Ben Stein's Diary: Austin Power
Stein, Benjamin J.
|:1 [:1 III H L=II !:t III " ~] [~ ~'al |:t IJ5 by Berzjamir~ J. Stein Austin Power Time, time, time, See what's become of me, While I looked around for My possibilities .... Tuesday A...
...I used to take him all over the place with Tommy, but then he got into this ultra-Orthodox mode...
...generation of neighbors...
...Searing...
...There were a mob of my' pals from long ago: Larry Lissitzyn, president of my fraternity...
...Anyway, to give Rabbi Rosove his due, he said-as he followed me at the lecternothat he had been in Jerusalem 70 November sooo " The American Spectator Join Us For The 12th Annual November 16-18 Hilton Alexandria Mark Center Hotel Directors: Morton Blackwell, Reed Irvine and Paul Weyrich The Conservative Leadership Conference is an exciting opportunity for you to join other conservatives and listen to the biggest names in the conservative movement, like these pictured, who are already confirmed to speak on the hottest topics facing our nation...
...I am paraphrasing...
...Nothing can ever repay them for their heroism...
...On the Bush side, a guy who has not been caught in one lie...
...To me, just a casual observer of the scene, this seen, s like the big story...
...Glory, glon...
...Next thing I knew, I was on a plane headed for Austin, where it's n 3 degrees...
...In it was an entry about how she had been at a dance class at GW, carrying her shoes, when she saw a jitterbug example at the class...
...I talked about Tommy's support for me, singing Ren and Stimpy songs, when we were on scary icy roads in Idaho, and about how he cheered me up after my Pop died...
...I lived there from 1953 to 1962, or from when I was eight until I was seventeen, and then during school breaks for some }'ears after...
...He's not giving it away out of his savings...
...I hope he finds peace of mind there...
...Once started, both sides should have negotiated something short of total war...
...Or is he just not right in the head...
...9 ++" .--.-AIn,++ _9 ++-'4p.* - ~ m ~ ~+ +~++ + _ . . - *.,.~-~+++" , , . , ~ , o _9 _ + . ~ o ~ 4 l - . . +" ~ I ~ - _9 _9 _ . , w . ~ I _" " . " . , " ; ~+ - +. . . . . , _9 , , o . - . ..,.+ _9 + e , _9 _+~+ o . d 6 ,+' _9 , ~ +J,L...
...And m? dear friend from college days, ~thur Best, probably' the funniest man in the world...
...There in the audience were almost all of the people I ]ove on this earth...
...Then off to the airport to fly home...
...It's September 8, aooo...
...He Iooks insaneh fit and healthy...
...To think of how much time has passed since we brought Tomlny home...
...Even one of us was the keeper of eveuone else...
...9 7 ,++i ++ ++'el'.,,~ ,_,.+"+ .+ . d...
...They are all cheerful, well-behaved Texans whom I find self-confident and competent...
...The American Spectator . No v e m b e r 2 o o o 69 mercials in a classroom setting...
...As my young escort poinb ed out, the breeze is like the blast you get when you open an oven...
...Of course, the reporters and columnists never mention this basic point...
...But I think he feels unusually selfconfident because of his amazing good looks and maybe that helps him have a girlfriend...
...Not s]ceping in a room right next to mine where I can see his shining face any time I wish, day' or night...
...It was the worst day ever...
...Cry real tears...
...E.V., Nebraska "Cataracts gone after 3 months...
...And my cousin Laura, who also looks great, but happily does not smoke...
...That brought him close to some people but farther from us, alas...
...endless glory to them...
...Personal checks please allow 3 weeks tor delivery...
...It's the kind of neighborhood I would like to be in...
...I am in the sweet spot of life now, but for how ]ong...
...I am bound to say again, that while slavery was loo percent evil--loo percent--surely the mind of man could have thought of a better way than a Civil War that killed 600,000 or more men out of a population of 12 million men at the time--in agony...
...I mean, really a lovely spot...
...Punishing...
...Then home again, home again, jiggeg' jog, to see my wifie and my little perfect...
...God help us...
...I was taken on a lovely round of the Bush-Cheney headquarters...
...It is that after almost two years of relentless cainpaigning by George W. Bush, his opponents have managed not to lay a single glove on him in terms of any ethical misconduct...
...How had we learned to dance so well...
...Alex and 1 sat behind him, beaming and crying alternate]y...
...There's a guy who will do anything to win...
...Then the reverse trip where he went past the Interior Department and then past Constitution Hall and past the elegance of shadow?- fountains...
...Forty years ago, the Nixon campaign made a giant mistake...
