Former Nixon advisor, actor, TV game show host and comedian, Ben Stein appeared with FOXNews’ Neil Cavuto and makes what is probably the most misguided, fact-free and delusional defense of Larry Craig we’ve found since the scandal broke earlier this week. Stein says Craig was railroaded, and that all he did was tap his foot. He repeatedly accuses the Minneapolis Police Department of using Gestapo tactics and aiding terrorists because they should be scouring the airport looking for terrorists, fervently states that gay sex isn’t illegal because the SCOTUS says so and then claims the Executive Branch may have been involved in bringing Craig down to change the balance of power in D.C. WTF?
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Filed Under: Fox News, Hackery, Wingnuts, Your World/Neil Cavuto
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WTF?
Bueller…? Bueller…?
Gestapo?
Where was this asshole when they detained and tortured Jose Padila for three years?
So what qualifies someone to be an expert on Faux Noise? Ted Nugent, Ben Stein, Dennis Miller and the rest belong on an episode of The Love Boat. I mean, they must REALLY be desperate for some perspective here. I still feel sorry for Craig’s wife.
Ben Stein is a decent game show host. He does a very good impression of a boring teacher. But he really should stick to entertainment.
wtf, Steins an imbecile! His old game show should have been Find Ben Steins Brain, no one still would have won.
Like the rest of the far right extremist Republican self-loathing repressed homosexual @$$holes, Mr. Stein is desperately afraid he’ll be outed as well.
he’s right. all craig did was tap his foot. thats not illegal. neither is asking someone for sex.
craig was railroaded by the hypocritical republican party to resign..meanwhile, david vitter is booking a hotel room in washington.
one supporter
and counting
heh…
Is what he says slandering the Minneapolis Police Department ?
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WTF in spades. The only way this makes sense is if Ben Stein (did you notice the “comeonnn!) is a closet case himself and has been or is afraid of getting caught.
The thing Craig did wrong, miss stein, is to be a total f…ing hypocrite; punish and restrict others when he does the same things.
Sad.
How can a guy who had a game show based on how smart he is say such completely STUPID, INSANE things?
I don’t get it…
Ah…. you almost had me, but right there in your first line, you gave it away….. Ben Stein, COMEDIAN. Bueller? ….. Bueller? …..Bueller?
Have you ever taken anything this man has to say as worthwhile ?
The game show could have been “Ben Stein’s Self-Respect”. Except there would be nothing to win…
[deleted - save your blog whoring for open threads and stop misrepresenting the facts. If you’re trying to get hits on your blog by starting something here, you’ve come to the wrong place.]
Perhaps he’s not so wacko (on this issue). Any indication Craig was wavering on Iraq? That’s what these guys appearently care about in the end– a cash cow to create giant private equity funds for their friends.
If this was a Democrat would this guy say this? Hell, no!
He would not even care unless of course it made him laugh at the Democrat’s stupidity.
Craig was given options: plead guilty or set up a court date. To suggest that Senator Craig is “simple folk” and did not understand his options is absurd. If this were true (it isn’t) he should resign out of embarrasment of his ignorance of the most basic laws every American should know and understand. If you do not know this much about the law how can you be trusted to make laws? Isn’t this what members of Congress (House and Senate) are elected to do?
Is this moron suggesting Craig is as stupid as he is? Or is he suggesting that we are as stupid as he wishes we were?
The outrage he pretends is an insult to people detained without charges and tortured without access to a lawyer.
Ben Stein (who i never even heard of until today) should go crawl back under his rock and never be consulted on a “NEWS” program ever again under any circumstances.
Is Ben Stein a libertarian or more of a typical right-winger? Just curious…
Angelo@16
I tend to agree with you. The problem is that the worst homophobes are almost always self-loathing closet cases themselves. That explains why Conservatives believe that sexuality is a matter of choice, not the way you are born. Because for them, it is.
deniz @ 19:
You are assuming he is intelligent enough to make a distinction. Use caution here.
