The American Spectator : A Know Nothing

Jack in Wi.| 4.6.12 @ 7:14AM

Ben: Happy Passover.

Tomas| 4.6.12 @ 2:46PM

Here is an excellent piece that explains - in great detail - the legal problems with Obamacare. A must-read. Bookmark it, and share it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/pe.....obamacare/

Milpundit | 4.6.12 @ 11:51PM

Nothing to like about a seriously untalented marxist drone.

Nancy Creek | 4.9.12 @ 11:32PM

Sorry, but that is like saying Hitler is a "likeable guy". Obama studied under the best. I am very scared for our great country.

peter fleming | 4.6.12 @ 4:03PM

Yeah, Ben, narcissists are always likeable. Lousy way to cop out, end your writings. Your writing's gotten weaker and weaker.

kj| 4.6.12 @ 4:42PM

I agree Peter. Ben either is getting weaker in his thought process or he hasn't been paying attention to oBummer at all if he can claim to like the guy and is only now getting "scared" of the loser President we have to suffer with for another 9+ months.

SpiralArchitect| 4.6.12 @ 4:56PM

Ben fawns over President Decline as does much of the American citizenry. Such a scary things to behold.

R Daneel| 4.6.12 @ 11:40PM

Too many have said and I agree that Obama is a pathological narcissist. Plainly translated that means he is at the least a sociopath. I believe he displays deeper issues. I think he very well could be a psychopath on the order of some of those other famous world leaders. Yeah, those guys. What others like Benn may call chutzpa may really be something much more dangerous. His disregard for so many segments of the American public betrays this.

WinnieR| 4.7.12 @ 10:07AM

Why did people not see this when has was campaigning? The signs were there. After stumbling on this, my confirmations became clearer:

http://homelandsecurityus.com/archives/4979

Brubaker| 4.7.12 @ 12:35PM

Ben is fawning over Obama? Perhaps you ought to actually read what he wrote.

Chris| 4.7.12 @ 3:39PM

I love Ben Stein but..., I agree with his concerns pertaining to the legal expertese or lack of in our 'constitutional law professor' president, but he loses me in the last paragraph. Not concerned about Obamacare? Obamacare represents the socialistic future leftists dream about. If you can control access to healthcare, you can control everything else in the name of healthcare. Perhaps socialism will work in America, but it will cease to be America.

And he dropped off the planet with the 'likeable and upbeat' comment. The likeable and upbeat president is now actively aiding and abetting the muslim brotherhood, and his 1.5 billion gift is just the latest assualt. Obama has time for trayvon martin and sandra fluck but is silent when it comes to the epidemic of muslim atrocities. Not a word about the slaughter of Christians in the Sudan, but we know his upbeat NBA bracket picks. Not a word about the rise of the muslim brotherhood in Egypt, and the Islamification of Turkey, or anything but limp empty threats against Iran as they persue their dream of a world without Jews. I believe that Obama shares that dream; he has surrounded himself with anti-Semites his entire life. Ben- read about a guy called Neville Chamberlain.

Mimi Mayes | 4.6.12 @ 5:35PM

I even find it incomprehensible when so many say that Obama is "likable". O.K., he has a nice smile; but the BASHING of every segment of this society is most decidedly off-putting to say the least; it happens on a daily basis and for the life of me I don't understand how that makes him "likable". I agree that if Ben is just now starting to feel uncomfortable about Obama, my question would be, "Where have you been for three years?"

rhoetus| 4.6.12 @ 6:22PM

Will Rodgers never met Barack Obama.

Becky| 4.6.12 @ 6:34PM

Well stated, lol...

hank rearden-wi| 4.7.12 @ 7:46PM

And it would fit very well on a bumper sticker, too.

cuban pete| 4.8.12 @ 12:52PM

It would be a great bumper sticker but only about 10% of the people would get it and zero per cent of BHO supporters.

SpiderMike| 4.6.12 @ 7:21PM

Dittos Mimi, I too have been mystified on this "likability" issue. It doesn't work that way in our personal lives. If I don't like someone's values or actions, I don't like them. Why is it different with politicians? Is it just me but I don't remember "likability" polling on Bush.

beebop2| 4.6.12 @ 7:27PM

I think people say he is "likable" so as not to be called a racist. I am beyond caring what other people think. I absolutely have never had more contempt for a public figure ...

Don| 4.6.12 @ 8:17PM

I knew this country was in trouble with Obama when I saw that logo of his campaign and that stylized portrait. I thought that portrait was chilling; it reminded of something one would see in the old USSR or anyother dictatorship in the 20th century. And sure enough, Obama inner dictator has come out. Their is nothing likable about this phony.

MNE | 4.6.12 @ 9:30PM

beebop2
I was about to make that same comment and then saw your statement. It is obvious isn't it, if you don't like Barack Obama it must be because you are racist. I've seen him describe as 'likable' by many of his political foes.

WinnieR| 4.7.12 @ 10:24AM

More importantly, where has Congress been. They are too busy fighting for party dominance.

AVCurmudgeon| 4.8.12 @ 2:20PM

Congress is actually the weakest branch of government. They can pass laws but not enforce them (eg: DOMA), and have no ordinary power to compel the executive to do anything (witness the way DOJ ignores subpenas on F&F). Congress does have the power to impeach, but it is rarely invoked and even more rarely successful.

NoLawyers| 4.6.12 @ 6:18PM

I think that he ending was for the sole purpose of not seeming blind in his fear of the guy who is trashing the nation.

amy| 4.7.12 @ 12:20AM

I, too, am surprised that Ben is so nice about Obama. Maybe is he just being polite, like when one says "With all due respect" before being critical. Mr. Stein lives in the heart of liberaltown and he does have to put up with his wacko neighbors. Those "tolerant" liberals are likely to key his car or worse if he makes them mad.

Joellen| 4.7.12 @ 8:58AM

Good Golly I agree Peter. The weakest most irrelevant ending to an article I have read in a long time. After listing all we need to know (which most of us already have); how could you like a man who is my view, so evil in his attempt to destroy this Republic. I am tired of all who try to put a smiley face on Obama. Why do they do this? They dont wish to be perceived as Racist - silly and destructive. Obama is what he is and it has nothing to do with the fact that he is a White/Black man. Stick to the facts Ben, Oreilly and all the others who try so hard to be fair & balance.

WinnieR| 4.7.12 @ 10:29AM

The powers striving for a single world government are using Obama to destroy our sovereignty and so far they have done a great job with the blind faith of both parties. Obama may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Raynell| 4.7.12 @ 10:13AM

I agree with you Peter! That was a disappointing comment in an otherwise good article!

theresa | 4.7.12 @ 9:16PM

amen to that

kate| 4.9.12 @ 12:15AM

Ben
Please give details as to what exactly you like about him.

Alan Brooks| 4.7.12 @ 12:58AM

Ben: stick to economics.

drudge ette obama| 4.6.12 @ 7:21AM

What is more telling is that Obama never wrote for the law review -or he wrote and it wasn't good enough to publish.

He's never practiced and it sounds like he taught "social justice" con law, not nuts and bolts. Frankly, he probably wouldn't have been able to provide a nutshell definition of "judicial review" and has learned something from his lambasting the Supreme Court this past week.

scooterr| 4.6.12 @ 10:55AM

it's an ethical violation -- attorney misconduct -- for a member of the bar appearing before a court publically to criticize the court for its handling of a case

LarryZ| 4.6.12 @ 7:20PM

scooterr,, I don't know if you know this or not, but Obuster is NOT a lawyer, and neither is his wife. He and she both gave up their licenses back in the 90's. Do not know why exactly, but the news has been out for some time. Your comment is correct, but the inference is wrong.

mcr| 4.6.12 @ 8:05PM

It is true the neither Obama nor Michelle have their law licenses any longer, but I do not think they "gave them up", I do believe, rather, that they lost their right to practice. I know for sure that is true in Michelle's case. Google it.

Kirk| 4.6.12 @ 9:20PM

http://www.snopes.com/politics.....censes.asp

You know "for sure"?

Den| 4.7.12 @ 9:30AM

Snopes is run by leftist, Soros cronies! You should really use other, multiple, reliable sources of information!

JG| 4.8.12 @ 8:41AM

ANYONE, that trusts snopes has not checked out the politics of their owners and founders.

Dan Johnson| 4.6.12 @ 10:14PM

I find this entire discussion interesting. Does anyone know who Ken Jeong is? OK...test over! He was in the movie Hangover and is now a successful actor. Guess what in his previous life he was an licensed doctor. Guess what...he still keeps his license active in California. No one who has worked hard for a professional degree is going to just give it up!

Ventura Capitalist| 4.6.12 @ 9:29PM

Is there any evidence that he actually passed the bar?

Wayne SW| 4.6.12 @ 12:47PM

Obama was never a "Professor of Constitutional Law" at UC. Obama applied for a position as an adjunct there but was never considered. Then someone on the UC board called the law school and told them to give him an office and find him a position. It was obviously politically motivated. He never taught a course in constitutional law. Those courses are typically reserved for the most senior, distinguished faculty, which Obama was not. Obama taught an elective course on race and the law, which while likely encompassing constitutional topics, did not have constitutional law as its sole focus. He never published a single article in any law journal while he was at UC. The other faculty by and large hated him and considered him the least qualified and least intellectual of anyone on the faculty. He was thought to be lazy and unqualified for even the modest position he held, which was more akin to lecturer or visiting instructor than Professor.

None of this came out during the campaign. The media did absolutely no "vetting" of Obama. They in fact covered up a lot of this, by calling anyone who brought it up a "kook" or racist. That same media had the nerve to send 30 or 40 lawyers up to Alaska and dig for dirt on Sarah Palin, yet could not spare a single investigator to look into Obama's deceptive background, built on nothing but lies, dirty tricks, and affirmative action.

JCollova| 4.6.12 @ 1:58PM

Would truly love to know your resources for this information so that I may pass it along knowing it's valid. Great material...let's use it!

NoLawyers| 4.6.12 @ 6:22PM

Please, please get a valid source. The nation needs it.

DLM| 4.6.12 @ 8:25PM

Agree, would love to hear more about this.

Defend| 4.6.12 @ 10:56PM

Radical-in-Chief by Stanley Kurtz and online sources.

WinnieR| 4.7.12 @ 10:47AM

Here is a start:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

ADuhe| 4.6.12 @ 3:37PM

Many are aware of these facts...Obama was a Junior Lecturer and after elected to the Illionis Senate seat as an honorarium was made Senior Lecturer. Valerie Jarrett was behind Obama's rise as well as Michelle Obama's non working pad position.

Check out Barak Obama's and Michelle Obama's loss and giving up of their "hard earned" law license.

Thomas Ayers, Bill Ayers father got Michelle her job at Sidley where her boss and mentor was Bernadine Dohrne, convicted felon ...disbarred. Understand Bernadine Dohrne, Bill Ayers terrorist Weatherman 's wife, was Michelle's usher..
.Look into Bill Ayers "ushering" Barak Obama through Columbia and one must assume through Harvard Law. Look up Ayers Postman..and his meeting his mentors mailman...

Obama was the recipient of Thomas Ayers largesse

Obama has been "ushered" into the White House through the Chicago Hive...

Start investigating Obama and his radical communist connections...It is out there to be found...and time is getting short...
You have no idea who the President of the USA really is.

Wayne SW| 4.6.12 @ 3:51PM

Keep in mind too how he "won" his previous campaigns. It was by destroying his opponents in personal scandals. The most egregious was his US Senate campaign, the stepping stone to the White House. That was the election where one of his gorillas (was it Axelrod?) got sealed court documents related to the Ryan divorce case opened to the public, which shamed Jack Ryan into quitting the contest. There was the earlier election where is basically got all of his opponents disqualified from the ballot, leaving only him as the candidate. Sounds an awful lot like the old Soviet Union, where all elections were "unanimous" because there was only one name on the ballot.

tynebee| 4.7.12 @ 7:03AM

Isn't this also the tactic that was very, very recently used in Chicago to attain the mayoral election for Tutu Dancer Rahm Emmanuel?

