Ben Stein's Diary
Stein, Benjamin J.
| E N STE I N'S D IAR' by Benjamin J. Stein The Gore-Boies Recession Wednesday H ere is the thought that's on my mind night and day: Americans are the greatest people there ever were. The...
...On affirmative action, even though Nixon invented it (to his embarrassment), Reagan pretty much un-invented it...
...Dillon had undergone bone marrow transplants that morning, but he was smiling weakly when I came in...
...But if you look at the youngest of them, they are just infants...
...Bush, and be done with it...
...Well, good-bye, Ms...
...Cho, you would look good in feldgrau...
...So you're saying Democrats are indecent...
...When Lee rode away from Appomattox, still straight and dignified aboard Traveler, Grant said of him and his men, "They will live in history...
...Well, I guess that's an exaggeration...
...Should I file a protest...
...When JFK stole the West Virginia primary, Humphrey conceded in tears...
...But I waved and smiled at him...
...I can see his caravan working its way along the road...
...I asked...
...I asked them why they were in town...
...she asked, peering through her stringy hair...
...They shouted words I could not make out, and then left...
...I killed it...
...Boosler is not there (she's apparently doing some last-ditch campaigning with the Gore Volk) but instead there is a man named Paul Rodriguez, who in the makeup room is filled with barely disguised antiSemitic jokes, whose offensiveness he probably himself doesn't understand...
...No, these were middleclass Americans with trustworthy looks on their faces, people who did not look as if they were deranged...
...Again I recall my old Dad warning me against going on TV talk shows...
...We see that they are desperately ill and close to death...
...The e-mail told me that Dillon was suffering from serious cancer, was in the Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, and asked me to send him a photo...
...Bush and Mr...
...He mouthed "Ben Ben," over and over...
...Let's instead just double the entire military's pay...
...Bob, the most modest man on earth, said that he would only take it if everyone in his platoon shared in it...
...Gave a great our prejudice, so do what we say...
...Dale Denman...
...I think of the Minnesota regiments fighting the Mississippians and Texans in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg, then a few years later, all joining together for the goodness of America...
...No stringy haired emaciated women with mustaches...
...Jim Moret, the host, prevailed upon me to stay...
...I love the friendly people...
...They're really just babies...
...They generated so much uncertainty and fear that buyers just stopped buying altogether and now we are headed for difficult times...
...Then he rode back home in his bus with a folk singer in the back singing, to the tune of "Give Me That Old Time Religion," "I'm gonna vote for Hubert Humphrey, I'm gonna vote for Hubert Humphrey, he's the man for you and me," while Humphrey stared straight ahead, a deer run over by the Kennedy limousine...
...Gore are troublemakers who do not really love this country as much as they love themselves...
...The registrar gave me two ballots by Fe b r u ary 2 o o z 9 The American Spectator mistake but I gave one back...
...I'm at the Capital Hotel, a charming old place built during Reconstruction...
...What happened then...
...The Jesse Jacksons of the world cannot push endlessly without some response if they have no legitimate cause...
...I keep thinking to my little self, hey, here's Dillon and many like him...
...He was a Gore fan...
...The higher-ups would not allow the medal to be shared, so Bob turned it down...
...Big mistake...
...There was a loud humming noise coming through the fan duet in the bathroom even when the fan was off...
...This theory is called "legal realism...
...Think of how generous the U.S...
...The American people are so magnanimous that they shine forth like diamonds across all of the ages of history...
...We have got to pay these people a living wage for their life-saving duty...
...I suspect at the end of it, Gore will be president, and I hate that thought, but I am going to see if there's anything I can do to help my man, Governor Bush...
...The election results on the TV are mixed...
...This is a story indeed...
...Those people, masks of rage, had signs that read, "Re-Count or Revolt...
...Still, Gore has left in a motorcade from his HQ in Nashville to concede...
...a few days after the election...
...The night we arrived in Little Rock, I signed on to AOL and found a letter from a woman who is the aunt of a two-year-old boy named Dillon Rolins...
...Paul to Washington as a U.S...
...We were talking about World War II and he said, "The Wehrmaeht fought well and with integrity...
...These are good people...
...I contrast them in my mind with the demonstrators I saw in the Westwood part of L.A...
...Yesterday the Supreme Court handed the chalice to Mr...
...How much could that cost...
...Tm looking for a Bush person to assault," said the future lawyer...
...Then I just sat and held his little stockinged foot for a long time...
...So we fight like madmen to keep them alive...
...New England, some of the Rust Belt, and California for Gore...
