The American Spectator : Where Credit Is Due

Text Size

Where Credit Is Due

8.12.09 @ 6:01AM

More reactions to Ben Stein's Expelled II. Plus FreeScore, John Hughes, Linda Douglass and more.

EXTRA CREDIT
Re: Ben Stein's Expelled From the New York Times:

A class act does not belong with the politburo. I will no longer pick up the times when I stop by the 7/11 for a cup of Joe!
-- DG

Thank you for having an intelligent and humorous writer such as Mr. Stein as part of your team. If you would, please pass on to Mr. Stein that I will be thanking God for him and his work. (since I have the audacity to call the Intelligent Designer by his actual name!!) Keep up the great work.
-- Teresa Rainone, MD

I found a portion of Mr. Stein's article to be rather false:

"They confused (or some of them seemingly confused) FreeScore with other companies that did not have FreeScore's unblemished record with consumer protection agencies. (FreeScore has a perfect record.)"

I checked freescore.com at the BBB and their parent company, Vertrue, came up. This company has an F with the BBB. While this rating isn't specifically for freescore.com, I can't imagine that the parent company would suddenly start conducting this one website in an upstanding manner, given their past and present track record. This info took less than 5 minutes to dig up, and frankly I'm disappointed that Mr. Stein couldn't make that effort. These sites are notorious for their shady practices, and I highly doubt freescore.com will be the one to turn that reputation around.
-- Renee

Mr. Stein says "I had done a commercial for an Internet aggregating company called FreeScore. This commercial offered people a week of free access to their credit scores and then required them to pay for further such access."

Yes, he did that. But that's not all he did in the commercial. It is my understanding that the freescore.com folks only give you the credit SCORE free -- you have to pay for the credit REPORT (which you can actually get free elsewhere, because federal law requires that). Unless my understanding is seriously flawed, Mr. Stein's commercial plays the typical marketing word games, alternating between SCORE and REPORT frequently, but carefully attaching the "free" adjective only to the SCORE, giving viewers the impression that they can get the REPORT free from freescore.

From the commercial: "You can't fix errors in your credit report if you haven't seen it...freescore...gives me access to the three major credit reports and scores."

Few people would come away from that commercial thinking they had to pay freescore to get a credit REPORT.

Should the Times have axed Stein over this? I don't know. Depends on what their ethics policy says, and I'm not privy to that. Should Mr. Stein have been more honest in his description of the freescore commercial? Methinks yes, he sure as shooting should.
-- Lee Russ

Well, Ben. Maybe if you hadn't slandered hard-working psychiatrists so maliciously, like this former veep of TCU's YAF chapter, your Karma might have remained intact.
-- Scott A Joseph, MD

Of course the New York Times is an arm of the Democratic Party and specifically Barack Obama. The damage the Times has done to America is inestimable. We have a president who is set on dismantling the very system of free-enterprise and capitalism that allowed and financed him into the presidency. He doesn't see -- Democrats don't see -- the irony in this. The capitalist/free-enterprise system has brought wealth to America and Americans and raised millions of non-Americans out of the depth of abject poverty with its use of its wealth. As has been said it is not a perfect system, there is none, it is only the best invented so far. And the success of the system has allowed citizens to live off the government and come to hate it. (Giving creates resentment and jealousy). And now, in great part because of the New York Times and other left-leaning media those who lived off the government are now in power AS the government. They cannot admit to the voters that there is much merit to the free-enterprise system for that would undermine the very arguments that elected them. I am sorry Ben Stein doesn't have a job there, but I never read the Times anyway. I am sorrier for America, Americans and the world, whose beacon of freedom -- The United States of America -- is being diminished. Perhaps permanently
-- Theodore M. Wight
Seattle, Washington

Freedom of expression in the U.S. has reached a tragic state, when columnists are terminated for expressing a view of the administration that is at variance with the newspaper's position. The Times has lived for many years under the blessings of Freedom of Speech. It is a shame to see that expansive view of freedom corrupted by the Times into a lowly vendetta for political reasons. It may be just another death throe paroxysm.
-- Ernest M. Raasch

Wear the dismissal from the NYT as a badge of honor and for friggin' sakes, stop buying the paper. You are loved and respected as a major public intellect by millions.
-- Fredic D. Ohr

Page: 1 2 >

Letter to the Editor View all comments (10) | Leave a comment

frost| 8.12.09 @ 7:20AM

Apropos of nothing, except for some recent radio listening, may I insert the topic of Michael Savage? Once was a liberal; now a certifiable nutcase. Seems some people will do anything for a buck, even make a run for president, kinda like Mike Gravel, erstwhile Senator and would be Quick-Buck-Artist. Dr. Michael Alan Weiner was/is Michael Savage’s real name. Like many others, myself included, he came up the hard-way: was a busboy -- a lifeguard. Has big and legitimately impressive background in botany; did a very good job with his books on herbal medicine and homeopathy. While brilliant, he’s scary. Totally.

