Got an email the other day urging me to take action against Obama's health care programs and quoting a Ben Stein article http://spectator.org/people/ben-stein . There was a sentence or two referring to health care, but by far most of the article was just a criticism of the Obama administration. And his purported purpose in writing the article was to urge America to stop Obama from pushing through his reforms.
Ben gave us all the reason necessary to be critical of the president, like -- "Barack Obama is a super like able super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future." Pretty tough talk, but short on facts. In fact there were no facts -- just opinions.
Here's one thing Ben wrote that I was pretty sceptical about and thought I could research -- "Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation." The only related articles I could google left me guessing he was referring to a statement by Hillary that maybe America can't keep Iran from getting a nuke. Short of conquering those countries, sounds realistic to me.
And call me naive, but GW Bush's comment back in 2000 about Iran being a part of the "Axis of Evil" along with Iraq and North Korea might have already given Iran and North Korea the impetus to "go-ahead" with a nuclear program. Especially after we invaded the other Axis country.
But what does Ben have to do with GW? Why would I want to look back. Ben doesn't look back. If he did, he might see statements like he made in 2005.
On the December 15 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Fox News contributor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein announced that President Bush "is going to go down in history as one of the great peacemakers and democracy-builders in the history of the world." http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200512160009
I really like Ben Stein in "Ferris Buller's Day Off", and I even watched his televised game show in the nineties, but his commentary on CBS's Sunday Morning show has allowed me to see the evolution of Ben's opinion from worshipping to slamming GW for the poor manner in which he handled the war in Iraq. So I have to wonder why I or anybody should ever follow his advice.
And maybe I shouldn't kick a man while he's down --- Ben just lost his NY Times financial column, because they felt his advertising for FreeScore.com (like free credit . com) was a conflict of interest. Obviously being a man driven for the public good, he gave up the column before his ad gig. But maybe that was good for America, too. In an August 12 2007, column, Chicken Little’s Brethren, on the Trading Floor, Stein made the absurd argument that because sub-prime was so tiny relative to the US Economy, it was meaningless. Those who followed his advice lost millions.
Does that mean Ben is not a man of conviction? He took a lot of flack from the science community for "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" -- a movie he co-wrote and starred in that criticised evolution in favor of intelligent design. Yes, Ben's got his own opinion about science, too. "Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Stein#Views_on_evolution_and_science )
So now I've given a few reasons why I think Ben Stein is a Butt. But that's just my opinion, based on some facts.
Humph!
