BEN STEIN'S DIARY:Stories From the Desert
Stein, Benjamin J.
B E N S T E I N ’ S D I A R Y Stories From the Desert by Benjamin J. Stein And while Daniel is parking the car, some drunk woman comes up in her Jaguar and puts a little ding in the door...
...Threats of annihilation by the militant Moslems, a resurgent Russia, these are frightening prospects...
...It’s late October and perfect weather...
...I feel bad for the American flight attendants who have to serve this swill...
...But that’s not the same as having it be “enough” by a long shot...
...Do tell,” I said happily...
...The hellish check-in clerk blithely told me I did not have a reservation, when of course I did...
...I could hear every grunt, and when he flushed the toilet, it sounded like a bomb exploding in my room...
...He was a genuinely presses me no end, and Giuliani, who has real guts to good friend to me when I was at Columbia and he was tell the truth...
...Go on...
...Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...I’ll think about that tomorrow...
...I did that yesterday on my way to get my nails done...
...The incredibly kind and friendly American people...
...But I wonder if desk clerks are given any training at all, or if they are just told, “Your mission is to destroy the peace of mind of our guests, to make them exhausted and irritable...
...I guess he was proved Anyway, God bless all of you, and R.I.P...
...There are no greater stars than these...
...In first class cross-country, they offer something Plus someone stole the envelope I had left with tips for the trash collectors...
...I guess we missed that one, too...
...It has been foreseeable for a long time...
...I flew close to 200,000 miles...
...Well, I am home now for three weeks...
...As a matter of course, the food on airliners is a disgrace to mankind...
...So he was probably mas to all and Happy New Year and God bless all of right...
...Then he always has a few drinks and then supper at the club, so he’s there all day...
...At the Breakers in Palm Beach they are good...
...gets quoted by the who’s who in Washington and talk radio...
...This is the desert...
...Have we gone totally nuts...
...When has a president prosecuting a war that’s a total disaster ever been popular...
...I am out here at our little house in Malibu with my dog, Brigid...
...He didn’t even have his own car...
...Luckily for me, it was about foreign exchange, a subject I know well...
...But the airlines are running a close second in travel torment...
...A truly gener- Can it be saved by a leader...
...The local Harvard-Yale-Princeton club let me in for a free ginger ale...
...Towards the end of the year, I found myself alone and cold in Pittsburgh, a place I had never been before...
...He’s nobody...
...This one has become a dangerous mockery...
...It’s been tiring...
...The speech was excellent and I went back to my room happy...
...I have to write every day, but I will be able to sleep in my own bed with my own dogs, and my own wife nearby, and I am happy...
...She is totally hot and 18 and Daniel is in love...
...The worst moment of the whole year was when I flew into Las Vegas late one night, dog-tired and coming down with the flu...
...I think I can say he was about as smart as The people on the world stage now seem like pyganyone I ever met except my father...
...I do think we should take into account the fact that while Milton Friedman disliked government, it was the federal government that gave him his first employment out of school...
...The Army is not a police force...
...They can afford it and we need the money...
...And Daniel doesn’t say no, and so pretty soon she’s in the car and they’re riding along Bob Hope Drive when some pachucos come up next to them and pull out a gun...
...They are far better than what American is serving...
...And he was in- mies by comparison, except for McCain, who imcredibly friendly and cheerful...
...Now, I have an idea...
...Regular appearances by Jed Babbin Philip Klein Paul Beston Lawrence Henry Enemy Central Dave Holman Shawn Macomber Quin Hillyer John Tabin and of course, Wlady...
...And while they’re at it, this gorgeous hot Hispanic chick named Daniella comes in and loves the car and wants to know who owns it...
...They’re stars and so are the Marines and the Navy and the Air Force and the Guard and the Reserves, but this just isn’t their job now in Iraq...
...did he do a lot of things right...
...And the girl says they should go into Wynn’s Casino and shoot craps the way Al Pacino does in movies...
...I wish his father could talk some sense into him about the advice he’s been taking...
...And at the Best Western Edgewater in my favorite town on earth, Sandpoint, Idaho, they are always helpful...
...The staff has just “scalped” and reseeded the golf course and it looks like a perfect emerald...
...Or maybe it’s not going to hell...
...They are not suffering...
...bigger armed force...