...I went down to the desk to complain...
...It's a political thing foisted on us by a culture that reveres selfishness...
...The crowd was super friendly to me, but frankly I was cold and tired and had to go inside a restaurant at the Doubletree to get warm...
...Not that much compared with a $1o trillion economy...
...Supreme Court was slightly, but only slightly, more subtle...
...Third, while we all have to cheer on the team, it only takes a few thousand lawyers and activists to fight these wars at this stage...
...The hotel has not charged me for any of it...
...Well, c'est la vie...
...Boo-hoo...
...Bush is the winner...
...I am guessing they are friends of Jesse Jackson...
...I have had toast and orange juice from room service every night for three nights...
...I met him three times during the campaign and liked him better every time...
...I'll spray your room with insecticide...
...So do wifie and Tommy, so we were all peas in a pod...
...You sure...
...Painful work, but it must be done...
...If they took prisoners, they treated them right...
...I'm thinking of this because I am reading one of the best books I have ever read, Robert E. Lee: The Last Years, by a man named Flood...
...they all asked...
...I call it the Gore-Boies recession...
...I am situated in the midst of a group of college basketballers...
...Then out into the rainy Little Rock night...
...It looked bad until about midnight our time, and then Fox, our fave network, said Bush won Florida and with it the presidency...
...They are calm, well behaved, brave, with good senses of humor and a lively Humphrey stared straight ahead, a deer run over by the Kennedy limousine...
...I am telling you, the Denmans are remarkable people...
...I am here on the set of my show, actually working like a madman...
...Or go back farther to the U.S...
...Just the kind of young people America needs...
...Thank you, A1, for thinking so much about the rest of us...
...I get sick from the smell...
...In particular, I am endlessly amazed that the Jewish vote goes Democratic...
...On Israel, Reagan, Bush, and Nixon were so much better for Israel, it's ridiculous...
...Hard questions...
...So is Saudi Arabia...
...When he ran against JFK for president in 196o , he was cheated out of the nomination by Joe Kennedy's money and gangland conneetions...
...His supporters are telling him not to, but he's going to do the gentlemanly thing and concede anyway...
...But Grant said he would immediately send over 25,000 rations, and tears of gratitude came to Lee's eyes...
...All, not just some, but all of the South for Bush, all of the Midwest except the largely industrial and non-white states for Bush, all of the Rocky Mountain states for Bush...
...I am especially thinking of Hubert Horatio Humphrey, late statesman from Minnesota...
...We are lucky this has not led to violence, but it is a lesson...
...Then two more...
...I have a suggestion...
...Then I left...
...I was just there," Bob Denman said at the table at Gapers...
...from (I think) the Columbia Law Review called "Some Realism About Legal Realism," by a famed law professor named Karl Llewellyn...
...This time he did not speak...
...That's something like treason...
...senator...
...Then another appeared...
...We all want God to help those kids, but here on earth, as the saying goes, God's work must truly be our own...
...Monday A s I worked on my speech in the noon hour, I noticed an immense wasp crawling along my window...
...Two days later, when General Gordon led the tattered remnants of the Stonewall Brigade to stack arms in surrender, a federal general who had fought in many a bloody contest against the Southerners Ordered his men to carry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...She interrupted me right off the bat and I asked her if she were going to keep interrupting me...
...This is a great country of great people...
...The map of America is amazing...
...The waiters want an autograph and that's it...
...The fact that in our modern, kind, gentle America, innocent babies are murdered in brutal ways by the thousands every day to make life more convenient and fun for the rest of us is simply not mentionable...
...The men looked at me as if I had just pulled a gun on them...
...Let's do homage to Lee for his genius and courage and to his men for their fortitude and duty, but also to the incredibly magnanimous Union, as represented by Grant, Lincoln, and Andrew Johnson and millions of others...
...Naturally, they were in a good mood because Mrs...
...And then a big sign written by an adult, "I Love Ben Stein...
...I am happy but exhausted...
...44 arms for the defeated Rebels, a move of respect that will live forever in decency and brotherhood...
...I stayed for almost two hours signing autographs and getting my photo taken, and then I went back to the bar to flirt with the beautiful bartender, and then back to my room...
...No matter what, don't spray insecticide...
...Yes, there are wasps' nests on this floor...
...His father is an E- 5, I think, in the Army...
...But some of the people around Mr...
...From then on, Lee would never allow a harsh word about Grant to be spoken in his presence...
...Then, away I go to CNN to appear on a panel to talk about the election...