Rufus Xavier Sasparilla @ 11:
Since when? Maybe I should remind you that CrooksAndLiars has regularly linked to Counterpunch articles. You haven’t regarded them as “crap” before. It’s not like it’s the NRO. Was this an automated delete, or did someone actually take the trouble to read it? Are you taking the freeper route now? Please explain. Thank you.
Was Larry Craig soliciting gay sex? Given other reports of this in history, it seems likely. And given his hypocritical public persona, he got his just deserts in being exposed.
However, this supposed coded bathroom behavior (foot-tapping and hand gestures) seems to be an awfully thin reed to hang a prosecution on. “Gestapo tactics” may be an excessive term for this type of thing, but this does seem like police over-reaching. People who are otherwise civil libertarians shouldn’t jump to applaud this type of thing when it harms those we don’t like.
Given the fact that the Republican party encourages all sorts of excessive governmental intrusions, however, it’s nice to see Republicans hoisted on their own petards.
(Incidentally, when Stein talks about the executive, I think he’s talking about the Minnesota or Minneapolis executive branch, represented by the police department. Since Craig is a member of the federal legislature, this does seem a bit incoherent.)
…did someone have a “gestapo” talking point?
When they stop putting proven hacks like Kristol and Stein in front of microphones? I mean, how much credibility do these guys have left?
deniz @ 19:
Ben Stein did an op ed on CBS or NBC right after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke supporting the use of torture. He’s a far right extremist. While I’ve heard people who claim to be Libertarian espousing such self-contradictory nonsense, he can hardly be classified as a true libertarian.
I think Angelo @16 and xoites @ 18 both make good points. Craig is the victim of homophobia he helped create and sustain, so there is some justice in his downfall. And of course you just know Stein wouldn’t be defending Craig on Fox if Craig were a Dem. And … just how freaking ridiculous is it for Stein to say Craig is, like Idahoans generally, simple folk and not wise to how the mean justice system works? Craig has a BA in poli sci and did some graduate studies, according to his official biography. And he’s been a senator for years.That “simple folk” assertion is the easily the most risible part of Stein’s remarks.
Craig pleaded guilty of a misdemeanor. He should not have been forced to resign. The voters should have been allowed to choose.
Stein’s defense of Craig WAS pretty weird, and so was Pat Buchanan’s, which I read in my local paper either yesterday or the day before. However, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the executive branch may have been involved in bringing Craig down to change the balance of power in D.C. It’s known that Bush was angry with Craig for joining with the Democrat filibuster against the permanent renewal of the Patriot Act. Bush referred to Craig recently at a meeting as “a goddamned traitor” and put the word out to the National Republican Senatorial Committee to recruit someone to run against Craig in 2008 (from Firedoglake).
How exactly did Craig’s little legal problems end up in the public limelight after so many weeks, and how is it that it happened now, right before Labor Day weekend (slow news) and the return of legislators to Capitol Hill?
red eyes? dry eyes?
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I’m all for conservatives being rounded up and shut down in any way, but listen to the whiny policeman. There is, as far as I have heard, no good evidence of any wrong doing. Craig is probably a gay and a pedophile, but this incident is phony.
Oh good god, stop it, Ben! Jeez, what a little whiner.
If Ben Stein doesn’t like these police actions, then why the hell is he a member of the political party which enjoys enforcing them?
I guess IOKIYAR and INOKIYNAR.
By the way, Ben Stein is the putz who is starring in a new piece (”Expelled”) against Evolutionary science stating it is biased in research and its teaching in public schools, and that evolutionary scientists are persecuting the poor creationists. Needless to say, he has to twist reality to make it fit his persecution hypothesis.
http://stevereuland.blogspot.c.....ident.html
His producers also lied about the name of the movie and its premise in getting people to interview for it.