Wayne SW| 4.8.12 @ 4:17AM

I think so. It's the Chicago Way, for 'Rats, anyway.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 4:48PM

Kagan, Dean of HLS, published fewer than 20 articles in her career.

The difference in intellectual firepower between a Senior Law Professor and a Senior Medical School Professor is often very large, on the side of the Medical School Prof. Look at Kagan's publications as Dean of the Best Law School in the Country and then compare to the Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at UTMB in Galveston. Hirschfield is a very good Bipolar researcher, but his intellectual firepower is not the top of the field; yet his work far outshines Kagan's in terms of publications and importance of same in his field.

SpiralArchitect| 4.6.12 @ 5:00PM

Kagan, hmm that name sounds familiar. Good thing she is not in any position of power or control.

Joellen| 4.7.12 @ 9:02AM

Actually Kagan is in power & control. She is a Supreme Court Justice. If we dont get a new President this November, Obama gets to pick another judge just like her, Ginsberg & Sotomayer. They then will reshape America into a country that we will no longer recognize.

Kpar| 4.7.12 @ 3:06PM

Do you recognize irony when you see it?

John Navratil| 4.6.12 @ 6:56PM

Occam's Tool,

I've been thinking of you lately. I had the distinct pleasure of 19 days at the L-1 trauma ward at Memorial Hermann (fell of a ladder, compound pilon fracture, six bone fragments, fifteen screws, a couple of plates, and a free flap from the plastics guys).

Excellent care! Excellent surgeons! And to think this epitome of ego can for one skinny minute think he is their match is simply beyond me.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 9:52PM

I doubt I am as good as they are, John. I hope you are very well, as you deserve it. But you are absolutely correct regarding the intelligence and skill of the average surgeon in the US versus the average attorney.

cvrgrl| 4.6.12 @ 11:50PM

kagen was dean of harvard law
when obamanation began to rise
politically

rumor is she helped clean his student
file (rid it of affirmative action stuff about
rising despite adversity of being immigrant
from africa with no father and college crappy
grades etc...) all in advance of her leaving
harvard to be solicitor general

the rest is obvious

rumor is she and he hold
goods on each other

LynnTTT| 4.6.12 @ 6:35PM

From the University web site in 2007:
"The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer."

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined."

Sorry, you all keep beating the same dead horse.

John Navratil| 4.6.12 @ 7:03PM

LynnTTT,

Kinda makes it worse, doesn't it.

beebop2| 4.6.12 @ 7:46PM

You are a bigger fool than your logic would display if you believe that UC is going to critique a sitting president and a "native" son to boot. Please don't come here and waste our time!

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 8:53PM

Lynn,What a crock of academic bullshit distinctions. Yeah, everybody gets a title!
Kinda like the morons in congress, deputy assistant, minority leader. Probably half the idiots in congress have a title,
So Obozo was a senior lecturer, what dead horse are we still beating??
He still knows zip about the Constitution, no matter what title they gave him.

Summer Child| 4.7.12 @ 4:01AM

Yeah, those idiots in Congress have a title: Representative.

The ridiculousness of this discussion of President Obama's academic credentials is mind-boggling. Did the President teach at UC? Yes. How do I know? Because I saw one of his students on Fox News. Because all the documents suggest that he did. Because dozens of other students and faculty remember him teaching there.

As to his academic writings, I did just do a Westlaw search and I did not find any academic writings by Barack Obama. I did note that Lawrence Tribe specifically thanked Obama for helping with a 1989 article. But it is not surprising that he didn't write journal articles. During this time, he wrote two books (the first one is very good actually). He also was a state legislator and junior partner at a firm. Not all my professors at law school write academic papers. Some have day jobs to do, like Obama did.

Finally, Ben Stein is wrong on the law. Do Courts have judical review? Of course. But is it common for the Courts to overturn whole regulatory schemes like Obamacare? NO! The reason is that those regualtory schemes are generally based on the interstate commerce clause. And in the past 70 years, only two such regulatory schemes have been overturned by the Court: The Violence against Women Act (Morrison) and the Gun-Free Schools Zone Act (Lopez).

The depth of anti-intellectualism on display in this forum and throughout conservative and Republican movement is really scary. You don't believe in science unless it accords with your beliefs. You don't believe in math (for example, every Republican budget of the past decade). You demonize academics and yet you wonder why children today are less educated.

Let me make this suggestion to you. Read more. Learn about ideas that are outside your ideological perspective. You may not change your perspective (I haven't changed mine), but at least you won't continue to say things that are ridiculously false. Maybe you'll even learn to be a little less mean-spirited.

beebop2| 4.7.12 @ 2:06PM

You confuse mean spirited for PISSED. My money is worth nothing and my gas is sky freaking high and morons like you tell me to CHANGE MY OPINION when you admit you have no intention of changing yours: Here's a news flash for you SWEETIE, you are not the only segment of American entitled to an OPINION and the sooner you and your brethern wake up the easier it will be to digest a CRUSHING DEFEAT for the "likable" Barack Insane 0bama!!!!!

John Navratil| 4.7.12 @ 6:32PM

Summer Child,

So what were the other hundred or more overturned for? It is a given after "Wickburn" that the Congress spent the last seventy years finding all manner of uses for regulating the commerce between the states - for example withholding highway funds if a state didn't raise its drinking age - and rarely was called on it by the Supreme Court.

I'm sorry that we scare you? But we really don't throw chicken bones to determine the future. Your confusion of ontological questions with science is understandable as a Liberal cannot recognize an ontological question nor can he see, apparently, that science is never really settled. Whether we hold differing view of macro-evolution doesn't make a difference to either of us. AGW matters because it has entered the political realm.

I don't know why you consider the Republican budgets of the last decade to be a mathematical challenge. Everyone here recognizes (and screamed about) a deficit and (see my post to Purp) can add up the debt. Was there something more than mere addition that you refer to? Perhaps like the exponential growth of unpaid interest on such a debt. Perhaps a Ryan reduction in the rate of growth is a bit more complex that simple addition, but with a little study, it can be understood my most.

Let me make a little suggestion to you, in kind. It is arrogant to present yourself as the font of truth and wisdom and suggest that others elevate themselves to your exalted position. Pepper your post with a supporting point or two to make them more interesting. If, however, you find the commentary too stultifying for you, there is not need for you to abuse yourself my reading it.

Cuffs| 4.9.12 @ 1:37PM

You rant holds no merit, sir.
You imitate exactly what
you deride.

Sally McBryde-Rose| 4.6.12 @ 7:00PM

Why have we never heard from a single student who took a course from Obama? Seems that there'd be a market for a book titled, MY TEACHER, MY PRESIDENT.

BayouKiki| 4.7.12 @ 9:26AM

One was interviewed on one of the Fox shows the other day. This guy had also clerked for the Fifth Circuit. He wasn't very complimentary of the President's resentment pronouncement of the role of the Supreme Court.

Ellen K| 4.6.12 @ 7:42PM

This gets into the narrowing of the media pipeline which is a biproduct of a bad economy. There used to be entire staffs of writers on every big city paper covering Washington. Now there are two guys who copy and paste whatever comes down from AP. Fewer eyes on the story means more opportunity for malfeasance. I think AP and McLatchkey have been coopted by carrots of promised bailouts. In the meantime, the Fourth Estate is a joke. They are like fawning alley cats who sit in the lap of whoever feeds them and they don't care much about the character of the feeder.

Kevin Fodor| 4.6.12 @ 10:07PM

What newsrooms have you worked in lately?

Hold on! Let me make my point. I work in a building with radio reporters, TV reporters and newspaper reporters. Now, of course this means the politics of the building is all over the road. But, the paper recently took an editorial stand asserting that party labels do not necessarily mean right or wrong. The paper is printing conservative columns right next to the liberal ones. Between all of us in the area chain, there are over 100 local reporters. We have a Government Waste Team that's already exposed a bunch of local potential wrongdoing and we have reporters in DC. Please stop the generalizations...in a lot of cases, I admit you're right, but some of us are, at least...trying.

Wayne SW| 4.7.12 @ 12:54PM

So, answer me this. Why is it that during the 2008 campaign the media had enough "interest" to send a team of 30 or 40 lawyers up to Alaska to dig through Sarah Palin's trash cans, yet couldn't seem to find any motivation to check into questions about Obama's background? Why the tremendous effort to smear Palin, yet no one raised a pinky to find out anything about Obama? Those questions remain unanswered to this day. The media simply ignores them, or covers them up, which accuations of "racist" or "crazy right wingnut".

Don| 4.6.12 @ 8:25PM

Obama gets alot of breaks like that. What makes him so special? He was an unexceptional, lazy nobody. Obama is a genuine mystery of the 21st and 20th centuries. What individual or group is giving this loser all these breaks that Obama never deserved?

SaintVince| 4.8.12 @ 1:06AM

Along this same vein, Obama is always touted as the "smartest guy in the room," yet he has carefully and successfully covered up his college records. The only pres to do so in quite some time. Believe me, if this cat got good grades he and his minions would be pasting these "good grades" right in our faces to solidify the idea that "he is the most interesting man in the world. Stay ignorant my friends."

Playrighter| 4.6.12 @ 4:42PM

1) Does anybody have a factual source on what happened to Obama's law license (and Michelle's)?

2) His time in office shows that he studied not Con Law, but rather Conning Others Using the Law.

Wayne SW| 4.6.12 @ 5:35PM

I'm not sure that Barack Obama ever passed the bar and had a license to practice law. Maybe he did, I don't know. I read somewhere that Michelle Obama "voluntarily surrendered" her lawyer license. For those familiar with such things, the only reason why someone "surrenders" their license is because the state is getting ready to take it away. I don't know the reason, but 99 times out of a hundred if the state is going to take your license it is not because you did something good. It typically means you screwed up, like a doctor losing their license.

Yet another item unvetted by the media. If it were someone like Bush or Nixon, you have to believethat the media would have dug up everything about it going back 30 or 40 years, like they did Bush's DUI in 2000. But with Obama, no, sorry, old news, can't be bothered, isn't relevant for The Won.

Dan Johnson| 4.6.12 @ 10:07PM

I find this entire discussion interesting. Does anyone know who Ken Jeong is? OK...test over! He was in the movie Hangover and is now a successful actor. Guess what in his previous life he was an licensed doctor. Guess what...he still keeps his license active in California. No one who has worked hard for a professional degree is going to just give it up!

fizz| 4.7.12 @ 7:25AM

Dan J., aren't you possibly assuming that someone "worked hard" for that diploma, position, or title?

I don't want to assume either.

All of us know people in life who are "gifted" things that they really don't have to work so hard to attain.

Everyone of us knows about favoritism. Somewhere in your pre-teen years you already learned about this in life.

I like Justice Clarence Thomas but his own biography "My Grandfather's Son" makes it very clear that he was helped mightily at key junctures in his life. If I'd have been in the U.S. Senate to approve his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, I'd have said no. For several reasons, chiefly his work track record.

Like the junior who makes in on the varsity team but does not really merit it. Sure, he goes to practice like everyone else on the team, but was he every good enough for varsity and 25% playing time?

Like the guy in the firm who becomes executive vice president of media relations who cannot even operate applications on his own desktop computer....

Like the ones place on the fast-track to partner....

Let's not assume "worked hard" in any politician's life.

What importance is one's law degree or bar exam if one is the sitting U.S. president, Nobel Prize winner, will command easy $5,000 per plate banquet receptions and speaking engagements for the rest of his life, will guest lecture at the world's universities, will be a VIP at Davos every year, will be hailed as a hero at the future world climate summits, and future U.N. Secretary General?

