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Ben Stein's Diary
Major League Sinners
The view from the street and the TV studio.
Friday
Today, lords,
has been a busy day.
I am in New York at the Essex House. I got up at 6 a.m., New York time, which is 3 a.m., my time. I pulled my fat old self together, had a bagel and orange juice, then headed over to CBS for the Early Show. It was fun. The hosts there are invariably charming.
Then a round of TV shows and interviews that lasted the whole day. The shows just went on and on. My favorite was at Fox with my pal, Neil Cavuto. We talked about Herman Cain and how he had been pushed around by the media. I told Neil that I was endlessly amazed that the media thought it had the moral standing to judge others.
There is a powerful story in the New Testament that goes something like this:
While Jesus was nearby, the Pharisees called him into the temple to see a woman who had been taken in adultery. The head Pharisee said to Jesus, “The Mosaic law says she is to be stoned. What do you think?”
Jesus was writing something on the ground and he looked up and asked the woman, “Is this true? Were you taken in adultery?”
The woman said, “Yes, Lord, I was.”
Jesus said, to this effect, “Yes, then she should be stoned. Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.”
The Pharisees, stung, muttered, then slunk off in shame until none was left and Jesus kept writing on the ground. Then he looked up and saw that all of the accusers had left and said to the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.”
So, who in the media is without sin among us? I am in the media and I am a major league sinner. I don’t know anyone except my wife who isn’t a big time sinner. We in the media are just people with all of people’s faults. We’re today’s Pharisees, judging everybody else. And they take it!
That’s how I feel about Mr. Cain. Yes, maybe he is a sinner. WHO THE HECK ISN’T? I wonder if some day some sharp cookie will do some investigation of media powers to see how without sin they are. Nahh. Never happen.
Anyway, it was a full day. I went back to my room and took a long, long nap with my big beautiful wifey. She did not want to go out in the cold, so about 9 p.m. I put on my woolen coat (my good Republican cloth coat, as RN called Mrs. Nixon’s coat) and headed out the door.
I stopped at a little grocery store to buy some mints and fell into a short but charming conversation with a short but charming Albanian chanteuse named Ani Shine. I bought her a pack of gum. She gave me a rainbow.
Then I headed east and down Fifth Avenue. I stopped at the St. Regis to buy a Diet Coke in the King Cole Bar. A tall, cheery woman talked to me cheerily about her world of advertising. I think she knew I was famous but she wasn’t letting on. I drank my Diet Coke and headed south. I’ve told you a million times about how I used to meet up with my Pop at the King Cole Bar when he was at the Committee for Economic Development and I was at Columbia. The place makes me emotional. It has been totally rearranged but it still makes me emotional. That portrait of Old King Cole used to hang in a big room. Now it’s in the small bar, but I still love it. Maxfield Parrish painted it in the days of wine and roses. How I miss my Pop.
There was a fantastic crowd around Rockefeller Center looking at the Christmas tree. Hardly anyone spoke English. But they were a good-looking bunch by and large. Lots of cute Russians. The East Europeans, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Lithuanians, all really great looking.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
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Bob K.| 12.8.11 @ 8:48AM
I don't feel like reading this.
NYC since Bloomberg took over has become boreing!
Agnus Dei| 12.8.11 @ 11:42AM
Every pedestrian word the bloated Ben Stein has ever written is a lie, including every and & the.
Jack in Wi| 12.8.11 @ 5:04PM
Old Ben has really gotten vapid hasn't he? Well Been here are a few more sayings of Jesus. " Blessed are the peacemakers. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. " Ben when you support sending that poor man off to Afganistan, you are very wrong. We have no business there. He should be home with his family defending these borders and shores, not those of Afganistaan and Pakistan.
Jacob R| 12.9.11 @ 7:42AM
Yea just like we stopped the threat of Nazism in Wisconsin!
Stefan Stackhouse| 12.8.11 @ 9:18AM
I think that Ben kind of answered his own question. Here he is, a gracefully aging (to be generous) man well past his prime, yet quite the babe magnet. Why? Because he is at least somewhat rich (rich enough to be giving away thousands of dollars of his own money on his own TV show), famous, and powerful enough at least to have access to a lot of people who are at lot more rich, famous and powerful than him.
So the question: Is it a good idea to place a person that has proven themselves to be less resistant to temptation than Ben apparently is into a position where they are going to get even more temptation? I think not.
Jacob R| 12.9.11 @ 7:43AM
You seem like an idiot.
Vern Crisler| 12.8.11 @ 9:32AM
Beautiful essay from Ben today. I think it's important to note that only Republicans are held to the highest of moral standards. When Democrats are caught, they are given their own shows on CNN.
Dave | 12.8.11 @ 9:56AM
Hey, Vern! Regarding your Republican/Democrat comparison, all I can say is ...
BINGO! Nailed it.
Fred C. Dobbs| 12.8.11 @ 2:24PM
Know whut ah mean, Vern?!
Stammon| 12.8.11 @ 11:15AM
I still have a NIXON/AGNEW bumper sticker. Got it as a kid, still think he was a good president. At least better than that fool we have now. And better than that rich fool who stole the election in 1960.