...Yes," she said happily...
...Well, usually they can...
...Then there is someone named Margaret Cho, a hefty Korean comedienne...
...I was sitting next to him at a fund-raiser in Beverly Hills a few weeks ago when a state party official said, "And let me tell you something--we're going to carry California...
...Cho spoke angrily about "a woman's right to choose" and how surely even a hyena like me couldn't be against that...
...No men with beards and hate-filled faces...
...No feeling of hatred or menace...
...I said loudly...
...I killed it...
...intelligence...
...We expect to see as many as 50 open seats to be filled with new congressmen next year, the greatest number in over 30 years...
...They were from somewhere called Seminole County, there to sue to throw out a lot of absentee ballots that they suspected were for Bush...
...But most remarkable of all, when the headquarters of the defeated Army of Northern Virginia was struck and Lee went home, he simply walked into his rented house in Richmond, lay down, and had a long nap...
...thought was going on...
...The rest of us might make better use of our time to help the kids in the cancer wards to have a better moment or hour...
...She looked elated, as if she were a eat who had caught a mouse in a corner...
...There was room service but when they brought my toast and butter, they failed to bring a knife or any other implement...
...No men or women who looked dangerous...
...If they feel a certain way, they can always make up an argument to rationalize their bias and make it sound all legal...
...The election booths were in the school library but within a few feet of the booths, some small children were carrying around signs that read "Gore-Lieberman...
...Yes, in the middle of the night...
...The guy has lights of character coming out of him...
...I sat with him and showed him how to use his rather complicated toys...
...Anyway, I went back to see Dillon twice this week, and now tonight, after dinner, I am on my way back again...
...What great young men and women these were and are...
...T-shirts were sold that said, in the same logo style as the Gore-Lieberman banners, "Sore Loserman...
...In the restaurant was a beautiful bartender whose name I have now forgotten, but a stunning beauty nonetheless...
...The speech...
...But I dried my tears and went in to see Dillon...
...Cheney...
...In fact, I doubt if I will be invited back on CNN for a good long while...
...He was not arrested...
...Anyway, he's my man and now we have to support himas he stands up to the Democrat media/trial lawyer onslaught...
...I have been assured that my nemesis, Elayne Boosler, very angry and partisan comedienne, will not be there so I feel light hearted...
...U.S...
...Likable, conciliatory, selfdeprecating...
...Bush wins, let's postpone a tax cut for a while...
...It reeked of insecticide...
...The basic generosity of the American spirit is simply without historical precedent, except maybe the precedent of Love Your Enemies...
...And generally, Jews should know that Holocausts come from Big Government, which is the Democrat mantra...
...I thought we had gotten rid of them all, but I guess there still are some here...
...Just kidding...
...I would be ultra shocked ifI ever spent any quality time with Ms...
...Sunday ~ am in Tallahassee...
...Just a lot of dogs barking at each other," he said...
...Dillon had on his door a list of regulations: No lab coats (they carry germs...
...Please call the Club at 202-955-5500 or visit www.ClubForGrowth.com for more information...
...The kids are so friendly, have such sweet looks on their faces, ask such touching questions, by and large...
...It's far more evil than slavery, and I hope we can some day abolish it as thoroughly as slavery was abolished...
...No insecticide...
...No children...
...My room is tiny, with low ceilings and decrepit furniture...
...This fine man came from St...
...I e-mailed back that I would instead come see him...
...My relatives here are amazing people...
...Harris certified that, once more, Mr...
...Tonight, I am at dinner at a place called Capers, in West Little Rock, a place I love a lot...
...On the walls, though, there are photos and poems of young men and women who have passed through the Oneology Ward and thence to eternity at a young earthly age...
...Of course, I began to sob like a baby...
...The demonstrators I saw tonight were patriots trying to save their country...
...There is strength in numbers when we stand together...
...But tonight, my hosts have taken me to a strange place called the Doubletree Hotel...
...They were black kids who got out of buses...
...Still, we will do anything to save them...
...Why do we kill some babies and race like demons to save others...
...They had a grievancesomeone was trying to steal the election from the voters-but they did not look as if they were constitutionally deranged, like most demonstrators...
...At this late hour, the halls are deserted...
...I highly recommend an ancient article One-quarter of the new House Republicans, and the GOP's rising stars, who were sworn in January 3 were backed by a new group whose members donated up to $200,000 in campaign contributions for each candidate...
...Then along came some spider who said that maybe the race in Florida was too close to call...