...Then in my room in the Austin Ritz Carlton I had one of those dreams within a dream...
...He's a teenager...
...And Phil DeMuth, and the Buttons, N and Sally, and relatives from my mother's side from New York, and lots of Demnans including my sister-in-law, Dale, with overwhehning hair...
...How long...
...Dangerous, and the Bush HQ might be a sanctuary...
...I went home with Tommy and his pals from Sandpoint...
...Disc...
...I am so proud of my association with both of them...
...But still, so sweet Time, though...
...Not good...
...Then, offto a little and very hot reception in the courtyard of the shuI, where many people ate cake and snacks and drank Kool-Aid...
...ad lots of kids, includingNex and Rachel Feierabend, son and daughter of my dear, departed pal, Peter Feierabend of Sandpoint, Idaho...
...The Bush people are just too damned good for this kind of dirty business...
...Tuesday A nDvav, I am in Austin, Texas, and wow,~it is HOT...
...The flower, more than the flower, the whole plant of what was best in America was cruelly cut down here and in hundreds of other hellish spots in the South and border states and Pennsylvania...
...Oh, well...
...And again, at the Angle, at Little Round Top, at the Slaughter Pen, at the Wheaffield, at Seminary Ridge, all I can think of is, "How could they have been so brave...
...Call me crazy, but I can feel their blood crying out to me...
...Very scary...
...I was especially proud of my pal, Larry Lissitzyn, and his wife...
...So does wifie...
...Tommy was behaving very well...
...Register on our website at: WWW.LeadershipInstitute.or~ Or for more information contact Victoria Morgan at...
...I had been bombarding the Bush folks with e-mails suggesting this and that...
...This, I thought, is a rare occasion--a speech praising Nixon at a Reform shul in the year 2000...
...PNP (Physicians Natural Products) P.O...
...How long until those nights when he pleaded with me to stay up later and play Everquest are just memories...
...He wears Hasidic garb and will not drive or even use the phone on the Sabbath...
...IT'S NOT HIS MONEY, FOLKS...
...The only jarring note was the professional dancers...
...They, seemed to be lovely fellows...
...The speechwriters were there and some other people, too, and we all talked at length about history and the campaign...
...He inflected well, bowed at the right moments, in general, looked totally in command of the ritua...
...If the Bush folks want to use me, they'll have to sign the interim agreement with the union...
...It was a way ofhfc as gone with the wind as the way of life at Tara...
...Then we have the whole family practice together because I have to write and give a speech about him...
...reason, I had a dream about my old neighborhood on Harvey Road in Silver Spring, Maryland...
...Denman, Linda (Celebrity D.A...
...She said she burst into tears because of a memory...
...Date __Signature We also accept Money Orders and Checks...
...I am up in Gettysburg with some people who are making a documentary about, yes, me...
...To my father, every trip was a voyage of discovery and he was awed by the beauty in his neighborhood (of course, his was a spectacular neighborhood in spectacular Washington, D.C...
...Tommy wi]] be ~6, God wil]ing...
...John Podesta, VCt~ite House chief of staff...
...We had the event under a huge tent...
...That night I had dinner at the home of Karl Rove, the campaign strategist, and his very lovely wife, Darby, and their young son, Andy--a true character...
...Yes, people fail to see the drama and the beauty in their own lives...
...She's off to New York to become a star...
...Then Arthur Best...
...As to the men in Gray--I frankly think they were the bravest of the brave but their leaders should never have sent them to die...
...It was a memory of a dream I used to have often when I was growing up: that the Nazis or the Communists had taken over ~anerica and I was running from backyard to backyard and basement to basement being hidden from the Gestapo or the NKVD...
...A few months ago, I came upon one of my mother's many diaries...
...Plus Jimmy Kimme] and Nancy Pimental...
...Has there been a word about it in the media...
...Maybe that's it...
...Probably a movie about people on a yacht watching a movie," Arthur said, and this was genius...
...Send to Address listed above...
...Nixon broke that pattern in '68 and '72 , but we're back in it now...
...I am super, super claustrophobic most of the time, but I was so tired that it didn't matter today...
...It's filled with lively, good-looking, intelligent young people, toiling away in little cubicles...
...And there he is...
...Pretty damned good...
...Therefore, it is considered a purifier...
...In the meantime, I bantered with the young people (I guess they're at] in their twenties) who played students...
...The party ended...
...Denman in Europe and Vietnam, my father in the hospital--and how 7bmmy's great challenge was to be caring and sharing of his bonnty with his fellow man...
...Maybe he already has...
...One 3'ear ago, my Pop died at z:5o p.m...
...Not long...
