Way Over the Top

Powerline ^ | 1/24/2006 | John Hindenraker

[saveliberty]

January 24, 2006

Way Over the Top

by John Hindenraker

 

One Joel Stein, a person we've never heard of, committed an embarrassing faux pas in the pages of the antique-media Los Angeles Times, which our good friends Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin have dissected.

Hugh interviewed this poor dumb liberal on the radio, and Michelle has the transcript. Avert your eyes; it's not pretty. This guy is below the intellectual level of the average American 8th-grader.

HH: Let me ask you a tough question, Joel, because this is the toughest one. J.P. Blecksmith was a young Marine lieutenant, graduated from Annapolis, killed in Fallujah on November 11th, 2004. Just a tremendous human being and man. If you meet his parents on the street, what do you say to them?

JS: That I'm so, so sorry.

HH: Do you honor the service that their son did?

JS: To honor the service their son...now this is a dumb question, but what do you mean by honor? That's a word you keep using. I'm not entirely...maybe that's my problem. But I'm not entirely sure what you're...

HH: Honor usually means gratitude and esteem. Are you grateful for and esteem what he did? Honestly?

JS: Honestly? I admire the bravery. I don't...you know, I feel like he did something I could never do, so I'm kind of in awe on some level. Am I grateful, that I feel like he protected me? Um, no I don't.

HH: And so, do you think he died in vain?

JS: Yeah. I do. And that's why I'm so horrified by all this, and why I don't want empty sentiments prolonging the war.

HH: And the people who've died in Afghanistan. Have they died in vain?

JS: Well, if they haven't, what have they accomplished?

HH: I'm asking you, Joel. You wrote the column. You tell me. Have they accomplished nothing?

JS: Well, um, do I think that I, as an American, are safer because of what they did?

HH: That wasn't what I asked. I askd did they accomplish anything in going to Afghanistan.

JS: If I were an Afghani, I would probably...if I lived in Kabul, I probably would think that they accomplished something, sure.

HH: All right. Now have you read any books on the military? I mean, do you read this stuff at all, like Robert Kaplan's Imperial Grunts?

JS: No. No, I'm not an expert at this at all. I mean, I think you certainly can tell.

 

And this dummy is, apparently, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. No wonder that paper is losing money and sinking into oblivion. Liberalism is the creed of almost every newsroom in America; but the reality is, to be a liberal, you pretty much have to be a fool. Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid.

UPDATE: Chris Muir's Day By Day has commentary on the Los Angeles Times' descent into irrelevance; click to enlarge:

Posted by John at 09:39 PM

[kcvl]

Joel Stein, TIME editor

With a column for Time Out New York and a short stint at Martha Stewart Living magazine under his belt, Stein endured two lean years before he wowed Time editor Walter Isaacson with his laid back style.

snip

Calling himself lucky, Stein said his break came solely because "one guy who ran a magazine thought I was good." He added that not all his colleagues at Time like his work. Some even think he's destroying the magazine's reputation for hard news.

******

Prior to coming to TIME, Stein was sports editor and columnist at Time Out New York for two years. He had also served as a researcher at TV Guide and as a researcher/writer for Martha Stewart Living magazine.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Stein graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. and M.A. in English.

He currently resides in Manhattan.

[backhoe]

http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

The Reuters Defense

It’s a first. Al-Reuters notices Little Green Footballs, in their defense of the LA Times columnist who admitted he doesn’t support US troops: L.A. Times writer defends incendiary Iraq column.  link: 405 comments

RE: It'll All Blow Over

""My guess is that it will die down pretty quickly."" -- Joel Stein, in follow up article

I wouldn't count on that Joel. Blogswarm... Flap Trackback: Los Angeles Times Watch: The Joel Stein FLAP

Are others outraged - many.

Reuters: L.A. Times writer defends incendiary Iraq column

Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarter’s: Hell No, I Won’t Show … Support

Michelle Malkin: THE MOST LOATHSOME PEOPLE IN AMERICA

Hugh Hewitt: Joel Stein, Los Angeles Times Columnist: “I don’t support our troops.”

Hugh Hewitt’s radio interview of Joel Stein on KRLA, Los Angeles this afternoon - audio and transcript here. Hugh interviewed this poor dumb liberal on the radio, and Michelle has the transcript. Avert your eyes; it's not pretty. This guy is below the intellectual level of the average American 8th-grader.

Michelle Malkin: HUGH HEWITT VS. JOEL STEIN: NO CONTEST

UPDATE: The Mudville Gazette notes a rather sharp contrast.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein is unimpressed. So is Major John Tammes: "'a fighting tool of American imperialism'? Really, sir, that is so 1968."

STILL MORE: J.D. Johannes is glad that Stein is out of the closet: "Stein, a humor columnist whose writing I have enjoyed over the years is pointing out an uncomfortable truth for the left. If the troops support the war, want to win, want to see it through to the end, how can calling for their immediate withdrawal be supporting them? . . . The anti-war-left's support for the troops is a charade...