With terminal Delusions of Grandeur, combined with extreme paranoia (changing where he sleeps at night so the bad-guys don’t find/kill him, a’la Saddam Hussain or Osama binLaden?), he gets incensed because he’s ignored by Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly (and, presumably, others in the media) while calling them names like Gordo/golfer, Leprechaun, etc… How petty can he be, constantly accusing those other guys of stealing his ideas and some other presumed travesties…? He has, incidentally, mentioned the fact that he’s considered suicide on at least two occasions...

BUT, Savage/Weiner was apparently just scheming to get attention by threatening to run for president in early ’08. He dropped that after a while = short attention-span... Now he’s trying to capitalize on the UK’s 86ing him from any entry, along with terrorists/killers; he’s insulted. Of course more attention for him means more money – as he pleads for “free-speech” funds in his court-fights with Islamic creeps, Great Britain, et al. This while he’s probably worth a few mill.

Here’s some irony though – he advocates “free speech,” or, so he says. BUT, no, Michael Savage is also very sympathetic with the old Hayes Office, when movie censorship stifled the free expression of anything not deemed “proper” by one fascist-thinking guy. He wanted the writers/producers of a fun/silly horror flick (Hostel II) tossed in jail – as he insists on HIS OWN freedom-of-speech; a prime example of gross hypocrisy.

One accused him of: “he says nothing he means and means nothing he says.” Don’t know about that; I detect sincerity, yet unbalanced goofiness – and tons of the aforementioned pettiness/paranoia. That someone so obviously brilliant should be as nutty isn’t, I guess, so unusual – but it is disturbing.

Anyway, given the major (and justifiable) focus on the media, Savage was someone who I felt compelled to mention. He loves the attention, his ego is humungous, so he may not mind.

Your witness…?

jim| 8.12.09 @ 9:00AM

Yes, I have had many of the same thoughts about Michael Savage as mr. frost, but, learning to listen between the rants of a brilliant mind is an art, and I would caution mr. frost to take the time and listen for the real message!

frost| 8.12.09 @ 10:23AM

The real message is there, quite obviously, and I have no problem with Language, Culture and Borders. It's those other thoughts that seem a tad extreme.
Face it, he may be a brilliant egomaniac, BUT he's also a very disturbed, extremely petty, thin-skinned paraniod who seems as if he won't make it thru the week (before launching himself off the Golden Gate or popping a bullet into his head); his name-calling of other broadcasters, utter boorishness, teeth-gnashing and Terminal Angst sometimes becomes quite tiring...
It's all about HIM, and the rest is peripheral. Or so it seems. I fear he's nuts.

David Govett| 8.12.09 @ 11:49AM

If Savage appears half-made, it is because (1) he is an entertainer and that is his shtick and (2) he contrasts so highly with the dogmatic dementobots of San Francisco.

frost| 8.12.09 @ 12:55PM

Half-MAD ??? How'bout 78.2%? 86.4%?
As a former broadcaster, may I say that if that's his shtick, it sure ain't working (you don't call attention to your competition unless you've got a serious problem; makes no sense)...
Doesn't seem to work either. No longer a legitimate #3 (although he continues claiming same), having been overtaken by GlennBeck, nah, not working any too well.
Sez he detests SanFrancity-By-The-Golden, but remains...?
That's sufficient.

anon.| 8.12.09 @ 1:11PM

Talk about No Class - - calling Glen Beck "Clarabell-the-Clown," and someone else (I know not of whom he speaks) "The Hemorrhoid" does not bespeak of much couth, 'til true. The guy's an unsufferable jerk. Brilliant? True, but quite goofy. And that really ain't show-biz.

anon.| 8.12.09 @ 1:54PM

'tis true..... ooops

Geoff| 8.12.09 @ 2:18PM

On the subject of broadcasting, television this time, I'm usually with Fox, except to escape from the cutsie, schmarmy, smart-ass Shepard Smith for Lou Dobbs.
Never thought I'd admit ever watching CNN again, and I do wonder why CNN has Dobbs still on their propaganda machine -- he's quite contrary to all their other programming....

jordan 6 rings| 8.12.09 @ 8:31PM

He learning to listen between the rants of a brilliant mind is an art, and I would caution mr. frost to take the time and listen for the real message!

anon.| 8.12.09 @ 8:45PM

Good evening Jordan. The guy named "frost" apparently got the message, but I'd wager you didn't see his earlier post of 10:23 or so. Yes, brilliant, but very strange, a polite way of saying nuts.