...Now is the Yahrtzeit, or "Year's Time," of my Pop's demise...
...If someone was having a path', then everyone was invited...
...And what I also think of is that war is far too terrible to go into it for anything but the most basic need of survival...
...Then I took Arthur Best and my pal Barton Thomas on a trip around the yacht basin to look at the huge boats...
...Politesse forbids my saying what was discussed, but it was all reasonable, intelligent, and high-minded...
...By the way, here's a little tidbit that tells something about how this campaign works...
...glory...
...Memories...
...It's hell...
...HE'S BEING GENEROUS WITH SOMEBODY ELSE'S MONEY...
...How long...
...Another cheery, friendly group...
...It can be used when there are cataracts, glaucoma, pterygium or irritations...
...But for how much longer...
...I was reminded of how much joy my Pop got out of riding the Number 80 bus down K Street, then left on what, maybe 2oth or 19th, then down past the Watergate and maybe past that to the Kennedy Center...
...IfI needed a ride to school, any: Dad going by would take me and anyone else who needed a ride...
...They were all very friendly indeed...
...The thoughts of youth are long thoughts, I have heard...
...In a way, just as Harvey Road, circa the 19~o's, was precisely what America is supposed to be, at least to me, so the Bush campaign headquarters seems to me to be just what a campaign office should be: high-ininded, collegial, great sense of humor, trustworthy...
...It is processed with distilled water and no preservatives for the specific use of eye washing...
...The media boss, Mark McKinnon, says we have to focus group test them...
...I sat with Tommy's pal J. who has recently become, at age 15, ultra-Orthodox...
...There should be a giant statue here that simply says, "Something terrible happened here...
...I used to hold him and smile at him and now he holds me and smi]es at me...
...He is from a super fancy Social Register family in New York, was a war hero in Vietnam, and is now a successful lawyer in Connecticut...
...The rest of the dream, at least to me, is that I see the Gore-Clinton folks as the occupying enemy...
...I had to sit in a window seat because of a mess-up in nay reservation, but it worked out fine...
...The Southerners should never have sent their best men to die for the ghastly, morally evil cause of slavery...
...Tommy read his prayers not just well but superbly well...
...Has no one told Gore that he should not have sweaty armpits...
...I'm not kidding...
...This is a sad and weary day for me but it sends the right message...
...I said I would and also ventured several additional ideas...
...For example: What is the main event of this campaign so far (comrades...
...Fairstein and her husband, diehard liberal, Justin Feldman, who was never anything but anti-Communist, and the great AI Burton with his wife, Sally...
...Especia]ly there is mv Aunt Pear], my father's sister, who looks great, and still smokes...
...Dan Evans was there and so was Mark McKinnon and so was Joe AIIbaugh...
...So, my sister and her family, except for her daughter, are here, and so is Colonel Demnan, my brave father-in-law, and his wife, Sue, and his brave brother, Bill, and his ~ ife, Mary Evelyn, and their very good-looking son and daughter-inlaw...
...He is working the hardest I have ever seen him work...
...Anyway, he's another 68 ~o v e m b e r 2 o o o ' The American Spectator one who would rather die than lose...
...Or is this his way of looking human...
...I wonder what they're watching...
...Suddenly, Mark McKinnon, the man in charge of commercials, e-mailed me asking if I would care to come down and do a commercial about the budget...
...Neighbors knew ever...
...The problem here is that I can actually hear the shrieks of the dying men...
...R.G., Florida YES...
...Scourging...
...He's prepping for his Bar Mitzvah like a wild man...
...Zip _ For Credit Card Orders Call Toll Free: 877-238-8481 M C Visa Credit Card No...
...Npha Delta Phi, his wifc, Christine, who had come in from Hartford...
...We don't want to leave students out...
...Then I met Karl Rove, campaign strategist, and then Joe Allbaugh, campaign director, and Dan Evans, who might have been even higher up than that...
...They're polite, gentlemanly cavaliers against single-minded operatives...
...And ~ here will he be...
...The?, look at TV and movies when they could look around...
...Tommy seems to be the only kid there who has a girlfriend...
...He's just taking it from people like me and then giving it to other people...
...Never...
...In fact, the Bush campaign does not hit a number of good points it might consider hitting...
...If I were accidentally' locked out, I could hang out at the Sculls' or the Bernsteins' until I could get in...
...We have a tutor there a couple of days a week, and then he goes to synagogue and practices with the cantor...
...she asked...
...They all sort of blended into one, and I hope they use them but one never knows...
...On the Gore side, the most ethically burdened presidential candidate of all time...
...72 No v e m b e r ~ o o o _9 The American Spectator . 4 - , ~ \ \ ~ , , ,+ . , _ : . ~ + be...