...The Club passed the $2 million mark in total contributions for candidates and issue advertising in its first year, one of the fastest starts by a political group ever...
...Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot notes that the "Club for Growth favors tax cuts, Social Security reform and limited government- precisely what GOP leaders claim to support...
...A woman reporter from the BBC asked me what I In the waiting room, Margaret Cho glared at me with distinct hatred and wariness...
...But this is only part one of many parts...
...46 Fe b r u ary 2 o o i 9 The American Spectotor He was with his Mom...
...We're taping my talk show today, election day...
...What about making every vote count...
...He and his men were pinned down by a North Korean machine gunner...
...True, Ms...
...I always think of Humphrey when I am thinking about the contemporary Democrats...
...Olaf in Northfield, Minnesota...
...Then to my set to interview someone great named Vitamin C, who is really Colleen Fitzpatrick...
...I think he's a bit strange, but we don't hate him or anyone The American Spectator 9 Fe b r u a r y 2 o o z 45 else...
...I can't imagine another nation where that could happen...
...It was in Korea, at Pork Chop Hill...
...Even though he had led the major army of a rebellion of questionable legality, Lee was suffered to simply go home and rest...
...Anyway, I made my way through the demonstrators and I shook a lot of hands and signed autographs...
...The Arizona Republic called the Club for Growth "a new, aggressive, conservative political organization...
...The American Spectator 9 Fe b r u a r y 2 o o z 49...
...In my room, the phone did not work...
...Borrowing the tactics of unions and Emily's List, the Club wants to identify and finance talented reform conservatives...
...He looked at us, said nothing, and walked away...
...Oops...
...Denman said blithely...
...Now we are in for what Mao Tse-tung called "a prolonged struggle...
...He and his men killed the gunner and could advance...
...I can recall well how the political chaos around the Watergate events of'73-'74 did much to start the catastrophe of the mid-seventies recession...
...48 Fe b r u ary 2 o o z 9 The American Spectator "Yes, I am totally sure," I answered...
...Generosity, even wild generosity, is built into the American soul...
...generosity to Germany after World War I. If it had been matched by all of the allies, there might have been no Hitler...
...The COP just says, "Hey, Israel, we have some pals in the Mideast...
...I am in Little Rock visiting my in-laws...
...They culminated in a speech to an immense and very, very enthusiastic crowd in a big room near the football field...
...I got up, took off my microphone, and started to leave...
...Tomorrow I am speaking to a student group...
...I have seen both the Democrats and the GOP up close and personal about issues of import to Jews...
...The Democrats love to push Israel around and kiss up to the PLO...
...And a lot harderworking and better than I am...
...Well, we're all Bush fans at this table," I said...
...He was not hanged...
...Yet if they are a day before birth, or even minutes before birth, as a nation we have laws that allow us to have "doctors" kill them...
...My wife's uncle, Bob Denman, is telling us why he turned down a citation for a Silver Star medal...
...I have to say none of us truly hates Gore...
...Friday i t has been two and a half weeks since the election...
...Wednesday am back in L.A...
...There are a few lessons here...
...Humphrey in an old bus...
...Then there was a lot of screaming and shouting, and then at the end Ms...
...Nahh, just vote for my man, G.W...
...has been to the former Soviet Union after the end of the Cold War...
...Once we captured one and he was wounded and we brought him to a field hospital and he spit in the doctor's face...
...They were a lively bunch...
...But what's this...
...He makes about $1,8oo a month...
...Friendly, kind, interested...
...Now the recession is starting...
...These were yeomen and yeowomen, solid citizens, and they were there to stand up for their country, not to hate their country...
...He is quick witted though...
...Apparently he was so weak that he could not have visitors...
...When...
...Uh-oh...
...This year, Club candidates went two for two in open seat primaries, proving that when Reagan Republicans get support from Club members, they can win...
...But the ordinary Democrat who works for a living is still (I think) every bit as good as any other man or woman...
...that exists to send free-market, 'Reagan Republican' candidates" to Congress...
...I just have a lot of crying in me ever since my parents went off to immortality, leaving me to try in my pathetic way to look after my family by myself...
...In a pixieish mood, I said to them, "Can you believe Gore just Why do we kill some babies and race like demons to save others...
...Lee hoped Grant would send over a few thousand...
...Cho was simply going to explode...
...One is that judges are people...
...Anyway, I finished up on the set and came home to watch the election results with our wonderful pal, Barbara P., a Jewish woman doctor who hates Gore...
...No, the huge mass of Democrats are fine people...
...We take care of our pals...
