Ben Stein on "The Lynching of the President"

The American Spectator ^ | January 25, 2007 | Ben Stein

[seanmerc]

The Lynching of the President By Ben Stein

So there I was, lying in my bed in Malibu with my dogs, watching Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech. I thought it was darned good. Realistic, gracious, modest, sensible. I happen to think we should get out of Iraq yesterday, but I thought Mr Bush put forward his case well. And Congress responded graciously and generously on both sides of the aisle.

Then, whaam, as soon as the speech was over, ABC was bashing him, telling us how pathetic he was, how irrelevant he was, how weak he was, how unrealistic he was.

Right after that, Jim Webb gave a very short speech biting Bush's head off -- but not making any concrete proposals about anything. No network person mentioned how simple minded and unrealistic he was.

Then, tonight, the next night, I walked into the kitchen where my wife had left the radio going with NPR to amuse the cats. NPR was having a call-in show talking about the State of the Union. The first speaker I heard was a country music legend, Merle Haggard, who said he had never seen things so bad in this country. Then a legion of anonymous callers chimed in with similar thoughts.

And suddenly it hit me. The media is staging a coup against Mr. Bush. They cannot impeach him because he hasn't done anything illegal. But they can endlessly tell us what a loser he is and how out of touch he is (and I mean ENDLESSLY) and how he's just a vestigial organ on the body politic right now.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

I don't appreciate the comments that the war was a huge mistake and that wealth is unevenly distributed. The war is not a huge mistake. It is a vital part of the war on terror. It has flushed out the Iranian rat for what he is, and that was part of the strategy. The only mistake was trying to fight it in a way to appease the Left in this country. We should have gone in with true shock and awe.

If wealth is unevenly distributed, then it is, in my opinion, distributed fairly -- according to who has worked for it. At least it is more "fair" than if the government steals from Peter to handout to Paul.

[dsc]

"And to think....JFK would be right-wing conservative...compared to most in the GOP now."

Scary, ain't it?

[gcruse]

My grandpa told me that whenever a reporter starts writing in the future tense, you can stop reading and go on to the next article.

Now that I'm a grandfather, I've extended this to include any time anybody starts talking in the future tense.

[dsc]

Your first link contains nothing that supports your contentions re. MacA.

Your second link doesn't work.

[FormerACLUmember]

Thanks. I really, REALLY needed to see this excellent post.

[bannie]

I love Ben Stein.

Brains are so damned attractive!

[since 1854]

Well, we'll just have to move on. Cheers,