...There were thirty.- houses and I knew every man, woman, and child in every one of them...
...Tommy barely looked up from his practice, and then seamlessly moved to his video games...
...Marcia Hurwitz, nay agent, who had actually just traveled a few miles, and the gang from "Win Ben Stein's Money," including the director and fine makeup girl, and the executive in charge of production...
...Not long...
...And then to bed...
...We did a few commercials and then we improvised a few more...
...Friday T his is a tough one...
...Like a little weasel...
...Of course not...
...One in particu]ar, a little sarcastic creature named Rend, beguiled me...
...How my heart breaks for him...
...Scarily tough, mean, dishonest, and cagey-looking...
...M? aunt, Col...
...It can be used as part of the nutritional management of all types o f eye conditions...
...Pay to order of PNP...
...during the Yore Kippur war, and whatever one might think of Nixon, he was truly the savior of Eretz Israel when Israel was about to be overrun...
...One drop inside each eye at bedtime will draw toxic accumulations outside of the eyes...
...Actually, in the rain and gloom today, the statues and markers seem to say exactly that...
...I am unhappy here...
...How long until he's sleeping in a college dorm and then in an apartment and then with a wife or girlfriend...
...The memory was of Rachel and me dancing at a party in our basement on Harvey Road long, long ago when we were both teenagers...
...They should never have started the war at all...
...people who had traveled all day across the count, to be here...
...I think she might be happier in Austin, but it's her life...
...This small Bar Mitzvah in faraway Los Angeles must seem strange to him...
...But the Bush campaign manfnlly strode to the plate and signed up...
...J. is such a sweet, lonely child...
...Life is status quo ante...
...It did not go to court over the fraud that the Democrats had obviously employed in Illinois and Texas and West Virginia because Nixon said it would be too disruptive...
...I thought they overwhelmed the people who were not professionals...
...Uh-oh...
...Join hundreds of key conservative leaders and activists from all across the country...
...There are the people we're fighting against...
...I am here to do some TV commercials for the Bush campaign...
...With the most eagle-eyed types looking over his shoulder, the other side has not been able to find a lie or a theft or a breaking of faith...
...Tuesday D ies irae...
...I weep when I hear "Dixie," and I weep when I hear "Rally Round the Flag...
...I asked...
...My family, my dear friends (Ricardo Mestres of Disney came a]l the way from Brentwood ear]y in the morning...
...He'll follow the tried and true Clinton path of smearing, using taxpayer money to bribe voters, telling the big l i e - a n d he'll stop at nothing to win...
...Don't Delay Register Today...
...T}len I got back to my room at the hotel and turned on the news...
...I think they'll use at least some of them, but who knows...
...I carry my memories around with me the way a turtle carries its shell...
...It also happens to be the night before Tommy's Bar Mitzvah...
...He sat with his girlfriend, Enbal, next to the water...
...Now he's a big thug...
...Naturally, I was cuing like a madman, but only briefly, and then offto a pre-event dinner at my new favorite restaurant, Piazza Rodeo...
...Too many fine men died here for an insufficiently good reason...
...The next big event is his wedding or my funeral...
...Why don't the Bush people hammer at this like crazy...
...By "girlfriend," I mean they hold hands and, so far as I know, nothing more...
...The home is beautifully designed and decorated in a way that shames slobs like me...
...Then I awakened and I was in the Ritz Carlton again...
...If you are a student you can attend Friday's main session and Saturday's training session for only $50...
...This is not a happy or a fun place...
...Only morally untroubled by slavery...
...Yet here he is being good and friendly to everyone...
...Wednesday W hat a busy, busy day here in broiling Austin...
...My sister Rachel (as opposed to my sister Princess Margaret) really summed it up when she wrote that she never recalled receiving an imitation to a par b' on Harvey Road...
...Something terrible, terrible, terrible happened here...
...He was as small as two hands...
...As we stared at the yachts, a bus passed by on Admiralty Way...
...Every night, after he goes to sleep, I creep into his room to watch him by the faint light of a street lamp on Carmelita...
...I especially loved dancing one dance with my sister...
...I talked about his brave ancestors, Col...
...I'm here in a cool rain because I have become a bit of a Civil War buffand the powers that be at A&E want to see me on the battlefield...
...I'm no psychiatrist, but I think I was imagining myself back in that pleasant neighborhood again because I felt as if I were among kind, thoughtful, neighborly people there at the Bush HQ...
...There are books eveuwhere, including (I was happy to see) a hardback version of the most important nonfiction book I have ever read, The Russian Century...
...Then there's Gore...