...So they go off in the Bentley, which is totally against the rules, and head to the body shop in Cathedral City...
...I am the year, I can hardly think of one to be gassed at Auschwitz...
...The brave soldier just back from Iraq with shrapnel in his ankle to prove it who told me of his life at a restaurant in Orlando in a hotel where they kept me waiting 30 minutes for a room...
...An adequate defense...
...Who knows...
...Fairness in taxes and government regulation remember what the GOP is supposed megarich out of paying taxes on their wealth...
...I OW IT’S MORNING and I am feeling a lot better...
...Then she miraculously found a room for me...
...What’s the best part of traveling...
...It’s Ferris Bueller in the desert...
...Could either of them save the nation...
...And when I was there I sat next to your little slut new girlfriend so just shut up about it if you want to stay alive.’ Logan shuts up, and Daniel counts out his forty thousand dollars, gives five of it to his pal, goes home to his mother and says, ‘I think we’re going to be able to get a new house, Mom.’” “I love it,” I said...
...Maybe I’m just imagining those 1.5 billion Moslems who hate us...
...They put me next to rooms of kids playing by bouncing against the walls...
...He gives them $10,000 to go away, and then he promises the Blessed Virgin that he’ll give her the rest of the money if he can get back safely and not get in trouble...
...Unfortunately, it’s not quite morning in Amabout Milton Friedman in National Review...
...Just a small town ward heeler who has already been busted taking bribes, has no experience at all—NONE—on the world stage or in defense or anything else...
...Domestically, it’s on United First Class and Alaska First Class...
...I asked Barron...
...What would we do if Pyongyang invaded Seoul...
...Hey, this brings up something else: the military won the war in Iraq...
...But, I love George W. Bush and I want him to succeed...
...really good experience at a hotel check-in desk...
...And the girl is in love...
...I do not want to see her elected, but she’s Winston Churchill compared to Obama...
...The saving grace is that it’s too tough to chew, so you don’t have to worry about eating Flicka...
...The of commerce...
...That’s someone else’s problem...
...The high school kids in Hobbs, New Mexico, who asked me really intelligent questions about the world situation...
...After all, tomorrow is another day...
...A much bigger military is a necessary first step...
...Let’s all get our heads out of our backsides and try to GOP is supposed to be the party of the small businessman, the farmer, the retired factory worker, the policeman...
...5 6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 Updated As We Speak...
...room, but there you are...
...See what daily insight from R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Now, bear in American at a time...
...Yes, the rich are paying a vast amount of tax...
...My life is great...
...So they get Orthodox Jewish clothes and go in and pretend to be over 21 and shoot craps and Daniel loses it all until he’s down to his last hundred, and then he can’t stop winning and the whole room is betting along with him and he walks out with a hundred thousand bucks— and the hotel detective is super suspicious and the pachucos are there betting along with him, so it’s scary, especially when they start shooting at him...
...It’s morning in America no to in 1984...
...He calls in sick, and the girl and Daniel and his pal are on their way to Vegas...
...Hotels are designed to torture guests, but once outside the hotel, everything is cool...
...The skycap in Orlando who took pity on me and walked me all the way through the airport to my gate with my luggage for a mere twenty dollars...
...Anyway, they race to Vegas and Daniel wins in this Bentley, and then he realizes he’s broke and so is his pal and so is Daniella, but he doesn’t want to admit T U E S D A Y ERE I AM OUT AT OUR HOUSE at Morningside Country Club in Rancho Mirage...
...The gas station service women in Black Lick, Pennsylvania, who oohed and ahhed when I went in and gave me free donuts...
...One of the other valets tells Danny he can get the ding fixed for free at his brother’s body shop in Cathedral City...
...But better late than never...
...And the girl totally stares them down and tells them Daniel is a big power in the Bloods’ Hispanic Version in East L.A., and the guys say, ‘Well, cool.’ And they back off...
...it’s the obligation of this and every generation...
...It’s still not as good as a Three Musketeers bar, but then almost nothing else is...
...Believe me, I know a lot of the rich...
...He’s been hoodwinked about “streamlining the military” and “nation building...
...To be a part of this .ne tradition and protect America’s freedom, please tell your attorney to add this language to your will: “I give, devise, and bequeath to Young America’s Foundation, tax identi.cation number 23-7042029, 110 Elden Street, Herndon, Virginia 20170 (insert percentage, amount or nature of gift, or remainder of estate) to be used to support the Reagan Ranch and activities at the Reagan Ranch Center...