People want facts. Nothing wrong with asking for facts.

Charie| 4.7.12 @ 7:38PM

Remember Al Gore taught at a college after having lost the election to Pres. Bush. If memory serves, he didn't even have a bachelor's in anything.

Kirk| 4.6.12 @ 9:28PM

http://www.snopes.com/politics.....censes.asp

william mcdonald| 4.6.12 @ 7:16PM

At least Obama if FINALLY getting an education.. unfortunately it's in the woodshed! Whip ass SCOTUS! Bill

bloefeld| 4.6.12 @ 8:07PM

I want someone who took constitutional law from "Professor" Obama to come forth and tell us what they were taught.

The guy is layer after layer of mist, and his word on anything is of no value. He seems to be doctrinaire neo-Marxist and our post-modernism based school system has made too many of us too stupid to see what it actually there versus that which is rumored to be there.

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 8:57PM

A former student of Obozo did, he's now a professor at some Missouri law school. He was embarassed over Obozo's threats directed to the Supreme Court .

ADuhe| 4.7.12 @ 1:44AM

Obama did not teach Constitutional Law..a course reserved for the finest of professors...Obama did teach Minorities and the Constitution...a far far cry from teaching Constitutional Law.

You will find at most law schools Affirmative Action admissions take Constitutional Law the summer before law school--- to help them achieve what the rest of the 1 L's are required to accomplish in their first year.

Rich| 4.6.12 @ 8:30PM

I read all comments and while they all had validity... This is the one to pay attention to. Bell, Wright, Ayers... These are all indications that we should have listened to before. But just think about this... I have read the Harvard Law Journal religiously and I have never seen one person in charge not dominate the review. So either his articles are too radical or he is not intelligent enough and SOMEONE has been raising him through the ranks for THEIR agendas. It is absurd that Ben is just now getting startled. I thought he was supposed to be smart? Then again.. so was OBAMA!!! Wake UP America and retake responsibility.

ADuhe| 4.7.12 @ 1:52AM

Obama had the backing of the Saudi Prince who had just donated $15 million to Harvard Law. The story goes from one of Obama's black supporters, this connection obtained Obama's admittance.

Then as Obama was in his first year, the NAACP sued Harvard Law for millions for discrimination. The thought is Obama was quickly elevated in order for Harvard to make the NAACP law suit go away...
See a pattern here yet?

And Wayne SW....Agree....Doubt very much either Michelle Robinson or Barak Obama ever took or passed the bar...And that may have something to do with the loss of a license they never had.

kwan| 4.6.12 @ 9:03PM

How can any of these Democrat morons know if ObamaCare is constitutional or not if none of them ever read it?? I suspect it was conjured up by a committee of commie-rats under the direction of George Soros.

Ventura Capitalist| 4.6.12 @ 9:34PM

Social justice indeed... I think Professor Thin Skin was working off that Cass Sunstein living "constitution," not that booorrring dead presidents one from 1789 that we Americans use.

Mriordon| 4.6.12 @ 7:33AM

Mr. Stein, you're such a nice guy, but I am sick and tired of everyone spouting off about Barry being so smart and likeable. He has shown no evidence of ability in anything other than trashing his opponents with outright lies. While he might seem friendly and outgoing, it is more than obvious that he is a Chicago thug, stabbing his adversaries in the back with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes.

Kitty | 4.6.12 @ 8:13AM

Dittos! Barry is evil and he disgraces the office he holds.

Ellen K| 4.6.12 @ 7:44PM

How did Bill Shakespeare put it? "You can smile and smile and still be a villain...."
Of course he also said "First, kill all the lawyers..."
Smart man, Bill.

ADuhe| 4.7.12 @ 1:55AM

You had better pray some damn good lawyer is who helps to remove Obana from office. There are good lawyers and bad as there are good Docs and bad ...And in both cases the good far outweigh the bad.

Gary B| 4.6.12 @ 8:45AM

Dittos!

Bob Grant| 4.6.12 @ 12:12PM

Ditto,

People on the right (or, at least claim to be) hedging their bets on obama is soooo 2008!

Those days are over. Heck, even Peggy Noonan has given it up.

Ben, why are you one of the few holdouts?

He scares you but find him to be likeable and upbeat most of the time? Are you stuck in some time warp where you cannot leave 2007?

To any clear-eyed individual the facts about his man are glaring: he's a demagogue who shares a World view only a small percentage of people share. He has no affinity or affection for this country, only to the extent to how it can be changed.

Likeable???? >>>> go read the dozens of stories out there about how he likes very few people, even ones within his liberal circle. He trusts very few people. The obamas are very cold people. Heck, even Chris Mathews has complained.

Don't concede this meme that Obama is a likeable guy because is simply not true, in my opinion.

Wayne SW| 4.6.12 @ 12:26PM

You're right. I find nothing "likeable" at all about Obama. Here is a guy who voted against a bill to offer medical care to newborns who survived the abortionist's knife? What is likeable about that? He offered a bill that indemnified doctors who performed live abortions. Not likeable for most civilized people. He calls political opponents "enemies" and encourages his supporters should bring guns to knife fights. Not a likeable image. Add it all up, you have a picture of someone who is utterly unlikeable, IMO.

Dayspo| 4.6.12 @ 4:16PM

Thank you for this comment....this gets lost in all the hype from every direction. Yeah, baby killers are likeable guys and gals! Let's hear more! And if his callousness for infants is so stark, where does that leave his opponents? Gas ovens?

Occam's Tool| 4.9.12 @ 2:44AM

By the way, Bibi Netanyahu and Mitt Romney once worked for the same consultancy firm...they have been friends for almost 40 years.

Shamus| 4.6.12 @ 7:56AM

It's baffling that anyone would think Obama is a smart person. I can't think of a single thing he's said in the past four years that would demonstrate a shred of intellect.

Bob| 4.6.12 @ 11:27AM

It is typical liberal misdirection, to label their side as a geniuses and conservatives as brainless brutes.

Wayne SW| 4.6.12 @ 12:33PM

There is no proof on the record that Obama is "smart". He doesn't give speeches, he reads from a teleprompter words written by others. He refuses to release transcripts of his grades from college and law school. He was President of the Harvard Law Review yet never wrote an article or column for that publication. He has never written a scholarly article for peer review and publication in any credible journal related to his profession. He has never disclosed his class rank in graduation from law school. When someone refuses to disclose their class rank (it is a question asked of applicants to the most junior positions in a law firm) there is usually only one reason: it stinks. He has never authored a single piece of significant legislation during his tenure as a legislator. He voted "present" a lot when called upon to go on the record on a particular vote. I find none of this indicative of any kind of superior intellect.

ADuhe| 4.7.12 @ 2:09AM

Most Americans who are uneducated know how to pronounce Corpsman and all are well aware there are 50 states...even if you only teach Minorities and the Constitution one might imagine Obama would have run across the fact there are 50 states in the United States of America somewhere...

SpiralArchitect| 4.6.12 @ 5:01PM

There is one clear reason you think that & it is all Bushes fault!

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Beardmaster| 4.6.12 @ 4:40PM

Sou curioso como que seu mensagem pertence a articulo escrito. Ninguem aqui vai comprar uma maquina que corta.

Tim the Enchanter| 4.11.12 @ 11:34AM

Huh?

longhornsmiles| 4.6.12 @ 8:21AM

All becomes clear if you ask how a 7 year old views the world. A 7 year old thinks just like Obama on every topic. Think about this. I know you will agree.

Old Soldier| 4.6.12 @ 11:20AM

Yep - screams of "not fair!" whenever things don't go his way.

beebop2| 4.6.12 @ 7:52PM

Even my niece (7) knows that "fair" is a losing argument with her mother ... now, her 5 year old sister is another matter ...

numbatdog| 4.6.12 @ 8:28AM

It's always sad watching the patsy in a scam when it finally dawns on him he's been had. Especially when the patsy is a very bright guy.
Ben is slowly realizing something many of us have been saying for years - Obama is not what he seems, a nice American family man doing his best in difficult circumstances. The reality is he is a committed ideologue with a carefully hidden past who is following a plan - Make capitalism destroy itself and collapse before replacing it with a new permanent central government.

EasTexan| 4.6.12 @ 8:50AM

Right on, numbatdog. And except for a few places such as conservative talk-radio, the same applies up and down the right-side spectrum. Folks at Fox News, political pundits, republicans in congress, presidential candidates, et. al. all grant the guy way too much benefit of the doubt.

trumpman| 4.7.12 @ 12:10AM

@EasTexan - Not only "benefit of the doubt". They actively and continuously cover up Obama's crimes (forged documents, illegal president, etc) and will someday have to answer for their complicity in the advancement of evil.

SpiralArchitect| 4.6.12 @ 5:03PM

Chairman 0bama
Manchurian Candidate
Marxist
Leninist
________

Vote totalitarian
0bama '12

emilio lizardo, PhD| 4.6.12 @ 8:35AM

Obama does in fact know a great deal about the Constitution- and that is what makes his insane pronouncements all the more wicked, scurrilous and vile. Yes, the sheep, goosesteppers, serfs and morons that comprise this once-great country are beginning to realize they have, once again, been had. What remains to be seen is whether the intelligent life that exists among the conservative and middle will finally start to realize IT'S OBAMA, STUPID and coalesce in support of Romney and toss this lying, despicable POS from office

SeymourGlass| 4.6.12 @ 11:28AM

Wow, Doc, we agree on something. They say a broken clock is right twice a day - here we have two broken clocks in synch!

Ned| 4.6.12 @ 1:56PM

Make that three...

I agree completely that Barry O'BS's intelligence is ignored by the media, and wildly over-rated. His credentials are largely the result of "infirmative action" and count for little, despite the names on the diplomas... but don't lose sight of WHY he's making an ass of himself in this context... it's not because he doesn't have speech writers and researchers capable of looking up Marbury... "IT'S OBAMA, STUPID"... he is intentionally setting the tone now, so that in a few weeks when the SCOTUS slaps down his ignoble over-reach he and his media lap dogs can shriek and wail about the injustice of it all... and the drooling cretins in his "base" can all nod in synch, and jump up and down on the Constitution some more.

emilio lizardo, PhD| 4.6.12 @ 5:50PM

Word.

Sally McBryde-Rose| 4.6.12 @ 7:15PM

Recommended.........scratch that..........required reading: THE ROAD TO SERFDOM by F. A. Hayek. This nation of "sheeples" is headed over the cliff if the elctorate doesn't wake up and smell the roses..... scatch that.........manure.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 12:55PM

Ben's problem is that he is not worried about ObamaCare.

The reason why Obama is such an ignoramus stems precisely from the facts of life he believes in which lead him to believe Obamacare would be legal, Ben.

Again, the "genius" of lawyers astounds me.

ADuhe| 4.6.12 @ 3:39PM

learn and know your Alinsky and you'll understand Obama far better

SpiralArchitect| 4.6.12 @ 5:05PM

Forget not Marx.

This admin is very transparent if one knows what they are viewing.

Spoonman| 4.6.12 @ 8:46AM

How could anyone like this man - he's is a shark, a fraud and a user who enjoys living high on the hog at taxpayer expense. You can bet he knows that only the people who wouldn't vote for him work and pay taxes and he and his wife enjoy the free ride they are getting at taxpayer expense. And he detests everyone who does not agree with him. Other than that, maybe he is likable.