...This was not just sad but horrifying...
...I am always thinking there should be drastic punishment for fathers who abandon their kids but maybe there already is...
...In the midst of everything else, how had we learned to dance so well and so happily...
...This product can be used safely in anyone including infants and people with illnesses and it has no contraindications to its use...
...Up and dressed to go over to a high school set...
...You don't want to miss the conference this year...
...Never mind that he's lied, stolen, mocked the law...
...It was unnaturally cool, but ~e all had a great time, and I kept thinking: Thanks to men like Col, Denman and his brother, who both are Siher Star winners in combat, we Jews can have our ceremonies of life instead of being anommous cinders...
...Then back to my hotel for a much needed nap in my cold room...
...9 ~ . _9 .~ e . I . - r" . S . ~ t l ~ z _9 _ _9 _G~ _~ , . i , ~ ~ . ' i [ , . ~ . r ! r " _9 _ ae" _9 _ - . - _9 am oW...
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...Thus was set a bad pattern: polite COP and killer Democrats...
...Then past the water and back to the party, which was already winding down...
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...And also I hope that the blacks of America are as grateful to the 400,000 Union soldiers who fought and freed them as I am to the men of my father-in-law's generation who saved the remnant of the Jews of Europe...
...1-800-827-5323 Sponsored by: 60 Plus Accuracy in Academia Accuracy in Media American Association for Chrisitian Schools American Conservative Union American Life League American Spectator Center for Print and Broadcast Media Concerned Women for America Conservative HQ Free Congress Foundation Eagle Forum Econtributor.com Enough is Enough Free Cuba Foundation Gun Owners of America Hartco Strategies Heritage Foundation High Frontier Leadership Institute National Rifle Association National Right to Work Committee Patrick Henry Center Public Advocate of the US Regent University Robertson School of Government Susan B. Anthony List Tradition, Family & Property USA Family Network Vote Net Voter.corn United Seniors Association The Washington Times National Weekly Edition Weekly Standard Young America's Foundation YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS...
...Plus the candidate has to approve, of course...
...Still, I danced a lot--the jitterbug, Washington style...
...That night we had a huge party for Tommy's little friends and some adults at the California Yacht Club...
...By the time another thirteen ?ears rol]s by, ifI am alive, I'll be 68...
...When I was asked to do the commercials, I said I would do them but I am a good union man for the actors' union and we're on strike...
...I think they're great...
...His father mistreated him terribly, from what I hear, and maybe he'll find a father in that sect...
...80% markedly improved: _9 Macular Degeneration _9 Retinitis Pigmentosa _9 Conjunctivitis _9 Glaucoma (5 different types) _9 Allergic conditions of the eye _9 Xerostomia (Dry Eye) _9 Laser Burns _9 Cataracts (including patients w/implanted lenses "Macular degeneration improved - glaucoma gone after 3 months...
...I finally found refilge in the basement of my neighbor, Senator Alan Bible (D-Nev...
...Not much high-mindedness there...
...For some BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...So I am here at the shu] for Friday night services...
...And various other kind relations who have come into town...
...Inside were tired-looking travelers...
...I was going to say I hoped he stayed forever young, but I decided that staying childlike was not at all a good thing...
...He's in there for the power and only the power can keep him alive...
...Yes, I am worried...
...Those nights when he threw himself on nay bed and demanded that I make him soup or French toast...
...The Bush campaign does not hit it as hard as it might either...
...Saturday S till, this is a happy day...
...The Gore people, big union folks, had not signed it...
...Alimited registration rate of only $130 is available and includes Friday's main session, Saturday's valuable training sessions and all three evening receptions...
...Where do the media think the money will come from for all of his programs...
...On one of them, an older couple was watching a black-and-white movie on the TV in the huge saloon of their boat...
...I met the fine speechwriter who had done the governor's acceptance speech and his colleagues...
...Value-packed registration of $215 includes two banquet dinners, three receptions, a luncheon and all conference materials...
...He's standing in a field of supporters somewhere in the South, his armpits drenched in sweat, telling one of his whoppers about how the Gore campaign will take care of old people and the Bush campaign will kill them...
...By the way, the synagogue where all this is, Temple Israel, is a major beauty in the world ofshuls, large, airy, imposing, even awe-inspiring...
...I am a member and part owner of that place and it's swell...
...We have rented a part of it to make our comSANTA LUCIA EYE DROPS The amazing Santa Lucia Eye preparation is made of two types of plants...
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...I gave a little talk about how happy I was with Tommy when he said he admired Nixon and wanted to portray him in a school event The audience giggled...
Vol. 33 • November 2000 • No. 9