...I don’t always anywhere approve of tax cuts, you...
...They were ideologically opposed to every breath I take...
...I know they didn’t intend to, but that’s what happened...
...And my predictions came in right on the money, so to speak...
...I am tempted to say, Friedman, a true star of freedom—but not as much of a star as every man and woman who takes up the gun and the body armor to defend this country with his life...
...It is supposed to be about guarding the savings of honest citizens...
...I want you to play Logan...
...They did their job, did it right, and now, let’s bring them home...
...So Daniel’s friend tells her it’s Daniel’s car and he’s a hot guy in the drug business in L.A...
...Then he gets back just as Logan Jones is leaving the club house, and suddenly he realizes the ding is still there and there are about a thousand extra miles on a new car...
...What many things wrong, but wow, did he do a lot of things e t mo It is a glorious morning out here in Malibu...
...Nor in a hospital...
...It’s not enough, or else we would not have these huge deficits...
...Dozens of young kids coming by and saying, “This man is a total star...
...It must be embarrassing...
...He’s a super rich guy who was into oil and gas and maybe some other things in Houston that weren’t quite as cool...
...Why...
...TUESDAY ELL, IT’S TUESDAY, DECEMBER19...
...Maybe I’m just imagining a busted military and a fiscal system that’s driving us into a ditch or an insane pair of dictators with nuclear weapons...
...It’s not supposed to be the handmaiden for the Wall Street oligarchs and plutocrats...
...Or do we have to do it one ous, spirited, marvelous human being...
...And he had this absolute obsession with golf and with poker, and every day of the season, he’s playing 18 holes with his rich pals, then going back to the clubhouse to play truly high stakes poker in a back room behind the locker room...
...This should be the bedrock of the GOP...
...It took until 2:00 A.M...
...Not good...
...Instead, or in addition, I found some lovely young people who belong to the Center for Liberal Politics or something like that...
...Just what exactly those problems are is beyond my pay grade...
...Here is the best story about life in Southern California I have ever heard,” Barron said...
...Plus the furnace is making a strange sound...
...And when Logan starts to complain about it, his wife says, ‘Shut up...
...Legacy gifts have been essential to Young America’s Foundation’s success in reaching young people with conservative ideas for the last 37 years...
...The desert moon knows many stories...
...Or else raise taxes on people who make $5 million a year or more...
...Holy smoke, is he missed...
...But meanwhile, some low rider tells the pachucos that they’ve just been had and that this guy is a valet parker, not a gang banger, and the pachucos are furious, plus one of them likes Daniella, so they go off after them up the 15 Freeway...
...This does not mean letting the Now, I have an idea...
...What used to be my favorite, American Airlines, is by far the worst offender...
...Nothing...
...Find out what the Washington Prowler has uncovered...
...On the other hand, I am not in Ar-Ramadi...
...After all, it was big mentioned in the Bible...
...Could we be crazy enough to even consider him as president...
...What would we do if Putin sent troops into Georgia or Ukraine...
...George W. Bush is extremely good on this, but we don’t hear enough about it...
...Some of them took me to hear a speech at Heinz Hall by Colin Powell...
...Someone has stolen our trash bucket again...
...Why hasn’t George Tenet been arrested for treason...
...I am sitting pretty...
...The ticket seller would not let me pay...
...The cupboard is bare, friends...
...I don’t automatically think less gov- Hanukah is a truly minor Jewish holiday, not even ernment is better government...
...pr needs it fragile...
...Routinely, the clerks give me smoking rooms when I want non-smoking...
...But for sheer genius, for sheer love of liberty, there are few who can compare...
...He made many things wrong, but wow, wow, things went downhill in a hurry after 9/11...
...I have my wife, my dogs, my houses, my friends...
...It’s funny, but as I think back over the year, I can hardly think of one really good experience at a hotel check-in desk...
...It does not compare with government that fought and won World War II...
...And we have had George W. Bush as President for almost six years...
...What would we do if Chavez invaded Colombia...
...He shows up in his Bentley, tosses the keys to the valet parker, and goes inside to get into his golf stuff...
...A brand-new Bentley...
...And meanwhile, what is this insanity about to be about...