Bob| 4.6.12 @ 11:29AM

No liberal/progressive is likable.

robadude32| 4.6.12 @ 6:36PM

Very insighful of you Spoonman - say what you will about Joe the plumber - he saw right through that fraud Obummer from the start.

keith| 4.6.12 @ 8:53AM

Of greater concern to me is to ponder just who are the power brokers behind this manchurian candidate ? There are the few well known that were outed long ago, no thanks to the M.S.M ; but there are certainly many remaining under cover of darkness, regardless of the occasional front man paraded out to deceive the unwary masses regarding tax rates, etc. Today is a wonderful day to rejoice in that their judgement is certain, even appearing to be approaching quite rapidly as we speak. Praise be to Jesus Christ our LORD ! The Lamb who was slain is alive forevermore and returning soon as the JUDGE of all the earth. 1 Corinthians 15 : 54, 55 ; Revelation 1: 8, 18 and 22 : 12, 13.

Nancy in NC| 4.6.12 @ 8:57AM

Nice guy? Only if you agree with him.

Likeable? Only is you worship at his feet.

Knowledgeable? Only if you prefer Marx to Madison.

R Martin| 4.6.12 @ 9:10AM

Mr. Stein, may I respectfully refer you to Ross Kaminsky's piece today on the perils of affirmative action.

Warlord| 4.6.12 @ 9:12AM

Obama, Clinton, Kerry, Pelosi are all in their own way Petty Tyrants who would, if given the chance, jam their Marxist views down our throat ...they believe the Constitution is for "suckers" and only usable if it fits into their world view...

LindaF | 4.6.12 @ 9:24AM

The truly scary part of this is that high school grads, with only the exposure to the Constitution that was had in a Civics class, can readily see the errors in his reasoning. What the blaze did he learn in that Ivy League education?

Nothing.

Frank B| 4.6.12 @ 9:31AM

I remember when Mr. Stein was fond of this scary, most inexperienced president. Many knew Obama was a disaster before he won the nomination. At the time, Mr. Stein said many kind words about this national catastrophe. Times sure have changed.

Bob| 4.6.12 @ 11:31AM

We need more people to see the light and realize that Obama is the worst thing that can happen to the US. Unfortunately, when people do start to realize it, Obama starts a distraction to keep people focused on him and not on his critics. Black support for Obama was waning so what does he do? Put his face on the Trayvon Martin debacle and instantly the black community is mobilized in support for Obama.

Jabber3| 4.6.12 @ 9:41AM

The question everyone seems to be asking is, why Obama would take a stand against a probable though not certain SCOTUS' decision to find the individual mandate unconstitutional. Especially when he knows what he said is obviously untrue on several different levels as acknowledged by the USAG in writing and his “walk back” comments. Obama wanted to accomplish at least two things with his comments, first, he wanted to influence the Court’s decision if not on the decision of constitutionality of the mandate their decision on overturning the entire Obamacare law, second, he wanted to make it acceptable for critics to come forward and rally behind his claims in order to dampen criticism of Obama and direct it towards the SCOTUS.

Westie| 4.6.12 @ 9:52AM

Ben Stein reminds me of all the Jews in pre-war Germany that refused to believe Hitler was serious about his Mein Kampf. Ben was also one of those responsible for electing Obama and may be afraid of the repercussions of that bit of stupidity!

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 10:46AM

Westie, You and Nancy have Benji's number allright. Benji still looks into Obozo's eyes and sees likability, when sane people see a cold-blooded totalitarian. Ah, the adoration from squishy liberals, like Stein.
One wonders how the Yale trained Stein comes to this astonishing conclusion which contradicts his entire article. I did say Yale trained, right? Bill Buckley you ain't Stein!
Well, when Obozo sends Stein and his ilk off to the FDR internment camps, Stein will complain in his diary about how hard the beds are, and the lack of nap time.
Hey Ben, to paraphrase Dean Wormer, fat, squishy, and stupid is no way to go through life.
Get the red out dude!!!

scotchieguy| 4.6.12 @ 11:39AM

No, it is "fat, drunk and stupid." That is why they ended up on double secret probation.

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 3:49PM

I know it's "fat, drunk and stupid", that's why I said paraphrase rather than quote. My point was to convey the concept of squishy.
Stein has many faults, but I doubt drunkedness is one of them, however, the other two are up for grabs.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 4:50PM

Drunkedness WAS one of them, at one time. He freely admits he goes to 12 step programs, which is admirable, incidentally (going to the program).

But Obama is not a nice guy, he is a thug.

beebop2| 4.6.12 @ 8:00PM

Ben's nine step is for drug abuse, not alcohol. He absolutely abhors drunks .... Just correcting the record.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 9:56PM

So sorry. However, alcohol is just another drug to abuse for those of us who treat them...

kate| 4.9.12 @ 12:25AM

I don't know much about mr. stein, but his writings suggest he lives the good life. Why rock the boat, right?
Conservatives don't resent successful people, but worry about losing your following if you are propping up someone who purposely keeps the American people from living the good life you enjoy, Ben.

H Abdullah Shabazz| 4.6.12 @ 9:55AM

I side 100% with President Obama!!

Harvard cheated him.
He should sue.

Imagine you go to a "law school" and they teach you that overturning a law passed by congress is "unprecedented"
A clear case of consumer fraud.

megapotamus| 4.6.12 @ 10:01AM

That's not so crazy. I think a class action suit on behalf of millions of defrauded students against the academic industry generally could be supported under prevalent theories. Also, I have long had a theory that Qui Tam suits against individual federal departments could potentially do what little else seems capable of doing which is reining in our amok Leviathan. Lawfare. It's not just for commies anymore.

Bob| 4.6.12 @ 11:33AM

Heck, Obama should gather up his class and start a class action lawsuit against Harvard for the trash they taught him.

Not Special Ops Bill| 4.6.12 @ 9:56AM

President Obama gives the impression of a person who has been taught, from his earliest years, that whatever he thinks must be correct and that there isn't any need for him to compare and contrast his notions with the notions of the larger world.

Just ask yourself: what kind of person becomes a "community organizer?" What do they do, except to tell people what to do and link one group up with another that is in business to satisfy the needs of the first group.

If I could go to Harvard and get good grades just because of my color, I'd do it to. If the University of Chicago then hired me as a Con Law instructor regardless of my contribution to the scholarship in the field, I'd take the job, too. So I don't fault Obama for being an affirmative-action baby, I fault the people who smoothed his way to the point where he could be the equivalent of giving the Presidency to Baby Huey.

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 9:57AM

Well Ben, it's been a tough going over for you folks from the Ivy League, especially the law grads. Recent events have certainly not endeared the Ivy grads to most Americans, and sending one's kid @ $60,000 a pop, is not looking like a wise investment.
Obozo, the Harvard trained lawyer, cum Constitutional Law lecturer at the Univ.of Chicago, seems to have a difficult time understanding the concept of Judicial Review.
His Columbia trained Solicitor General's performance at oral argument on Obozocare would have make a 1st year law student's performance at moot court such, that it would have sent that student packing off to Divinity School.
And then there's the Harvard trained hack Attorney General himself, Mr. Holder, who has a homework assignment due from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Holder's homework begs the question, how many Ivy trained lawyers can dance on the head of a three page missive to the 5th Circuit and get it right?
Maybe Holder should ask a law professor from Idaho State ( wasn't that Gov. Palin's college) to complete the assignment, to insure the Justice Department gets it right.
But not to be outdone, Obozo's Orwellian press secretary, Carney the clown, tells us it's all a big misunderstanding about Obozo's threat to the Supreme Court, seems we hoi polli just don't understand how law professors talk.
I'd bet money Carney is a graduate of the Columbia J school, or the Dan Rather school of Fake but Accurate.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 12:57PM

Anthony--that is not $60,000 a pop. It is $60,000 a YEAR.

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 3:51PM

OT,Quite right, my bad, too cute by half am I.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 4:51PM

I love your stuff, Anthony. Keep on keeping on, sir, and have a good weekend.

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 9:02PM

You too Doc, you're a good man, and I bet an even better doctor.
Talk to you next week.

Rex| 4.7.12 @ 7:42AM

Anthony, I jog near a top law school on a regular basis. Every now and again I jog beside a third year law student and ask how much college and law school debt they have racked up.

Not all reply. Most don't want to. Most freeze up, as this is something that they to block from all thought. The few that reply, have a either a grim face or a very snobbish face (as Daddy is taking care of all of it). The tuition debt $numbers are mind numbing.

robadude32| 4.6.12 @ 6:41PM

Wonderful insight Anthony - I just wished more people would see him for what he is.

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 9:07PM

Who? Ben, Obozo, or both? Only kidding!!! Thanks.

megapotamus| 4.6.12 @ 9:57AM

I haven't been keeping up with Benji lately but it looks like he got scared straight, at least a bit. Am I hallucinating or was he pro-Obama in '08 and at least soft on him up to now? Well, whatever. Welcome aboard. Not too concerned about Obamacare? Maybe now you understand what is at stake and hopefully others are realizing it, too, and the implications are far larger even than that. Social Security and Medicaid are BOTH Unconstitutional. Doesn't anyone recall the court packing extortion maneuver used to get all this socialist crap onto the books? It is these entitlements that poisoned Reaganism. It is these entitlements that will totally destroy the dollar. It is these entitlements that will make garnished slaves of our children and theirs if they sit still for it, which they will not. It all has to go. The New Deal commies knew it then and they know it now; it's all the same thing. It is all socialism and it is all criminally unworkable. Dispute that either for your own accounts or those of a loved one if you like, it will only mean a quicker and deeper collapse of all things economic in all the world. You are warned but you didn't have to be. Everyone knows the entitlement state cannot persist, they are just grabbing all they can grab and holding all they can hold.

rhcrest| 4.6.12 @ 8:03PM

I SO agree. It ALL has to go. And it will go because eventually the house of cards will just collapse.

hardcard| 4.6.12 @ 10:06AM

obumma is not smart or likeable, he is an affirmative action, evil, dishonest, arrogant, socialist. Take a nap Benny !

tim| 4.6.12 @ 10:09AM

No need to kiss his butt at the end of your rant Ben! He is disingenuous, arrogant and a bully...don't reward that in any way.

George Collins| 4.6.12 @ 10:11AM

President Obama is, above all, mad. He was mad at Columbia, where he was a marginalized, angry weed-smoker, and the people who knew him kept him at arm's length, and he's been mad ever since. I suppose he was mad at Harvard too, but I don't know anyone who knew him...And he's been mad ever since, and that's what defines him more than anything else. When you are that far left, it helps to be motivated by anger, envy, and retribution. To attribute any qualities of humor or grace to the man is to completely misunderstand him.

Bill| 4.6.12 @ 10:17AM

Romney's VP list:
1. Pat Toomey
strength: PA is a swing state, former Club for Growth leader.
2. Marco Rubio
strength: FL is a swing state, the Latino votes.
3. Mitch Daniel
strength: IN is a swing state, a great "fiscal conservative", helped passed the "Right-to-Work" law.
4. Kelly Ayotte
strength: NH is a swing state, a Catholic, former AG, and the women votes, "Lady in Red" factor.
5. Chris "Great" Christie
strength: NJ will turn blue, former litigator, a fiscal hawk governor.
6. Paul "Genius" Ryan
strength: WI will turn blue,a fiscal hawk legislator.

My pick: Gov. Chris Christie
Obama will be forced to campaign in a "safe" blue state, NJ, while Gov. Christie will be favourite to deliver NJ for GOP. Gov. Christie will help fix the economy and never surrender to the big-labors or bureaucrats. Recently, he traveled Israel and vowed to thwart Iran's fascist regime and its nuclear threat.

President: Mitt Romney
VP: Chris Christie

Your comments, please.

George Collins| 4.6.12 @ 10:24AM

Florida is going Republican this year, so if Rubio delivers, it would be in Colorado and some Western states. New Hampshire will go for Romney as well, so you're onto something with Christie. I just like the guy anyway, and he's been a very successful governor or a formerly "ungovernable" state, thinking back to the days of Tom Florio in NJ and Mario Cuomo in NY, and the City under Beame, Koch, and Dinkins. We've come a long way...