...A tall man from Brooklyn, studying law at FSU, shouted angrily at the TV...
...It is at least 65 years old but still on point...
...A captain or maybe a major saw that the wound on the North Korean was from a carbine, and Bob was the only one who carried such a weapon, so he recommended Bob for a Silver Star...
...Not even Joan Rivers or Margaret Cho or Elayne Boosler...
...They looked happy but worried, as they should be...
...He was so committed to civil rights that he lived in a modest neighborhood because it was not restricted against Jews...
...At the desk were three men who were readily apparent as Democrat lawyers...
...I didn't do anything more than anyone else...
...You're one...
...At three a.m., more or less, I was awakened by a crowd of demonstrators in front of the courthouse across from the hotel...
...The Florida Supremes just said, "This is went on TV and conceded...
...Then I'm leaving," I said...
...Now, I fear, it's all happening again...
...My son loves its broad halls where he can play with his remote-controlled car...
...A workman appeared...
...The song makes me sob, but then everything these days makes me sob...
...He just looked at me through the glass door...
...It is played at every high school graduation and that's a lot...
...They remind me a lot more of Kennedy than of Humphrey...
...I had myself moved to a supposedly better, quieter room...
...She looked so tired...
...I suspect he is my favorite public servant on the Democrat side ever...
...My two guides from FSU and I had some tea and snacks...
...Smart contestants...
...They have their views and biases...
...treated Germany and Japan after their defeats in World War II...
...Kennedy traveled in a private plane...
...Second, and far more vital, people do not like being pushed around...
...It's the revolt of the decent people against the indecent people," I said...
...Just kidding," I said...
...Wifie started jumping up and down with joy...
...Tuesday ~ am back in L.A...
...I went to vote at my son's school before taping...
...If Mr...
...Cho again...
...I am thinking about this particularly now as I get out of bed at a funny little hotel called the Country Inn, and go to speak to a huge crowd at a lovely school called St...
...Years later, at Washington College, when a faculty member was damning Grant, Lee said that if the man ever spoke similarly in front of him again, either the faculty member or Lee would be gone in the morning...
...But the mood remained upbeat and solid...
...But the SS were just mean," he said, using a word that is harsh for a gentleman like Col...
...The most fascinating part is this: Immediately after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, he hesitantly asked Grant if Grant could spare any rations...
...But the usualrun of those shows was positively Aristotelian compared with trying to talk to Margaret Cho...
...The decent people of this country have been screamed at and pushed around by the militant cranks for too long and now they are pushing back...
...After dinner, I took my wifie and son back to the Capital, and then offI went to Arkansas Children's Hospital to see my new best friend, Dillon Rolins...
...Dillon was exhausted, barely awake...
...Bush shrugged his shoulders and smiled ruefully as if to say, "Yeah, whatever you say...
...They were demonstrators with placards, only they were not what we're used to as demonstrators...
...Find out how to make your political contributions count...
...The food is great, and the people are cheery and have excellent, pleasant features...
...The 2000 election proved that the Club for Growth model works...
...Lee was further moved when Grant said that the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia could keep their swords, pistols, and horses...
...I stood in a tiny anteroom...
...What you call 'the right to choose' is really the 'right' to murder an innocent baby," I said, and I thought Ms...
...I cannot imagine that in a big city...
...Good at first for Bush and then bad for Bush...
...He said he would live his beliefs and he did...
...In the waiting room she glared at me with distinct hatred and wariness...
...In many ways, the sweetest part of the day was that the gift shop was closed when I got there but the folks at the hospital opened it to sell me a few toys for Dillon...
...Well, uh, uh, some votes count more than others...
...I called the desk...
...Think of how well the U.S...
...I have written about my father-in-law, the war hero, many times, so I'll just tell you the latest...
...Gore has called Bush to say he's not going to concede after all...
...Just a guess...
...We walked only a few blocks until we came to a medium-sized crowd in front of a state office building...
...I wrote my speech and then went out with my guides to a round of activities...
...I know a man who was wounded and they worked like mad not to have to amputate his arm...
...Certain truths cannot be said aloud in today's America...
...Then, off with my two guides from FSU to watch the results of the Florida vote certified by the estimable Katherine Harris...
...NO...
...She is a lovely redheaded chanteuse with a voice like an angel and she's got a huge hit called "Graduation-Friends Forever...
...Oh, we treated him anyway," Col...
...So the next day his father, a slender young man, picked me up in the lobby of the Capital and off we went to the hospital...
Vol. 34 • February 2001 • No. 1