...At midnight, the man next door started to evacuPlus: mysterious guest bloggers...
...She was a maid for a family who had a big house at El Rodeo...
...R That ” otection...
...No Western power has ever been able to suppress a full-scale Arab uprising in the postwar era...
...mind, he was a lot smarter than I am, but I disagreed Time will tell, and in the meantime, Merry Christwith him on a number of items...
...It’s not supposed to be about facilitating looting of retirees...
...Lured by the false siren song of “supply side” and the “magic” of tax cuts that were supposed to make revenues rise by cutting revenues, we put the military into a budgetary straitjacket...
...Now, I will lie in bed with Brigid...
...Barron answered...
...I just finished eating my breakfast and read right...
...Holy smoke, is he missed...
...But they were friendly, outgoing, charming men and women...
...We’re in an absolute disaster in Iraq...
...I Christmas in the Pantheon of a faith’s holidays...
...Barack Obama...
...B E N J A M I N J . S T E I N AmSpecBlog they call filet of beef...
...I really have come to believe that check-in clerks want the guest to be unhappy...
...Balmy breezes, a few fleecy clouds, temps in the low 80s, no humidity...
...About time...
...At a bar called Tonic, I sought out some roasted tomato soup...
...Let’s all get our heads out of our backsides and try to remember what the GOP is supposed to be about: 5 8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 B E N J A M I N J . S T E I N “It’s morning in America now...
...Do your worst...
...Why are you giving him a hard time...
...money or buy a diamond or something...
...If it’s gotten to that, it’s not our job any more...
...But he’s been sold a bill of goods about tax cuts...
...F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 5 9...
...How can my life stay great when the world is going to hell all around us...
...As long as we don’t care at all about deficits, let’s have 300,000 more men and women under arms right away, and let my son’s generation pay for it...
...Amazing...
...Meanwhile the girl says, ‘Hey, let’s go to Vegas in your car, big boy.’ “And Daniel figures, well he’s got until nine o’clock at least...
...It’s good discipline to have to pay for what you spend and not just pass the buck...
...Anyway, I see that now President Bush is supporting a larger armed force...
...B E N S T E I N ’ S D I A R Y Stories From the Desert by Benjamin J. Stein And while Daniel is parking the car, some drunk woman comes up in her Jaguar and puts a little ding in the door of the rich guy from Houston’s car...
...If they have to save money, why not just serve Rice Krispies and skim milk...
...And he confesses who he is to Daniella and she says she digs him anyway and they make out in a hotel room in Barstow...
...Will you protect America’s freedom by remembering Young America’s Foundation and the Reagan Ranch in your will...
...I am not on Iwo Jima...
...t rar onald e. I R’s eagan knew that “freedom is special ’s and why he challenged us to protect America’s freedom by passing on our ideas to future generations of Americans: For freedom is not the property of one generation...
...H w.” That was Reagan’ made s luck...
...When we went in, why didn’t we go in with enough troops...
...As to don’t think the postal service is a threat to personal Kwanza, well, someone has to explain that one to me liberty...
...to get me a decent • Balanced budgets… does anyone even remember that one...
...Hey, guys, we’re LOSING A WAR...
...I blame the tax cutters...
...It’s been crystal clear for five of those years at least that we need an immense buildup in the military, and it hasn’t happened...
...The local Brooks Brothers cheerily outfitted me for the chill...
...This was never supposed to be about refereeing a civil war...
...Please contact Kimberly Martin Begg at 1-800-USA-1776 to receive a free information packet...
...some kind, preferably military...
...I can truly say that except for check-in personnel at hotels, I cannot recall meeting one American who was not friendly, and I include illegal aliens or at least people who don’t speak a lot of English...
...I dismissed my driver and sashayed up to the registration desk at The Hotel, a snazzy place on the Strip...
...I gave many speeches in many cities...
...But I am not sure at all that it’s a matter of private vs...
...He was handsome and smart and he didn’t have a dime, and because he was such a straight-shooting kid, he didn’t really have a girlfriend...
...I stood there begging, pleading, cajoling for 45 minutes wondering what I would do—and do you know what finally melted her portly heart of stone...
...Maybe I’m just imagining whole continents “re-primitivizing” themselves, in Christopher Hitchens’s fine phrase (or was it Barack Obama...