Bill| 4.6.12 @ 10:49AM

Hi, George Collins, I appreciate your thoughtful comments, enlightening. I liked Christie because he's an outsider. My second VP choice will be Sen. Toomey, considering the fact that GOP must win PA.

George Collins| 4.6.12 @ 11:17AM

Agreed about PA, and Toomey is solid, and well-liked and respected in the Commonwealth.

Mike Hawk| 4.6.12 @ 12:09PM

PAt Toomey isn't interested and we'd like to keep him as Seantor, thank you. We don't need to flush him down the political toilet by making him VP.

Bill| 4.6.12 @ 1:20PM

You never know.

Crassus| 4.6.12 @ 12:07PM

There's no need for Romney to pick another northesterner when he is shaky in both the South and the Midwest. Remember that the next time you think either Toomey or Christie will be the choice.

Bill| 4.6.12 @ 1:22PM

I speculated based on the electoral game.

mcr| 4.6.12 @ 8:29PM

Problem is, Christie is NO conservative! He is one big RINO.

James Sutton| 4.7.12 @ 7:19PM

Rubio is a good man, but he is under the same eligibility cloud as Obama. IF he were selected as VP then you could forget about any further investigations of Obama, after his defeat.

Vern Crisler| 4.6.12 @ 11:19AM

A Romney/Christie ticket would show the decline of the Republican Party.

Bill| 4.6.12 @ 11:26AM

They will give Obama "heartburn."

George Collins| 4.6.12 @ 12:05PM

Vern, I couldn't disagree more. The Republican party hit a low under GWB, where life-long Washington boobs ran the party. And if you want to harken back, could it go any lower than under Nixon (price-controls and Vietnam)?
Romney is a businessman, and Christie, is, well, Christie. He has declared war on hacks in New Jersey and it's working. This is a RESURGENT PARTY, and there are a lot of people like me who are energized.

Vern Crisler| 4.6.12 @ 1:59PM

Resurgent? Just Google low voter turnout in the Republican primaries for 2012. The Republican party is dying. Conservatives and Tea Partiers will have to found a new party.

Bill| 4.6.12 @ 2:13PM

GOP forever!

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:50PM

Dream on Vern. You must be a liberal trying to demoralize the Conservatives by posting on Conservative websites. Nice try. No sale here.

Vern Crisler| 4.6.12 @ 7:24PM

The nomination of Romney has already demoralized conservatives. The Republican Party is no longer the party of Reagan; it has become once again the party of Nixon and Ford.

mcr| 4.6.12 @ 8:29PM

Amen!

Crassus| 4.6.12 @ 12:04PM

No chance in hell of two moderate northeastern governors being the GOP ticket. Christie will not deliver New Jersey for Romney. He won't even be re-elected himself in 2013. Paul Ryan would be a much better choice but I think Romney will end up choosing someone dull and pasty faced like himself---Rob Portman, Mitch Daniels, or Tim Pawlenty.

Bill| 4.6.12 @ 1:24PM

Mitch Daniel is in my list. Rob Portman lacks enthusiasm, and Tim Pawlenty cannot deliver "bluest" MN.

r. nixon| 4.6.12 @ 9:15PM

He is the "Manchurian Candidate" who represents the far left no matter how you define that.

He has been fast tracked to the Presidency by those who want to transform America into something that is completely outside it's history, traditions, and roots.

His base of support are the naive, needy, ignorant, & gullible, and he will do everything possible to maximize the turnout of these "useful idiots" in November.

A second term for this dangerous man will be a disaster for America!!

That is all you need to know!!

kate| 4.9.12 @ 12:36AM

Rubio all the way. And if he holds out because he is selfish and is waiting for the presidency, I shall not vote for him in 4 years. We need him now.

Buck Bradley| 4.6.12 @ 10:26AM

Ain't affirmative action a wonderful thing?

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 10:38AM

Likeable like Hugo Chavez is likeable ?
Upbeat ? as in class warfare, as in relentless finger pointing, sowing division, envy and seeking to set one citizen against another on the basis of success in this great land ?
Please Ben.
Admit that the guy is a souless putz.

OncealwaysaMarine | 4.6.12 @ 10:56AM

Mr. Stein must know something about Mr. Obama that I don't. I find him neither likable nor upbeat. Nothing is likable or upbeat about a president with his nose turned up in the air, a scowl on his face, with condescension and scorn rolling off his tongue every time he addresses the American public.

beebop2| 4.6.12 @ 8:06PM

Maybe Benjie knows that the Democrats have a dossier on Republicans and Ben has something to protect?

Frank Drackman| 4.6.12 @ 11:04AM

Mr. Affirmative, meet Mr. Action..
Thats what happens when the Kinkiness of one's hair is more important than the Kinkiness of one's Character.
OK, there was this black guy in my Med School Class, lets call him "Token"
"Token" rarely came to class,
well most of my class rarely came to class, cause it wasn't required, and the Pakistani Teaching Ass-issants could have been talking about there plans for Suitcase Nukes and nobody would have known, with there thick accents.
I remember one class I did go to, and some smart ass kept asking about "Ru-Kemia" just to get the TA to keep talking...
Well anyway, on the Surgery Rotation you had to keep meticulous track of a patients fluids, IV, Blood, Liquid, and the amounts out in urine, various drains.
All measured in "CC"s or Cubic Centimeters, Millilters.
A typical abdominal drain might put out 50, 75, 100cc per day.
All of "Token"s patients however, put out 1, 2, occasionally 3 or 4 cc's.
Turns out "Token" thought "CC" meant "Cups of Coffee"
He's a Surgeon now,
an "Academic" Surgeon, which means he doesn't operate much, thank god.

Frank

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 11:28AM

Please tell us this story is just Frank Drackman fiction at its wonderfully funny, droll, and sarcastic best, PLEASE!!!

Frank Drackman| 4.6.12 @ 12:22PM

OK, I stole the "CC"s thang from the M*A*S*H Novel.
The real "Token" just made up the numbers, occasionally reporting outputs from drains that had been pulled already...

Frank

Anthony| 4.6.12 @ 3:56PM

....and that's supposed to make us feel better, eh? Happy Passover Frank, oh, and my best to the Misses and her beemer.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 1:02PM

Seriously, we did have one Bollywood lecturer that kept on pronouncing myelin "Sheath" myelin "Shit."

The first two years of medical school can be done by correspondence except for the labs, but it is 40-80 hrs of study each week...the last two, no, no. Residency is like working two jobs and going to full time grad school...

Frank Drackman| 4.6.12 @ 1:28PM

My favorite was the Taiwanese Hematologist trying to pronounce "howell-jolly bodies"
came out like "Rrrorral Jorry bodies"
funny how they can pronounce "bodies" flawlessly.

Frank

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 4:55PM

Yeah, but I liked my Asian colleagues, a lot. Still do. To stereotype: Smart, good work ethic, comprehensive in studies.

I really think attending the lectures in med school is not a good use of time. I think office hours and small study groups with data needing to be covered available on hardcopy or multi-media is the way to go---it is the way that MDs have to keep up afterwards anyway---almost ALL of the medications I use now came out on or after 1994---I graduated from residency in 1993.

I love your stuff, Frank. Great weekend weather for you, I hope, and stay safe.

Frank Drackman| 4.6.12 @ 5:50PM

Love the Asians,
funny how they can't laugh, except when inflicting ingeniously fiendish methods of torture...
Frank

Manya Shochet| 4.9.12 @ 5:53AM

Amazing how they make such good cameras, though.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 10:05PM

Frank, my only question regarding your story is why you all squawk so much when people correctly point out your racism? Wear it proud, man! You are a member of the Master Race after all.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 9:59PM

Jews don't consider ourselves a member of the Master Race....when you know your buddies are keeping tabs on EVERY mistake you make in your recitals in shul on your Bar-Mitzvah and will razz you about it for months afterwards, it does make you try harder.

Paul| 4.9.12 @ 2:00PM

And, just so we're clear, by "trying harder" you mean making racist stereotypical comments about black people.

wally| 4.6.12 @ 11:06AM

...a juvenile, City College of New York circa 1937 leftist view of the whole world.

Perfect description. Him and his whole smelly administration.

oldfart| 4.6.12 @ 11:11AM

Ben - I think he knows. He just doesn't care becuase it does not fit his agenda.

scotchieguy| 4.6.12 @ 11:15AM

Ben, I agreed with every word until the end. He is not mostly a nice guy. I find the man to be smug, petulant, cocky and dour. He is a punk. He is easily the least likeable president in the past 100 years. He makes Nixon seem affable in comparison. He is a complete fraud. Even worse, why is the media covering up for him every single time? Is white guilt really that powerful?

I would love to see a major scandal erupt in the WH just to see the media squirm at finally having to report objectively on this man for a change.

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 5:00PM

There HAVE been major scandals and the media has left Obama largely insulated from them. Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and the "flexibility" comments to Russia are HUGE deals, and the mainstream media has ignored them. These things would have brought down a Republican presidency because that's all ABC, NBC and CBS would have talked about non-stop.

Red Ryder| 4.6.12 @ 11:15AM

Ben Stein joins the many who, for some reason, seem to enjoy pointing out that Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. In that regard it's well to recall one of comedian Shelly Berman's favorite lines: "A pseudo-intellectual is anyone connected with the University of Chicago."

Obama revealed more of his legal philosophy in a 2001 radio interview stating that the U. S. has suffered from a fundamentally flawed Constitution that does not mandate or allow for redistribution of wealth. He described it as a document of negative liberties. The interview was publicized during the 2008 election but didn't gain much traction. Too many voters ate up the "hope and change" manna.

Not Special Ops Bill| 4.6.12 @ 11:53AM

The Constitution is indeed a document that encompasses the guarantee of a number of negative rights. Negative rights are those that no one may make laws to interfere with.

Positive rights, i.e., those granted by law, are not really rights at all, but instead are privileges, since new laws can be passed at any time taking those so-called "rights" away.

cvrgrl| 4.6.12 @ 11:24AM

amer spec, ben stein has nothing to offer and,
sadly, american zionists have let isreal down by blindly supporting obama in the last election

wimpy barry sympathizers, like stein, continue to screw our families in isreal and help destablize the middle east

independents, and undecided fools in the middle, make me sick

shxt or get off already, independents are...
manifestations of, as limbaugh likes to say,
the modern castrati

Bob| 4.6.12 @ 11:24AM

It's not that he doesn't know that is chilling. I will bet that he knows all of these things perfectly, and the chilling part is that he HATES them. The system of checks and balances is just an annoyance to him. They don't permit him to have absolute power to mold the US as he sees fit, so he seeks to delegitimize the Supreme Court. It's really the only branch standing in his way. Congress has been content with sitting down and rolling over for Obama. Even when they seemingly remember they have a spine, like when they tried to halt funding to the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama would have none of that and just brushed them aside, and that was the end of it on the congressional side. But now that the Supreme Court is the one branch actually doing its job and reining in the President's power, he is doing his worst to marginalize it in the court of public opinion. The Supreme Court was supposed to be immune to public opinion and the opinion of the President, but that doesn't stop Obama from attacking it.

What's really chilling is not that he doesn't know, but that he does know and is using this knowledge for destructive purposes.

idalily| 4.6.12 @ 12:35PM

I'm with you, Bob. Obama does know the Constitution. I think he learned everything about it for the sole purpose of undermining and destroying it. I think the people backing him feel the same way. I have never understood why anyone thought he was ever likable, charming, or a brilliant speaker. To me, he's always been petty, childish, vindictive, narcissistic, and boring to listen to.

Old Soldier| 4.6.12 @ 11:25AM

I can think of so many things Obama doesn't know and has never done. He has never had a real job as far as I can tell. Certainly not a physical one that leaves you exhausted at the end of the day.