Stefan Stackhouse| 12.8.11 @ 12:24PM
Nixon's fatal flaw was that he overestimated those underneath him (they screwed up rather than doing what they REALLY needed to do, which was to not do anything that would jeapordize his presidency) and underestimated those against him (who were far more persistent and devious than he imagined).
Bill| 12.8.11 @ 2:17PM
Sadly, Nixon was a scumbag. However, he had enough of a sense of shame to resign rather than stay in office and risk being impeached. For that, he deserves some credit.
Daniel C Martin| 12.8.11 @ 12:25PM
Re: "Meanwhile, what was Jesus writing in the dust?"
He was drawing up the first Hail Mary play--for the adulteress.
It worked!
Vern Crisler| 12.8.11 @ 12:46PM
He was writing an epitaph for police who would entrap sinners -- doing the work of Satan for him; or for prosecutors who would use the law of God for personal gain or partisan purposes.
Bill| 12.8.11 @ 2:12PM
He was writing "Mene Mene Tekel and Upharsin."
Bill| 12.8.11 @ 2:06PM
"I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow"? Ah, Ben, you were struck from the dim, distant past. Did you meet young man who walked a black dog?
Bill| 12.8.11 @ 2:10PM
Not a young man, but a white man. My mistake.
Peppermint Tea| 12.8.11 @ 2:13PM
I like the version my Catholic friend told me years ago:
While they were standing around, suddenly a stone flies out of the crowd and hits the adulteress right on the noggin and floors her. Jesus looks at the person who threw it and says, "Why did you have to do that? Mom."
Peppermint Tea| 12.8.11 @ 2:15PM
Another thought on Ben's discriminating behavior: he would hug a Nixonite, but not a poor working girl.
Fred C. Dobbs| 12.8.11 @ 2:28PM
I'll "hug" her for Ben.
Jacob R| 12.9.11 @ 7:47AM
More than likely you'll stay home on unemployment and comment about hugging her on Ben's article!
We're all so much better than Ben because we snipe him on his article comment section!!!! How dare that f-ing 1%er have more money than me?!?!
Actually my great grandpa knew Ben Stein and liked him very much despite being an atheist at the time.
Fred C. Dobbs| 12.8.11 @ 2:27PM
Re: Nixxon: A REAL conservative, Barry Goldwater, called him the biggest liar I've ever seen. AND, I think, a creep, to boot.
I like Ben, tho, especially his dog tales.
gary siebel| 12.8.11 @ 3:30PM
Better.
You actually got out and talked to strangers, sort of. But try a dive bar instead of an upscale one next time. Wear a mustache and beard if you have to -- I realize that celebrity brings it's own set of problems.
Seek| 12.8.11 @ 4:07PM
There are those who regard Nixon as a genuine foreign policy genius, a man possessed of a Churchillian wisdom about the rise and fall of nations. Nixon, it is often argued, was a man so extraordinary in his statecraft and insight that his transgressions could be overlooked. A true Republican.
Bill| 12.8.11 @ 4:21PM
Others credit Henry Kissinger with steering Nixon on the Kissinger Path of international relations.
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 4:50PM
I found the interview:
http://www.booktv.org/Program/.....ecord.aspx
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 5:17PM
That was supposed to appear below my post.
The interview is with Monica Crowley on Book t.v. in 1996 about her book on Nixon.
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 4:42PM
For a good read on the real Nixon, not the one his haters have, read Monica Crowley's book: Nixon: Off the Record.
Then check out her interview on C-span where she discusses both him and the book.
It totally changed how I looked at the man.
Oh, and Ben: I know what you mean about those Russians. I married one. Blonde, Hazel eyes, and built like a Greek god. But his face, ah, his face!
We have also adopted a hound dog, a Fox Hound. Someone let him go and we took him in and have fallen in love with him. Not only does he snore, but he makes the most hilarious sounds when he whines.. how do you break them of this?
Dixon| 12.8.11 @ 7:39PM
Margie, dear, I thought you had a thing going with Ken (Old Texican). Did you two have a falling out?
Margie| 12.8.11 @ 8:14PM
Dixon Troll:
Ken has an issue with God.
To you & Him both: PREPARE TO MEET HIM.
"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death." Rev. 21:18.
Wayne| 12.8.11 @ 5:41PM
The media and the left (one and the same) don't care about the sin, they care about it being a conservative. When they see it a hypocrisy, they feast.
POST American| 12.8.11 @ 11:31PM
---AS Congress, just days ago, authorizes
the 'disappearance' of even American citizens
(READ the fine print kiddies!) ----STILL NO
discussion of the Law of Moses ABOMINATION
that is USURY
-----------------or the actuarial psychopathy
of USURY on crack, ie fractional reserve lending.
"---And David 'counted' the tribes." --INDEED.
---------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012----------------
Rich Rostrom| 12.9.11 @ 1:01AM
1) I don't think Cain is a sinner, particularly.
2) However, it's the media's job to tell us about people who want us to give them authority and power - the good and the bad. The hypocrisy is in what they choose to tell about whom, and what they withhold. They covered for JFK, they covered for the Clintons, they covered for Barney Frank, they covered for Edwards, they covered for Obama. They are merciless toward Republicans and conservatives. But they say they aren't partisan!