During Hugh Hewitt’s interview it was revealed that the editor in charge of Stein’s piece was newly annointed king, Flap means editoral editor (overseeing the Los Angeles Times’ opinion pages), Andres Martinez formerly of the New York Times and hired lackey of Michael Kinsley.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

Hell No, I Won't Show ... Support

Several members of the CQ community, as well as Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, and Glenn Reynolds, noted a most unfunny column by "humorist" Joel Stein in today's Los Angeles Times. Titled "Warriors and Wusses", Stein uses his column inches to announce that his support for Americans who serve in the armed forces only extends to the political correctness of their mission: Hugh absolutely destroyed Stein in his interview this evening, which I caught on the way home.Comments (8) |

[kcvl]

Hollywood wannabe Joel Stein


TIME’s Notebook section examined everything from shaving body hair and disliking dogs to his mother's remarriage and the SAT test.

[saveliberty]

Huh? Degrees in English what I wonder.

LOL

[saveliberty]

:-) Thanks

[saveliberty]

:-) Who loves making fun of Maureen Dowd.

[IamConservative]

I am not surprised he does not know what the word Honor means. It is abundantly clear his father - assuming he knows who his father is - taught him nothing.

[saveliberty]

I feel sorry for him if he did not have a good father.

But he has both a bachelor's and master's degree-- all that money down the drain and he still doesn't know what honor is. How stupid is that?

[maggief]

Goodmorning SL,

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-stein3jan03,1,6097349.column?coll=la-news-columns

January 3, 2006

latimes.com

Joel Stein:

How to apologize to a feminist

# He wasn't very clever. He wasn't very nice. And he's been trying to make it up to a certain red-haired columnist ever since.

[kcvl]

October 14, 1987 After 4 attempts, Joel gets his letter read on Letterman. He writes "Hey Dave, Flunky sucks". Flunky, the Late Night manic depressive clown responds, "Hey you little weasel, bite me".


July 10, 1992 After a regrettable sexual experience, a despondent Joel confides in his now single Dad who he is living at home with for the summer. "So you had sex with her...It's no big deal", he says. "Oh, I didn't sleep with her", Joel says. Dad replies, "If you're going to step up to the plate, you might as well hit a home run."


November 21, 1993 In Joel's sixth week as a writer for the Martha Stewart TV show, she fires him in order to hire her friend. She forgot, however, to ask her friend if she wanted the job. Joel is rehired 16 hours later.


December 10, 1994 On his fourth round of interviews for MTV's The Real World - London, Joel is set up on a date with a bald chick. They date for three months.


April 14, 2000 Joel and friend, Ross Novie, accompany Colin Malone of Colin's Sleezy Friends to interview porn star Raylene backstage at an LA strip joint. After asking politely, Joel touches his first fake breast.

[SoftballMominVA]

Ahhhh come on be fair! I teach special education 8th graders and I have SEVERAL that are brighter and more articulate.

Stein is about on the level of a ill-brought up 2nd grader...maybe.

........Cue 2nd grade teachers to dumb him down even further!

[saveliberty]

Good morning, maggief. Maybe, but it's still a funny story. He discredits himself openly by affirming that he doesn't know what honor means and he has no sense of military history and he concedes that Afghans would think that something good had come of military action.

So he also acknowledges that he's both selfish and a racist.

[saveliberty]

TMI

[saveliberty]

I don't know. I have taught illmannered, lazy and petulant eighth graders, I agree with John. :-)

But you are right that second graders can be brighter, more disciplined and better mannered.

[SMARTY]

"JS: No. No, I'm not an expert at this at all. I mean, I think you certainly can tell."

Tells you everything you need to know.

[kcvl]

Joel Stein is a spoiled rich kid who found a fool (Isaacson) to print the crap he writes.




It's All About Joel

Time magazine's most irreverent writer has quizzed a rock legend on his golf handicap, eaten fried chicken with a porn star and become Robert Goulet's pen pal. But that's nothing compared to his favorite subject: himself.


AS IT TURNS OUT, Joel Stein is a dork.


snip


at age 30, has become one of the best-known names in the nation’s oldest, richest and top-selling newsmagazine—is not. “Joel Stein,” as portrayed in the columns, is desperate, awkward, porn-loving and obnoxious;


snip


He’s a bona fide celebrity, at least in the New York media world. “Joel makes dorkiness cool,” says James Kelly, Time’s current managing editor. “I’ve been at various events with him where I feel like I’m with a rock star. I mean, people really want to seek out and meet Joel Stein.


snip


The real Joel Stein also has chatted with Isaacson about possible appearances on CNN.



******


Stein left Stanford with a bachelor’s, a master’s and an armload of Stanford Daily columns.


When Stein graduated, he hoped to write for either television or magazines. He had no experience with the former and very little with the latter. Somehow he got himself a job writing for Martha Stewart’s then-forthcoming television show, a job for which, Stein acknowledges, “I was in no way qualified.”


But what Kelly calls Stein’s “obviously very funny prose”—“He makes me laugh out loud,” Isaacson says—convinced the editors to begin alternating him with Trillin, who had been writing the humor column. “So we, uh, we created the monster,” Kelly says with a laugh.



his mother, Roz Burd-Leszczuk, about whom he’s written less than kindly

[pageonetoo]

... all that money down the drain and he still doesn't know what honor is.

Jason Blair can teach him...

[saveliberty]

Yes it does

[saveliberty]

Good point