I doubt he has ever fired a gun, although he despises them. He seems woefully ignorant of history, economics, and the physical sciences. Seems he spent many years in school purposely avoiding learning anything that might contradict his world view. Such an incurious mind amazes me.

Not Special Ops Bill| 4.6.12 @ 11:54AM

If he's never fired a gun, then it's understandabe why he despises them. Anyone who's experienced firepower respects it.

Chris| 4.6.12 @ 11:29AM

Anyone who likes this fool Obama is a bigger flammmmmmming Fooooooooool! This Tyrant has to be diapatched in short order, period!

Ken| 4.6.12 @ 11:36AM

"anti-American worldview" "arrogant"

Not respectful of tradition.

Obama.

Chris| 4.6.12 @ 11:39AM

One thing is certain. Obama COULD NEVER have lived in the Chicago Housing Projects with his mindset.

Imagine him removing the 52"Flat Screen T.V. from the "Building's Gang Boss" telling the "Brother" he didn't need it any longer, and he was going to redistribute it to someone else as "Fairness"

They would have ate him alive, and he knows that to be a material fact.

The result: RIP! Black On Black Killing, hands down!

smith| 4.6.12 @ 11:43AM

I don't know what he knows. But I do know what I know and that is he has neutred congress, with appointments of his CZARS over everything. He rules like a foreign dicator, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe comes to mind. Now he is eyeballing the SCOTUS. hell he may as well run that too. WAIT a minute has anyone actually seen a report card of his studies...Never mind the cia or fbi or secret service can make him one anyhow.

RealityBites| 4.6.12 @ 11:53AM

STILL waiting to hear of even one community he organized before he was enthroned as president of an entire country by the liberal loons and the MSM.

Interested Conservative| 4.6.12 @ 11:57AM

"I personally am not terribly alarmed about Obamacare. I am terribly alarmed at a President who knows almost nothing about the Constitution."

Ben - Don't confuse cause and effect.

Kent Lyon| 4.6.12 @ 11:57AM

Is it the Visine that is helping the scales to finally fall from Ben's eyes?

Jeff1000| 4.6.12 @ 11:59AM

With all due respect Ben, if you don't have a problem with Obamacare then you have a problem too.

Bob Grant| 4.6.12 @ 12:32PM

Ditto.

ADuhe| 4.6.12 @ 1:05PM

Perhaps read Obamacare Mr Stein and look to the comparisons that can be found in Hitler.'s Germany and then reconsider all the facts not the coverstory.

Crassus| 4.6.12 @ 12:09PM

So after all this time Obozo is beginning to scare Ben Stein. Oh well, at least he still finds him upbeat and likable.

Bob Grant| 4.6.12 @ 12:32PM

Ditto.

Bob Grant| 4.6.12 @ 12:38PM

One of the most incoherent and contradictory articles I have read in a long, long, time...since I last visited Puffho several years ago.

Stein, do you drink much when on your many vacations?

ADuhe| 4.6.12 @ 1:15PM

I believe like many of the Jewish faith Mr Stein wants to appear agreeable in light of Mr Obama's obvious dislike of Jews...much like his Minister of 20 years Reverend Wright and good friend Rev Louis Farrakhan and Bill Wright. If the masses continue with their quivering silence expect the long march to fascism and suffocating loss of liberty.

Petronius| 4.6.12 @ 12:48PM

Remember what Obama's henchmen said. "From day 1 Barach will RULE". He was running for Dictator and behaves accordingly. The sad fact is, people do not know or understand the Constitution as written and defined by it's authors. They live in the sand box and care only for their amusements, sports, and sexual appetites. As the Republican Party does not give an elephants rear about Our Founding Documents and Freedom either, this country is finished. Ask Sergeant Stein. He'll tell you.

ADuhe| 4.6.12 @ 1:01PM

Perhaps Mr Stein you might look further into Mr Obama's behaviour and comments in many other areas before you pronounce him a nice man.
While you agree others should pay more income tax because " your neighbours tony neighbours can afford it", I find your pontificating comes up rather short and is wrapped in your own prejudices and envy of others. If as an economist most agree more taxation would slow and damage our economy and any hope of recovery why assert your neighbours can afford it? I suspect we're dealing here with your personal shortcomings rather than professional analysis...such is the case with your broad rush approach as to Obama's niceness. I suggest you consider Obama's 20 years in a Black Liberation Theologists , Rev Wright's church or his long association, which Obama tried to hide, with the murderous American terrorist Bill Ayers, or the racist and divisive hateful manner Obama has inserted himself to do anything but unite the public, or Obama's Justice Departments stand on the rights of all citizens to an election process not corrupted by New Black Panthers or ACORN, or Obama's associations with self avowed communists he brought into the people's White House in Van Jones among others...
Stop trying to appear the nice guy who quivers when telling the truth about a politician because the politician is half black and you Mr Stein fear being called a racist more than you fear telling a lie.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 1:03PM

Stein hates physicians. that's OK---we docs hate Ben.

beebop2| 4.6.12 @ 8:19PM

You misunderstand.

He's been seeing the same psychiatrist (one who is willing to write perscriptions for Stein's friends sight unseen) for more than 20 decades. You would think they would have made more progress by now ....

Occam's Tool| 4.9.12 @ 2:46AM

To have progress occur, there must be a brain capable of learning concepts about oneself: lawyers don't usually meet that criteria, tending to run somewhat psychopathic...

The Bruce| 4.6.12 @ 2:21PM

Ben,

After 3 1/2 years, if you can still look at yourself in the mirror and convince yourself that Obama is "likeable," then I suggest you're suffering from one enormous blind spot.

You suggest you get a eye exam at your earliest possible convenience. A CAT scan wouldn't hurt, either.

The Bruce| 4.6.12 @ 2:22PM

"I suggest you get an eye exam..."

I'm surrounded by typo gremlins today.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 4:57PM

We love you anyway, Bruce---"Scots, whom Bruce has often led..."

Manya Shochet| 4.9.12 @ 5:55AM

"Welcome to yer gory bed..."

gary siebel| 4.6.12 @ 2:24PM

Much ado about nothing. How far did Franklin get when he tried to pack the court?

If you are so fond of the Constitution why weren't you screaming bloody murder when ol Starr Chamber Ken was raping the Fourth Amendment?

The hypocrisy of both sides has gotten completely out of hand. First the Repubs were outrageous (starting with Nudist Grinch era), then the Dems were outrageous, then the Repubs were outrageous (Bush wits), then the Dems again (Pelosi), now the Repubs are outrageous again -- it is no surprise Ron Paul has a consistent level of support. Crazy though he may be, he has been at least consistently crazy, and free of the pretense of moral outrage so often exhibited by those who pretend to have a better set of morals.

ADuhe| 4.7.12 @ 2:34AM

Broad brush smear job against Republicans...
Starr raping the Fourth Amendment? ...You're confused...Clinton was the only one accused of raping anyone. As to Starr and the Fouth Amenment ...no one other than you has ever suggested there were any illegal search and seizure issues connected with Bill Clinton lying while under oath. Please only facts.

Gr0w1er601| 4.6.12 @ 2:37PM

What does this guy Barry not know? Practically everything not involving community organizing and/or race-baiting. Other than that he's a legend in his own mind as well as his moon-beaming lemmings.

CJohnson| 4.6.12 @ 2:49PM

Upbeat likeability as a defense for a President confounds me. Take off your hoodie so you'll see reality when it barrels down on you.

CenterMass| 4.6.12 @ 3:07PM

And this from the guy who backed Al Franken

Doug Sjostrom| 4.6.12 @ 3:38PM

Ben,
I respectfully and most regretfully must disagree. I believe Obama knows full well and fully understands that, for a number of generations now, education in America has been hijacked by the left and transformed into wholesale indoctrination. Civics, American and Ancient political History have been driven from the educational experience and replaced with politically correct tyranny where thought and speech contrary to liberal orthodoxy is severely punished....Especially thought!
Obama, in openly scorning the very tenets that set us apart as the envy of the world, is demonstrating a shocking degree of confidence that these indoctrinated Automaton voters are sufficiently and reliably programmed to insure his continued reign.
Time will tell if this amazing level of arrogance is founded in isolation or insight.

Susan Benton| 4.6.12 @ 3:40PM

Mr. Stein, with all due respect because I like you and like your writing, Obamacare is very scary. I've spent 8 years of my life in 3 different foreign countries with nationalized health care and the fact is it is terrible. I did everything I could to avoid going to the doctor because I knew they could not be trusted to do their job. Nationalized health care is very scary, and terrible. Besides, where will foreigners go if American health care is nationalized?

smith| 4.6.12 @ 4:56PM

Susan, foreigners will go to the front of the line.Because they are in a strange land and are (for the present) a minority. Along with all the sob stories (if it just helps one person its worth it) the bleeding all over themselves, tears flowing media can muster. OHhh hell! What am I thinking? Its that way now! Illegals go to the emergency rooms for hi-dollar treatment, we make appointments and wait for days to get treatment, and then pay higher prices to make up for the illegals. Sorry Susan.

Occam's Tool| 4.6.12 @ 4:58PM

Dear Susan---you are sooooo right. I was a Senior Medical Consultant in NZed and came home. Couldn't take it anymore.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 9:16PM

Sorry, Susan, I call BS. I've experienced the national healthcare of the UK (twice), France (once) and Australia (twice, including a trip to the emergency room and a broken arm). In all those cases, I found the care ranging from exemplary to adequate. In one case (where I'd lost one of my prescriptions and had to get it replaced by an unknown British doctor via a pharmacy I wasn't registered with), I couldn't help but compare what would have happened had I lost my prescription in the US. In the UK, I made the appointment, got the new prescription, had it filled, and returned to my friends' house all in a half hour with an expenditure of £11. In the US, that would have taken days and cost a lot more.

My guess: your "8 years of my life in 3 different foreign countries with nationalized health care" is purely fictitious.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 10:01PM

Try getting elective surgery, Paul. Or treatment for a chronic disease. Like I said, I was a senior medical consultant.

kate| 4.9.12 @ 12:58AM

Sorry Paul, you didn't have cancer did you? Because I had a British friend who had cancer and she had to go private and spend hundreds of thousands, rather than waiting months for menial care.
The socialistic medical states are quick with a bandage and lacking funds or motivation to save lives and give truly sick people proper care and hope.
Take a pill and go home.
I would say more, but I'm too much of a lady.

Paul| 4.9.12 @ 2:07PM

No, I didn't have cancer. However, a friend did. Let me tell you what happened with him.

English friend living in LA. No insurance. He gets a lump on his neck. He pays to see a doctor who tells him he has an abscess. They give him antibiotics. This goes on for 8 months, during which the lump only gets larger. Finally they say they want to lance it, for a lot of money. So my friend decides to go back to England to do this for free. So he goes, and when the English doctors first see him, they say "We should check if this is cancerous." And lo and behold, it was non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which by this time had spread to his stomach. The American doctors apparently realized that my friend would not be able to pay for cancer treatment, so they didn't bother testing him for that.

In England, my friend received full treatment: a lump-ectomy, followed by chemo and radiation. The government paid for the rent in a flat for him to live, since he couldn't work while undergoing this treatment (and his job was in LA). They paid for a taxi to pick him up and drop him off for his chemo treatments, realizing he couldn't drive very well afterwards. The govt paid for him to have a macrobiotic diet. After about 8-10 months of this, he was in full remission. Now he's back in LA, married and living a happy life. Had he stayed with the LA doctors, he probably would have died.

