Please, Ben

September 6, 2005 6:17 PM

Ben steps in. Single link as this post is, it seems as though it might be a good place to focus analysis on the Bush apologists, Ben Stein being perhaps the most articulate.
posted by Turtles all the way down (37 comments total)

Fuck Ben Stein.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:21 PM on September 6, 2005

I knew the guy wrote speeches for Nixon back in the day, but I always thought he'd... I dunno... recanted or something. Once an apologist, always an apologist, I suppose.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:23 PM on September 6, 2005

So....Clinton caused the hurricane?

Clinton is responsible for the slow FEMA response?

Stein apparently likes to sidestep the issues.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:24 PM on September 6, 2005

That's quite a laundry list of straw men!

Most articulate, though? If you're comparing him to Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter maybe he's relatively articulate, but he falls quite a bit short of BIll Safire, Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan, doesn't he? All those guys are lying scum, too, but I think they can all turn a phrase better.

And, yes, Fuck Ben Stein.
posted by psmealey at 6:25 PM on September 6, 2005

[this is asinine]
posted by interrobang at 6:25 PM on September 6, 2005

1. The Americanpublic did not elect Ben Stein to be spokesman for Bush
2. Homeland Security is responsible for acts of terror and natural disasters.
3. Bush did not even show his face till days after the diaster.
4. If so many people had guns, then who made guns so readily available in America?
5. The American public, in the one poll I have seen, do not blame Bush yet Stein defends him.
6. Even Bush admits that things were fucked up.
7. The hurricane did not hit just New Orleans but whacked at least three state yet Stein speaks only of New Orleans
8. It is not a black issue. No one accuses Bush of being against blacks. What we have is a poverty issue, and blacks make up over 60% (or did) of New Orleans with an average income that is substantially below poverty levels. No not race: poverty that has racial connection.
9. Stein ought if honest tomention cuts to budget for FEMA and for Army Corps of Engineers and the fact that they guy in charge of Army Engineers for that area got fired because he complained about the drastic cuts to his program.
10.I am perfectly willing to wait till hearings are held, assuming that as usual many records will not be made available, before blaming anyone.
11. At long last I did today see Cheney on TV. I guess he has done his consulting work for Halliburton and is now going back to his after work hobby.
posted by Postroad at 6:26 PM on September 6, 2005

This article has also already been posted here before--in another Katrina thread--but thanks to the shitty google search of the site, I can't find it.
posted by interrobang at 6:30 PM on September 6, 2005

I'd rather believe in a game show host than in the reality in front of me.
posted by Rothko at 6:30 PM on September 6, 2005

There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists.

röfl
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:31 PM on September 6, 2005

8.) 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.

Yet, he does speak with God...
posted by iamck at 6:31 PM on September 6, 2005

Ben Stein is obviously an heartless idiot, no need to discuss that.

What terrifies me is that his sentiment is shared by so many other Americans. How can you ever convince anyone who honestly can say stuff like this that they are just plain wrong? They will never, ever see that. But there are tens of millions of USians that share his viewpoint. The US, it seems, is the Flat Earth Society of the world.

I think this is why the administrations propaganda machine is so effective. Logic and truth never enter into the equation. You can't argue against obtuse behavior. The only thing that will change someone like Ben's perspective is something else that will equally allow their selfish and unsympathetic behavior.

I am desperate to discover how we can make Americans feel accountable for all the other Americans. How do you make someone be good? And worse, how do you make them be good when their own government and many of their faiths support them being bad? Enquiring Americans want to know.
posted by qwip at 6:33 PM on September 6, 2005

interrobang, I linked to it in a thread a few days ago, but I'm almost certain that I saw it cited at least one other place.
posted by psmealey at 6:34 PM on September 6, 2005

Strawmen and lies, like There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful. MIT Professor Kerry Emanuel begs to differ. Just one example — the linked screed is a joke. Or did I miss the scholarly synthesis Prof. Stein published on this subject?
posted by Zurishaddai at 6:34 PM on September 6, 2005

Oh, fun. This is the same guy who argued vigorously that liberals were responsible for the deaths of every person Nixon might have saved if he had stayed in office.

Do we get to play whack-a-mole with him again? Or should we check what Pat Sajack is saying this week?
posted by verb at 6:34 PM on September 6, 2005

Ben Stein hides his douchebaggery behind a veneer of college-professorlike banality.

But he is still a big bag of douche.
posted by wakko at 6:35 PM on September 6, 2005

I would like to present some more for Mr. Stein, as they are easy to come up with:

#758 Goerge Bush did not rape a young man on the stairs a block away from the Cafe du Monde with a tire iron. To suggest any such thing is scandalous and completely untrue-y.

#759 George Bush has two legs like most other people. Plenty of people have had two legs before Bush, and plenty more will continue to do so in the years to come. This is not George Bush's fault.

#760 The plan for everyone in the country is to have enough food and water and guns and ammo to last a minimum of 6 months in case something happens. George Bush himself ordered a lackey to stockpile some of these things for George and the other Bushes. If he can be prepared, why can't everyone? It's not George Bush's job to go around making sure people tell their lackeys to collect stuff for them.