...Then he stops in the church his mother worships in Cathedral City and leaves $50,000 in the box...
...Also, on a somewhat contrary plane, while I love the idea of school vouchers and support his foundation about them, I question whether private schools can overcome the problems of educating non-whites...
...They put me next to the elevator when I have said I don’t want to be near the elevator...
...High time, I would say...
...The private employers were too anti-Semitic to do it, but the federal government was not...
...However, it’s daylight now...
...a visiting professor there in 1963-64...
...We do not have enough men to suppress an insurrection of 15,000 irregulars in Iraq...
...And the woman says it’s Daniel’s fault and she’s yelling at him, and he’s terrified...
...So, one day, this guy I’ll call ‘Logan Jones’ comes cruising up in his new Bentley...
...Milton wrong about many aspects of monetary policy— which he generously admitted...
...Does anyone even remember the word “discipline...
...They give me rooms without heat or air-conditioning...
...I knew you would,” Barron smiled...
...My pal Barron Thomas came over for lunch...
...miss him...
...I could go on about having meaningful borders, but you get the picture...
...The next night was almost as bad, when I was told literally five minutes before I was to go on that they wanted a whole different topic from the one we had discussed...
...Nor getting ready This has been some amazing year...
...No wonder we lost the House and the Senate...
...Well, I have to calm down now...
...The truck stop attendants in Seminole, Texas, who went to the trouble to make me herbal tea...
...It made a lot of sense and it still does, except in times of war...
...public schools...
...Why not just serve reheated McDonald’s cheeseburgers...
...He’s about 55, maybe 60...
...I am not saying Happy Hanukah, because the way he did...
...No, wait...
...5 4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 continued on page 56 “When I Saw My Ideas Passed On At The Reagan Ranch, I Knew I Had To Change My Will...
...Whoops...
...Because you were in Ferris Bueller, you’ll love it...
...I like the idea of a draft for national service of some day...
...I won’t think about that now...
...It’s our duty to protect it and expand it and pass it undiminished to those still unborn...
...Why is Donald Rumsfeld still at liberty after the mess he made of everything...
...How I erica now except that in my life it’s great right now...
...Right to life...
...In a nation overflowing with wealth for the billionaires, we are too stupid to tax ourselves enough to buy an adequate defense, or, failing that act of moral courage, to just spend the money and add it to the deficit...
...That was Reagan’s motto in 1984...
...You will also receive a free copy of In The Words of Ronald Reagan by Ronald Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, if you mention this ad...
...I was not feeling like going out so I just made him some eggs and we sat out by the pool and talked...
...He had to borrow his mother’s car to get to work...
...The kids and their advisor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who turned out on a snowy, icy night when there was a big Steelers game on TV to hear me speak...
...How could we Republicans possibly have thought we would win the elections...
...Yes, I know military spending has gone up a lot...
...Is it true...
...I think I can tell you that I have tasted horsemeat, and this tastes frighteningly similar...
...Hillary is a responsible politician with broad experience...
...YBE NOT TOTALLY HAPPY, THOUGH...
...We didn’t need to go into Iraq in the first place...
...We need a much WEDNESDAY Nam looking out at the ocean as I type...
...Well, at another club near here, I’ll call it ‘El Rodeo,’ there was this great Hispanic kid named Daniel Lopez who was working as a parking valet...
...I am not in Baghdad or Kirkuk...
...They made lowering taxes a higher priority than building up the Armed Forces...
...They could pay a lot more...
...Luckily for me also, the audience was good natured and friendly and demonstrative...
...It was one of Karl Rove’s miracles that we did not lose by more than we did...
...The best food, by far, is on Air France...
...www.spectator.org F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 5 7 B E N S T E I N ’ S D I A R Y ate his bowels...
...Copyright 2007 Young America’s Foundation National Headquarters F. M. Kirby Freedom Center 110 Elden Street Herndon, Virginia 20170 800-USA-1776 The Reagan Ranch 217 State Street Santa Barbara, California 93101 888-USA-1776 www.yaf.org www.ya.egacy.org B E N S T E I N ’ S D I A R Y it to Daniella, and then he reaches into the glove box and there’s an envelope with $10,000 in cash that Logan likes to keep there in case he wants to show off It’s funny, but as I think back over not in Fallujah...
Vol. 40 • February 2007 • No. 1