We've all got anecdotes. What's missing is any sort of movement in the so-called "socialized medicine" countries to change their system to match the American model. That's not happening anywhere. And yet you all believe ours is the superior system.

kate| 4.10.12 @ 5:03PM

I am very glad your friend is better. I do not understand why the government should be paying for taxis. Doesn't he have family or friends or enough cash for a taxi?
Listen kid, my husband has paid into private insurance fro 35 years and he just had excellent surgery because of crippling pain in his neck. Young, athletic and healthy, believe me pills and accupuncture didn't work for him. He is now pain free with a lot of years ahead of him and this would not have been possible under obamacare. Ask doctors. My mother, who is almost 70, but looks 50, had early signs of cancer. Her LIBERAL doctor told her she was getting all of her older patients in as soon as possible, because even use of MRI will be regulated by age.
I would not lie to you kiddo. This is serious.
We need reform, but not the way this bill was formed.
Once again, I am so glad your friend is well.

kate| 4.10.12 @ 5:10PM

And btw, do you really think we can afford to rent apartments for everyone who is ill? You keep saying the "government" the "government" paid for this. Where does money come from? Are you willing to live in 1 room with 10 people like the USSR residents did? Have you read up on what life is like in such countries? Better for everyone to work hard, pool insurance when you are young and healthy.
If we are not able to make money, because of crippling debt due to healthcare costs...there will be no care.
You are in your late 20s or early 30s aren't you?
God, wish I was young again. :)

kate| 4.10.12 @ 5:17PM

And...Mr. Stein is not young and he should know better!!

Paul| 4.10.12 @ 8:02PM

A few things:

1) While I was flattered that you called me "kid," I know it wasn't a compliment but an insult. Fact is, I'm 46 and smarter than you.

2) My friend didn't have anyone to pay for his taxi or rent. His father died when he was a kid, and his mom is clinically depressed and barely making ends meet. None of his friends have much to spare. (A bunch of us in the US held a couple fundraisers for him and sent him some extra spending money.) And my friend could not work at his job in LA if he needed to be in the UK to fight for his very life. Let me know if anything is unclear about this.

3) About your husband's story, as I said, we've all got anecdotes. But I'm waiting to see any sort of movement by every industrialized nation in the world (apart from the US) who has a nationalized health care plan and wants to switch to the American model. Silence is deafening, no? Does that tell you anything? Anything at all?

4) If the UK can afford to pay for rent for its truly sick people (and yes, they do), then so can we. It just means adjusting priorities. Maybe instead of having a military 7 times larger than the 2nd largest in the world, we could settle for only twice as large. Or we could require our corporations to pay taxes. Or we could get rid of the Bush tax cuts. There are lots of possibilities for those with imagination.

5) Your comment about living like USSR residents has no application to this argument. It shows that you have little idea what the rest of the world is like, and haven't considered it since the 80s. If you want to join a discussion of current events, you should read up first.

billindallas| 4.11.12 @ 12:12AM

Gee, Paul, I didn't realize how smart you are, Thanks for pointing that out. Did it not occur to you that your friend may have seen a quack in LA?

Q. Do you know what they call the guy who finishes dead last in his class in Med School?

A. Doctor

Paul| 4.11.12 @ 2:16PM

Still waiting for some kind of movement in the socialized medicine countries to switch over to the American system. If you guys are all correct and our system is so much more superior, you'd think the demand to switch would be...well, deafening. But it's not. There's no sign of such a demand anywhere. That's where the rubber hits the road in this whole argument: what do people actually prefer?

Reality trumps your ideology, despite vacuous comments and stupid little riddles.

Duane Davis| 4.6.12 @ 4:17PM

Mr. Stein, the President is not operating in the realm of any reality familiar to the writers of the Constitution. He operates in the realm of the intense hatred generated by his lifelong teachers. He needs a lot of prayer, but not four more years to continue dismantling this society.

Too Late To Impeach| 4.6.12 @ 4:18PM

"2. If he does not know how the government works under the Constitution, he should not be President."

Ben,
Amen. Needless to say, when anyone takes a position requiring an oath to uphold the Constitution, their demonstration (in word and deed) of correct understanding of the issues of Constitutionality--as well as understanding of the role of all branches of government--should be part of the candidate screening process. Being elected based only on campaign speeches and soundbites should no longer be allowed. What in the world were we thinking!!

By the way, it's NOW that I am wondering if he even attended ANY Constitution classes in college. I thought I'd not go here, but: I think this fairly qualifies as a call for those transcripts.

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:48PM

Sadly, I don't know if the House leadership (Boehner) would have the courage to began impeachment proceedings anyway. When did fortitude disappear from the Republican leadership?

Romulus Johnson| 4.6.12 @ 4:19PM

Ben, that "upbeat, likable manner" that seems to appeal to you is an act of a charlatan/fraud! Baraka Obonehead is a shameless hustler-crook!!!

hook| 4.6.12 @ 4:25PM

Obama, was totally unqualified to be president, but the media excuses every single idiotic thing he says and does. He is in my view not a Muslim or a traitor but a "University Radical," who has barely left the bubble and is both arrogant and naive. Mr Stein, I would be worried about Obamacare as every single doctor I have ever talked to has said it will destroy medecine in this country as we know it, and I am talking about retired doctors in my age category.

DaneChile| 4.6.12 @ 4:41PM

He doesn´t know what the worst con man knows: you go into a town, whip up a frenzy, pull the con then get the hell out of Dodge. People will always catch onto a con, eventually.

SuffolkVA| 4.6.12 @ 4:55PM

Mr. Stein, I agree for the most part except for two things. First, I don't see how one cannot be very disturbed about turning a huge thing like healthcare over to the federal government. This is a disaster of untold proportion which will lead to horrors for a long time to come if we don't totally repeal it soon. Secondly, I do not find this man to be upbeat or likeable; I find him to be the most obnoxious, narcissistic, egotistical occupant of the White House during my lifetime which goes all the way back to Ike. This jerk makes LBJ look humble.

JGo2| 4.6.12 @ 4:56PM

you will notice that Obama criticizes the SC when the SC can't respond, such as at the Canada/Mexico ceremony or during the State of the Union address; if he had any balls he would have made his claims on a live, prime-time televised speech with lots of reporters who have been given a copy of his speech. But Obama's modus operandi has been to throw his bombs when his target can't respond, then claim he was mis-understood if the trial baloon doesn't fly. That is why I call him the "Passive-Aggressive" President.

billindallas| 4.11.12 @ 12:14AM

I call him the "Reader of the Free World."

MTB| 4.6.12 @ 4:56PM

I enjoyed the article, but unlike Ben Stein I usually do not find Obama likeable or upbeat. I detest the man and all he and his progressive wife and lib/radical friends stand for.

Charles| 4.6.12 @ 5:28PM

Marbury vs. Madison is actually taught in 8th grade civics in every school system in the USA. It's shocking that President Obama missed this not because it is something that is only learned in elite law colleges, but that this is a basic teaching to every child in 8th grade! He should be embarrassed that everyone beyond junior high school knows this.

Charles Martel| 4.6.12 @ 6:37PM

Marbury vs. Madison was a court ruling where the Supreme Court asserted that the Constitution implied they had the right of "Judicial Review", which is no more in the Constitution than the right of "privacy". If the members of the Supreme Court believed they should have a right not specified in the Constitution, they should have followed the process specified in Article V, which does not mention the courts at all. Show me in the Constitution how "Rowe v. Wade" could be law without having been passed by Congress and signed by the President?

Vee| 4.6.12 @ 5:38PM

Total group think on this website. A sure way to know you've lost an argument is to reference the Nazi's. Obama shouldn't have used the GOP cliche "activist judges" but it was pretty obvious the guy is totally frustrated with the constant GOP/conservative overreactions. Elections have consequences. Hopefully after winning reelection, Obama can appoint 1 or 2 more justices. I know it will drive all of you bonkers when he gets reelected.

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:45PM

Perhaps then, you should try to get new marching orders from the DNC and offer your leftist comments on another website.

George True| 4.6.12 @ 6:46PM

And another sure way of knowing you have lost the argument is to dismiss your opponent's argument out of hand, and offer no substantive rebuttal of your own, just as you have done here. Nothing that has been expressed here about Obama can honestly or truthfully be shown to be false.

What "over reactions" are you referring to? Do you mean opposing a 2700 page legislation that nobody had read, nobody fully understood, and which was clearly unconstitutional? Or do you mean the "over reaction" of opposing the increase of the national debt to $17 trillion dollars, which of course can only end in runaway inflation, which we are already seeing? OR could you be referring to the "over reactions" of promoting a pipeline that would keep Canadian oil flowing to us at below market prices for the foreseeable future, as opposed to don't build the pipeline and have them sell the oil to the Chinese instead?

As for Obama's two appointments to the court thus far, neither of these obese, dyke lesbians has the intellectual firepower of a box of wet matches.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 10:02PM

GEORGE: You're back! I missed you, pal!

Goldwaterite| 4.6.12 @ 7:01PM

After the foreshadowing mid-term elections of 2010, what makes you so cocky?
P.S. Your DNC paycheck is ready.

Paul | 4.6.12 @ 6:01PM

He knows perfectly well how the Constitution works. He was lying. That's what he does best.

Alex Scipio | 4.6.12 @ 6:02PM

Although I respect the view of Mr Stein, I am increasingly bothered by those who find Mr Obama "likeable."

Please. The guy is pursuing policies that ALWAYS have resulted in a lower living standard, less happiness, less education, etc. This is Progressivism. There are NO historical instances of it improving anyone's lives; only the reverse.

How anyone can find "likeable" someone destroying our future is completely beyond me.

Gretchen| 4.6.12 @ 6:15PM

Ben,
BRAVO!!!
G.

aed939| 4.6.12 @ 6:21PM

As a response to Obama's arrogant HugoChavez-esque comments, the SCOTUS should overturn the mandate 9-0 to deny Obama a dissenting opinion.

Paul in Colorado| 4.6.12 @ 6:21PM

No one who has actually done the things President Obama claims to have done would say such things. Every time he goes off-script he looks more and more like a confection, a shill, faking it. Ben is right. This is alarming.

Vee| 4.6.12 @ 6:22PM

Why are conservatives so angry?

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:43PM

Why are liberals so angry?

ADuhe| 4.7.12 @ 2:38AM

Angry? We're having' a ball baby!

kate| 4.9.12 @ 12:41AM

We are angry because we are smart and don't believe in socialism. It is a failed policy. Read more.

Paul| 4.10.12 @ 8:05PM

Kate, that's priceless. In the same sentence you claimed to be smart while demonstrating that you have no idea what socialism is. Was that intentional parody?

Theodore Seeber| 4.6.12 @ 6:24PM

I agree with everything you wrote except: " They do not fix prices."

When I see six different brands of gasoline selling within a penny of each other within a mile, I call that price fixing. What is your definition of price fixing that this isn't counted?

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:00PM

It's unlikely that any of those six stations are owned by "big oil." Most likely they are local franchisees who just respond to what their competitors are doing. Many of them buy their gasoline from the same wholesale suppliers, who put the company-brand additives in on delivery. Here's a secret -- the contents of gasoline are regulated by the EPA, so other than the additives there is no difference between one brand and another. And the profit isn't in the gasoline, it's in the convenience store. The gasoline is a cost-competitive product to get people to come in and buy beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and snacks.

Charles Martel| 4.6.12 @ 6:29PM

As a "Progressive", Obama doesn't care what the Constitution says when it doesn't let him do what he wants. The so-called "Progressives" are the ones who gave us "the living, breathing Constitution" that can mean whatever they want.

Obama is not dumb, just devious, which is far worse and dangerous to the Republic!

Vee| 4.6.12 @ 6:31PM

Hence there are amendments. I will depart from this group think site. Conservatives serve an angry, angry God. Take your blood pressure medicine folks. I predict a rough next 5 years for you all because Romney has absolutely no chance of winning

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:43PM

Dream on.

Womba| 4.6.12 @ 6:54PM

Unless the wrath of God is about to be unleashed upon our nation, Obama must be deposed.