#761 People are supposed to eat three times a day. Some of these people aren't eating at all and yet have the audacity to complain about being hungry. Is George supposed to cut everyone's meat for them now?

ad infinitum....
posted by umberto at 6:36 PM on September 6, 2005

qwip, I have a suspicion that the conservative pundits are increasingly out-of-step with the people they claim to speak for. The most recent polling on the President's popularity shows a continued decline into an amazing low. And this is before Katrina. I think more Americans are angry at the Feds and this administration than you think.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:38 PM on September 6, 2005

Micheal Brown head of FEMA should be fired. Good reading about how Micheal f*cked up on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Brown

And Stein is off about Bush, Bush makes a stand on everything but race issues, Bush is a racist just like Rehnquist. ..
posted by IronWolve at 6:39 PM on September 6, 2005

As Bill Hicks might say, Ben Stein sucks Satan's cock.
posted by keswick at 6:40 PM on September 6, 2005

the follow up by me is this: I couldn't believe what I saw on the right-wing blogs linked in other threads. They weren't even entertaining the *possibility* that the adminstration had made a mistake, or a few, that made the consequences of this disaster worse than it might otherwise have been! They were scrambling to explain the death toll as buried corpses floating due to the flooding, etc. etc. When you aren't, as citizens of a country, able to even begin to discuss issues rationally, as opposed to every discussion being conducted along extreme partisan political lines, the country is in genuine danger.

[Once again, good morning, turtles, smell the coffee, but I am genuinely astounded that what would be appreciated clearly in any other country I can imagine as blatant, self serving, cavalier mismanagement is not recognized as such in America.]
posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:42 PM on September 6, 2005

Bush is a racist just like Rehnquist.

Whuh?
posted by undule at 6:42 PM on September 6, 2005

Not ignored, obviously, by many Americans, but do these people really believe the shit they're spouting?
posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:44 PM on September 6, 2005

The most recent polling on the President's popularity shows a continued decline into an amazing low.

How often are those polls conducted? And when are we due for the new approval rating?
posted by jperkins at 6:45 PM on September 6, 2005

I think more Americans are angry at the Feds and this administration than you think.

Ethereal Bligh, I am basing my comments on some of the reaction I am getting from people who are outraged at the helpless situation in LA, but also fully supportive of Bush & Co. I hate to admit that I have friends in this category. People are outraged, but outraged against the wrong people. I'm sure if you asked Ben if people should be punished for the lack of response, he will say "Yes!, all those local officials who mad this happen and are now blaming it on the Pres.". This is my frustration. There are a ton of heartless Americans out there, but even more that feign empathy, but when push comes to shove, they will support Bush over the chance that not doing that will give an opportunity for the "liberals" to come marching in and change their world. How would one go about changing these people's mindset so they saw "change" as a good thing?
posted by qwip at 6:45 PM on September 6, 2005

when push comes to shove, they will support Bush over the chance that not doing that will give an opportunity for the "liberals" to come marching in and change their world.

Bingo. These people aren't evil. (Well, Rove probably is.) This sort of thing is what I'm trying to understand.

/done micromanaging thread now.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:52 PM on September 6, 2005

This is pretty sad, for varying reasons. It also makes me sad that even in light of such a colossal failure, because of ideology people will gloss over supreme mistakes for the sake of beliefs.

The only real truth in this is that the GOP is corrupt to the core, and there is seemingly nothing that can save it.

Oh, and fuck the 45% of America that will always go along with the GOP because the give lip service to the Big Myth Bible.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 6:54 PM on September 6, 2005

umberto, Sad but true.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:55 PM on September 6, 2005

posted by Heywood Mogroot at 6:56 PM on September 6, 2005

No one accuses Bush of being against blacks.

Clearly you missed Kanye West on national tv saying that Bush hates blacks.

I'm just sayin.
posted by spicynuts at 6:57 PM on September 6, 2005

Is this the same guy I think it is?
posted by atom128 at 6:57 PM on September 6, 2005

This is like a greatest hits of idiotic Republican talking points. My personal fav:

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.

"We shouldn't be playing the blame game at a time like this... but... uh... it's the locals' fault!"

*points accusatory finger*
posted by brundlefly at 6:57 PM on September 6, 2005

keswick, you win just for mentioning him.
posted by nightchrome at 6:57 PM on September 6, 2005

atom128: Yeah huh.
posted by brundlefly at 6:58 PM on September 6, 2005

M'kay. Who cares what this washed up game show host thinks? Who's going to be next, Pat Sajak or Alex Trebek?

Oh, wait, they probably wouldn't be such partisan hacks, so I'd actually look forward to what they have to say. I'll take "Partisan Hacks who peddle Clear Eyes for $1000", Alex.
posted by mullingitover at 7:00 PM on September 6, 2005

As Bill Hicks might say, Ben Stein sucks Satan's cock.

Perhaps GW sucks Ben Stein's cock.
posted by caddis at 7:02 PM on September 6, 2005

I really hope some of the regular contributors to the Rightwing Blogosphere are beginning to wake up and smell the coffee. They were never a large group, and without them, the illusion of widespread support for these crooks will be impossible to sustain.

Then again, I've been hoping that for a long, long time now.

But the coffee is smelling a whole lot stronger than usual today.

And there are a few strange signs. Odd weather in the blogosphere. Some normally-on-message talking-point regurgitators have posted angry, shocked things. Most of them are very, very quiet today.

It's like that silence, just before a thunderstorm.

And closer to home, where's dios today? Where's PP?
posted by cleardawn at 7:02 PM on September 6, 2005

Of course he's going to jump to BushCo's defense. Ben just misses the good-old-days. In 1973 and 1974, he was a speech writer and lawyer for Richard Nixon at The White House and then for Gerald Ford. Hey . . . imagine the impeachment / war crimes hearings on live TV in the form of a game show!
posted by augustweed at 7:02 PM on September 6, 2005