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Get Off His Back
The American Spectator ^ | 09-03-05 | Ben Stein

Posted on 09/03/2005 10:16:01 AM PDT by smoothsailing

 

Get Off His Back

By Ben Stein

Published 9/2/2005 11:59:59 PM

A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.

2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.

3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.

4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.

6.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.

7.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops, did not make gang bangers rape young girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make New Orleans into a living hell.

8.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To say otherwise is scandalously untrue.

9.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It takes time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting to arrive. That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the city is a miracle of bravery and organization.

10.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise is pure slander.

11.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off.

12.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will recover and be greater than ever. Sticking pins into an effigy of George Bush that does not resemble him in the slightest will not speed the process by one day.

13.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had gotten her way and they were in charge of your health care.

God bless all of those dear people who are suffering so much, and God bless those helping them, starting with George Bush.

......................................

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator.


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 229; benstein; bush43; cary; incompetence; katrina; katrinafailures
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To: Rebelbase
My guess for the author of this screed is Andrew Sullivan. All it took was for President Bush to refuse to embrace his pet cause that is the only thing that matters to him - the "right" for men to have sex with one another and with little boys, and to force us and our churches to like it, to turn him from a reasonable pundit (a pundit who supported the War on Terror if for no other reason than he could see what would happen to him and his fellow homosexuals if the Islamofascists ever were to take over) into a foaming moonbat capable of writing this thing, and believing it.

He talks about Bush as being a narcissist, yet he and his fellow perverts and travelers on the left are the greatest narcissists this world has ever produced. If the whole universe is not all about them all the time, then it's evil and stupid and needs to be wiped out. Only a mind like that could produce this sort of tantrum, and at least 35 to 40 percent of this country "thinks" this way.

61 posted on 09/03/2005 10:56:47 AM PDT by CFC__VRWC ("Anytime a liberal squeals in outrage, an angel gets its wings!" - gidget7)
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To: Rebelbase

OK, who?


62 posted on 09/03/2005 10:57:24 AM PDT by edcoil (Reality doesn't say much - doesn't need too)
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To: smoothsailing
To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.

Sure they believe in sorcery. They're the ones engaging in it. Political sorcery and witchcraft, that is.

63 posted on 09/03/2005 10:57:46 AM PDT by KStorm (Big Media's dying, but they're making it look like a parade.)
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To: Bulldogger; Big Guy and Rusty 99; ChuxsterS

Ben Stein says it all BUMP


64 posted on 09/03/2005 10:59:19 AM PDT by RepoGirl ("The only ho I'm pimpin' is Sweet Lady Propane." -- Hank Hill)
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To: GeneralStorm

John McCain.


65 posted on 09/03/2005 11:00:25 AM PDT by csmusaret (Urban Sprawl is an oxymoron)
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To: smoothsailing

And God Bless Ben Stein.


66 posted on 09/03/2005 11:00:29 AM PDT by pollyannaish
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To: Zack Nguyen
He asks the young people of America to sacrifice their time for a "noble cause" but does not ask the same of his own children.

It's juvenile and assinine on its face. If the Bush twins were to enter the armed forces and be posted to a combat zone, every cutthroat Jihadi and his dog would be trying to capture or kill them.

I don't want any president making decisions of global significance based on how he feels about watching his own children on a grainy video released by some neck-slicing Islamic whackjob. Are people who want Bush to send his daughters into combat complete idiots?

Never mind- the answer to that is self-evident.

67 posted on 09/03/2005 11:02:21 AM PDT by Riley (STOP CASTING POROSITY!!)
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To: Rebelbase

Sorry, anyone who simply declares that Karl Rove is evil does not deserve to even be discussed on this forum.


68 posted on 09/03/2005 11:02:23 AM PDT by Dems_R_Losers (2,4,6,8 - a burka makes me look overweight!)
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To: smoothsailing

There is one reason and one reason only that the usual political/race pimps and whores are making all of this noise and it is this: They are terrified that if they don't go on the offensive people will notice that Black\minority politicians as well as liberal governance failed DISMALLY.


69 posted on 09/03/2005 11:05:05 AM PDT by TalBlack
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To: Rebelbase

Doesn't really matter who said it, does it. Defamation and slander are not distinguished by their origins.


70 posted on 09/03/2005 11:05:13 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: Dems_R_Losers; Rebelbase

So many socialist to choose from but I'll go with Carville.


71 posted on 09/03/2005 11:05:33 AM PDT by BARLF
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To: smoothsailing

bttt


72 posted on 09/03/2005 11:05:35 AM PDT by investigateworld ( Abortion stops a beating heart.)
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To: Rebelbase

Howard Dean?

Are you going to tell us?


73 posted on 09/03/2005 11:05:39 AM PDT by used2BDem (Navy Vet (Navy Mom))
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To: used2BDem

Good guess! Don't you love playing this game?


74 posted on 09/03/2005 11:06:48 AM PDT by BARLF
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To: Rebelbase
The quote isn't worthy of comment.But it reads like a commentary written for Cindy Sheehan to post on Huffington or Moore's website
75 posted on 09/03/2005 11:10:19 AM PDT by smoothsailing (Democrats are like blisters,they always pop up after the hard work is done)
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To: Rebelbase
Cindy Sheehan

Enough, already. Tell us who it is.
76 posted on 09/03/2005 11:10:27 AM PDT by Texas2step (<><)
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To: Rebelbase
I actually don't care who the source is. He/she/it are wrong.

1. He may have gotten to a certain point with family connections, but then he went further because at some point he started to value character and responsibility. Family connections can only get you so far. Case in point: Little Ronnie Reagan.

2. I can't speak for any one else, but I watched him very, very closely in 2000. Not just in speeches, but in the unfiltered feed on Cspan. I came to my own conclusions.

3. I can think of many times he was mistaken. I can not remember one time he has flat out lied in his role as President. Ironically, I am sure he has lied. We all have. But not as a matter of course.

4. President Bush said there were many reasons for the Iraq war. That is pretty easy to discredit.

5. He has never claimed to be a Christian leader. He has claimed to be a Christian. Big difference.

6. Karl Rove is not evil. He is a strategist. Whatever.

7...I figured it out!! It's Cindy Sheehan!

Did I get it right??
77 posted on 09/03/2005 11:11:12 AM PDT by pollyannaish
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To: used2BDem

Come on, I'm dying here...tell us. I've got to leave FR to actually try to do some work!


78 posted on 09/03/2005 11:11:13 AM PDT by Bubbette
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To: smoothsailing

NOTHING LEFT TO BE SAID AND HORRAY FOR BEN STEIN! (AS USUAL, BRILLIANLY SHOVED DOWN THE CHUTES OF THOSE WHO MOST DESERVE IT!)


79 posted on 09/03/2005 11:12:16 AM PDT by sheikdetailfeather
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To: Rebelbase

Ariana Huffington


80 posted on 09/03/2005 11:13:32 AM PDT by jennyjenny
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