluded? The answer, obviously, is that it would be total chaos to allow anyone who might impact the outcome, which is to say anyone on the ballot, in the debates. Do we really need the Right-to-Life candidate to get as much airtime as the major party candidates? If you let in the Green you have to let in the rightwing loonies also. Even the title, "An Unreasonable Man," is actually an unequivocal compliment since the movie opens with a quote explaining why only unreasonable people are responsible for any progress in the world. In sum, this movie is sloppy, wet kiss to a cranky old man who does more harm than good these days. And it will be especially pernicious if it persuades gullible viewers to support his next quixotic misadventure. --Ben Adler