Sounds like Ben has tapped his toes in a Twin Cities toilet.
http://www.crooksandliars.com
Oddly, I don’t find that Stein is all that far off the mark. He was wrong about Trent Lott not deserving his fate, and probably wrong about the Executive Branch conspiracy theory (you can never tell with this White House), but otherwise, he made perfect sense: what Craig did SHOULDN’T have been a crime, the police WERE overreaching, the police DID have better things to do at the airport than set up stings in the men’s room, and Craig WAS railroaded by his fellow Republicans. Even his Gestapo remarks had the ring of truth, if you remember that Hitler rounded up the gays as well as the Jews. Strip away the conservative veneer, and he was actually making a fairly liberal defense of Senator Craig.
23 Alawyer
I would be the last person to support the arrest of gay men trying to hook up in a public bathroom or bar or anywhere else. There may be an argument for entrapment, but if there was an argument why was it never made? What kind of Senator pleads guilty to something he is innocent of? That by definition is perjury. I have been arrested several times for civil disobiedience and every time i have plead guilty.
The judges involved always put me through the ringer.
“Do you understand you have the right to an atorney?”
“Do you understand the possible penalty for a guilty verdict?”
“Do you understand that if you enter a guilty plea you have no right to an appeal?”
Then the judge has the evidence against you aired, under oath, by the arresting officer.
You then MUST agree that what was said is the truth.
Then once again you are asked if you still want to plead guilty.
This takes several minutes, if you plead guilty and you ARE NOT guilty then you must be in a COMA!
He’s just on to pimp his book….
Dude, this guy was peeking in the stall looking at that cop for quite a while too…
Damn….
I do agree that the police in the United States have alot better things to do than to police washrooms for homosexual activity. And the way the story was re-enacted it did look like to me to be entrapment.
But what do I know, I’m just a Canadian living in a country where no one really cares if youre a gay politician.
firehead @ 30:
Yes, we don’t like criminals. If he had gone and rented a motel room he could do whatever he wants to whomever he wants, but he chose to do it in public.You repugs claim to support the police…until they catch one your elected perverts and then you throw them under the bus for doing their jobs.
What’s delusional about Ben Stein’s comments? Everybody’s focusing on the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and the glee that some people have about a right-wing senator being taken down a notch. Yet if this had been a left-wing, Democratic senator, people on this site would have started screaming about gay rights and fascist police tactics. The fact is, Ben Stein is correct, the Senator did nothing illegal and his political beliefs and actions are (or should be) irrelevant to the discussion. What *is* relevant is that there is a general trend towards abusive police tactics in the U.S. There have been many posts on this site about police using questionable or illegal tactics on war protesters, whistleblowers, and the like, so, why is it all of a sudden not an issue when this pattern of abuse traps a GOP senator? At the end of the day, he’s an American citizen, just like me and many of posters and commentators on this site and his rights were violated, which is something that should concern *all* of us, Republican, Democrat and independent alike.
He should stick to game shows and commercials, where he’s actually semi-amusing. Anyone here about the new anti-evolution movie Stein is going to play the main character in? Should be a rollicking dumb time.
firehead @ 30:
Wrong. As usual.
We should all keep an eye on stein….after all the one that protests too much is usually the one who is involved what he protests about. Wouldn’t it be nice to see this butthole caught in a tap three times if you want me in the bathroom.
This is Frankens good buddy … back off buddy.
Is this Idiot for real?
Stein’s defense of Craig is very suspicious. Very compassionate. Very much in denial. Could Stein be suffering the same problem as Craig? Supressed homosexual proclivities?
OK, It’s official, Ben Stein is GAY! spread the word!
What is it with the wingnuts above who can’t understand that the thing that is despicable about the event is not the homosexual trolling. It is the double standards Repubs have, and the hypocrisy and lies they use to condemn in others what they themselves have no compunction in practicing.
I mean it should be simple. I did not realize you had to be a rocket scientist to understand this.
Chris from Canada @ 39:
How would you like to send your kid into a public restroom and there are people in there screwing each others brains out. The problen isn’t that he’s gay it’s that he broke the law. Yes the police do have better things to do, and they could do them if they didn’t have to hang out in public toilets arresting repugnacan politicians.
I wonder how many bathrooms Ben Stein has cruised in.
Otay @ 49:
I forgot to add the most important thing: they have no compunction in making Draconian laws which they themselves have no plan to obey.