Finite| 4.6.12 @ 7:08PM

Yes, run along. Differing opinions are scary for you types. Having to form a coherent argument can be quite a challenge. I suggest you head back to the HuffPost where you can sit in ease with minds like warm buckets of wallpaper paste echoing the latest liberal talking point. Lord knows facts and discussion are like freaking kryptonite to you people.

Crassus| 4.6.12 @ 7:42PM

Take the highway and take all you can hold, Junior.

LibertyAtStake | 4.6.12 @ 6:29PM

The Saul Alinksy Radical in the White House knows precisely what he's doing by picking all these constitutional and political fights. He is making an open electoral appeal to the truly ignorant among us - those who have no idea how anything works - on purely emotional levels. He fully intends to ride the angry mob to re-election.

d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”

Mimi Mayes | 4.6.12 @ 6:30PM

Judging from these comments, it appears that most of us have this concern: what has happened to Ben Stein?

ansonheath| 4.6.12 @ 6:32PM

Ben, when I get to Sandpoint this summer, I will explain the why's and how's. Until then - this too shall pass!

Sargent Turner | 4.6.12 @ 6:33PM

I love it when you do that, Ben. It's so...provocative. Nuzzle a bit closer, and whisper more pith & wit into my eager ear. Ooooh.

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:42PM

Easy Sargent. Your "orientation" may be showing.

Kevin Gutzman | 4.6.12 @ 6:34PM

Tribe taught him Con Law. That is, he came by it honestly.

Your column assumes that Obama speaks in good faith when he says that for the Supreme Court to strike down a law passed by Congress would be "unprecedented" and that the oil companies are ripping us all off. Of course, he doesn't. Rather, the president is in demagogue mode, saying things that he knows to be untrue so routinely that he now has ventured to say things that even the echo-chamber mass media recognize as out-and-out rubbish. It's amusing to watch.

Erik| 4.6.12 @ 6:35PM

The ONLY Constitutional power to veto is the President!
The Supreme Ct does NOT have the power to strike down laws passed by the representatives of the people-the Congress.

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:41PM

They do if those laws violate provisions of the Constitution.

Crassus| 4.6.12 @ 7:44PM

Thank you, Mr. President. Now go back to your fundraiser.

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:04PM

Or golf game.

Lee A. Heilig| 4.6.12 @ 6:37PM

I thoroughly your article today Mr. Stein, as usual. However, I found your last paragraph a little disappointing. You say that you find Mr. Obama "likeable and upbeat most of the time." It has been my experience, and I know that I am far from being alone on this, that the dictator-in-training is far from likeable, for the very reasons that make him a tyrannical POTUS. His arrogance, condescension, narcissicism, vindictiveness, disregard for the Constitution, and Chicago-trained political thuggery all point to an individual that is -- and I put it mildly -- loathsome.

There is no need to equivocate with regard to the generalissimo, Mr. Stein.

Hippie | 4.6.12 @ 6:38PM

Mr. Stein, you are the one whose ignorance is showing. AG Holder's letter yesterday shows very well where Obama is coming from, whether or not his comments were wise: "Acts of Congress are "presumptively constitutional," Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 507 U.S. 1301, 1301 (1993), and the Supreme Court has stressed that the presumption of constitutionality accorded to Acts of Congress is "strong."
United States v. Five Gambling Devices Labeled in Part .. Mills," and Bearing Serial Nos. 593-
221,346 U.S. 441 , 449 (1953); see, e.g., Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 28 (2005) (noting that the "congressional judgment" at issue was "entitled to a strong presumption of validity"). The Supreme Court has explained: "This is not a mere polite gesture. It is a deference due to
deliberate judgment by constitutional majorities of the two Houses of Congress that an Act is
within their delegated power or is necessary and proper to execution of that power." Five
Gambling Devices Labeled in Part .. Mills," and Bearing Serial Nos. 593-22i, 346 U.S. at 449.
In light of the presumption of constitutionality, it falls to the party seeking to overturn a federal
law to show that it is clearly unconstitutional. See, e.g., Salazar v. Buono, 130 S. Ct. 1803 , 1820
(20 1 0) ("Respect for a coordinate branch of Govenm1ent forbids striking down an Act of
Congress except upon a clear showing of unconstitutionality."); Beach Communications, Inc. , 508 U.S. at314-15.
3. While duly recognizing the courts' authority to engage in judicial review, the Executive Branch has often urged courts to respect the legislative judgments of Congress. See, e.g. , Nature 's Daily. v. Glickman, 1999 WL 158 1396, at *6; State University of New York v. Anderson, 1999 WL 680463, at *6; Rojas v. Fitch, 1998 WL 457203, at *7; United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 75i v. Bro·wn Group, 1995 WL 938594, at *6.
The Supreme Court has often acknowledged the appropriateness of reliance on the political branches' policy choices and judgments. See, e.g., Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New Eng., 546 U.S. 320, 329 (2006) (explaining that, in granting relief, the courts '·try not to nullify more of a legislature's work than is necessary" because they recognize that'" [a] ruling of unconstitutionality frustrates the intent of the elected representatives of the people'" (alteration in the original) (quoting Regan v. Time, inc. , 468 U.S. 641, 652 (1984) (plurality opinion))); Turner Broadcasting System, inc. , 512 U.S. at 665-66. The "Court accords ' great weight to the decisions of Congress"' in part because "[t]he Congress is a coequal branch of government whose Members take the same oath [judges] do to uphold the Constitution of the United States." Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57,64 (1981) (quoting Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U.S. 94, 102 (1973)). These principles of deference are fully applicable when Congress legislates in the commercial sphere. The courts accord particular deference when evaluating the appropriateness of the means Congress has chosen to exercise its enumerated powers, including the Commerce Clause, to accomplish constitutional ends. See, e.g. , NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. , 301 U.S. 1, 32 (1937); McCulloch v. Matyland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 408 (1819). See also Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, 651 F.3d 529, 566 (6th Cir. 20 11) (Opinion of Sutton, J.); Seven Sky v. Holder, 661 F.3d 1, 18-19 (D.C. Cir. 201 1) (Opinion of Silberman, J .)"

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 7:10PM

The intelligence required to understand that post exceeds that of American Spectator readers by a good 100 points.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 10:06PM

The post from Hippie could have used paragraphs, but is easy to understand. The whole point here is that although the Court should take the perogatives of the Congress into account, the unprecedented power grab here is nonetheless extreme, and the power to declare a law Unconstitutional is one the courts have exercised, rarely but appropriately, for over 200 years.

Further, this bill had no bipartisan support and was ram-rodded, unlike, say, the 1964 Civil rights Act.

LynnTTT| 4.6.12 @ 6:38PM

When a writer starts saying the President wants to unilaterally disarm all America and states that Big Oil does not set oil prices (then who does?) I have to start to disregard his columns.

Barack Mugabe| 4.6.12 @ 6:52PM

He already explained for the economically illiterate that the market sets prices.

But if he doesn't want to disarm this nation, then what was he whispering in Medvedev's ear?

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 7:14PM

What Obama said to Medvedev had nothing to do with gun control or disarming the nation. Did you sincerely believe that (in other words, are you retarded), or did you already know that wasn't true but thought it sounded good? I'm genuinely curious.

Emil Blatz| 4.6.12 @ 6:38PM

Welcome to the club, Ben. I had this moment about 3 years ago - when President Obama referred to Chrysler bondholders as "speculators." As a Harvard Law graduate he had to know that one thing bondholders do not speculate about is their priority in liquidation. It is stated on the face of the bond, typically. Yet he chose to chastise those investors for being "greedy" in his estimation. It was a chilling moment. Because you knew that he knew better, and yet still served that up for political consumption.

shearwater| 4.6.12 @ 6:38PM

It is clear that whatever he learned about constutional law at Harvard University was overstated and under delivered at the University of Chicago. I think his brain was pickled in Marxists theory by his friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Jeremiah Wright, Saul Alinski and his communist buddies. Most of what he does is overstated and under delivered. In the case of the healthcare fiasco, 2,700 pages of law seems over delivery and unconstitutionality is under delivery . . .

Lynne| 4.6.12 @ 6:38PM

Mr. Stein, I loved your article up to the point where you wrote that you find him likeable. Hello? Have you not been paying attention?

All he seems to have done is divide different factions of this country. You find that likeable? Oh, he might seem charming and pleasant, but all con artists are. That's what his entire presidency has been about -- conning the American people, lying to us, deceiving us, trying to find another crisis he can use to his own end.

The ONLY thing he has told the truth about is when he said he wanted to fundamentally change America. That's what he and his cronies have been working toward. And if more Americans don't wake up to his treachery, he will destroy this country. We'll be like Greece and other European countries until he and people like him will finally get their fondest wish and there will be no more America or freedoms or liberty anywhere on this planet.

Owen K| 4.6.12 @ 6:39PM

So, we have no school records to prove anything about Barry and his scholastic background. This guy is a total fraud. It doesn't surprise me that he knows nothing about the Constitution, or if he does, he hates it and sees it as a roadblock for socialist progress. What did he do at the University of Chicago? What did he study? Where are his writings? No one outside the "circle" knows. Over one million dollars has been spent to hide Obama's background. I wonder why.

Will Turner| 4.6.12 @ 6:40PM

The analysis was on target. Then at the end Mr Stein gives in to that disappointing urge to say something nice about our leftist dictator in chief. You remind me so much of Bill O'Reilly. How can you see this guy for what he is, explain it plainly, and then take the sting out of your accurate comments by finishing with, "But on a personal note I like this anti-American president?" At least every one knows that Barrack Obama is a liar. We expect less bullshit from Mr Stein. Our mistake.

Goldwaterite| 4.6.12 @ 6:40PM

Ben concludes with "I am terribly alarmed at a President who knows almost nothing about the Constitution. Meanwhile, who taught him Con Law?" Oh, Obama knows the Constitution. Demagogues excel at stirring up the masses and overriding institutions such as governments of laws. (See: Venezuela)
"But in this case, he showed way too much of another side." I will bet you Ben was about to pen "dark side" instead of "another side", but deferred stirring up BO's race-hustlers.

solidground| 4.6.12 @ 6:42PM

Good points, Ben, about our power-hungry, Communist-leaning, all-power-to-the-state president, but your personal feelings about him are at odds with the picture you paint of him as the leader of this country. It's rather like saying sure, Stalin slaughtered millions, but he's actually kind of likable in public. Okay, that's an extreme comparison, but it's on point. And in fact, Obama has slaughtered millions of jobs in this country and put millions of others at risk of dying off.
How much more do you need to actually NOT like the guy?

Christel| 4.6.12 @ 6:46PM

Obama will repeat this again. He is the "Rerun" Candidate. Expect same old Summer days of "Reruns" on t.v. He is soooo yesterday. He is like the disco guy running around in platforms with his shirt open and it is 1999...trying to pick-up girls half his age...talking about how great a dancer he is. Turns my stomach.

Controse| 4.6.12 @ 6:46PM

Ben if you are not upset, concerned about ObamaCare you are either a secret member of Congress or the upper reaches of the Administration since they are exempt or you don't much enjoy your liberty. If you are subject to ObamaCare you have lost your liberty. Better pay attention Ben before you lose your liberty.

Col Bat Guano| 4.6.12 @ 6:47PM

"I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time. "

Ben, I don't like him at all. I find him to be a condescending jerk nearly every time he opens that voluminous hole under his nose.

Newzaroo| 4.6.12 @ 6:48PM

...might we trust you won't vote for him again.

Erik| 4.6.12 @ 6:49PM

The Constitution clearly states the ONLY power to veto laws is the President!

The Constitution does NOT give the UNELECTED Supreme Ct the power to strike down (nullify) laws passed by the representatives of the people-the Congress!! As Jefferson said in 1804, this would make the Constitituion a thing of WAX!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....aKzgWOm68w

George True| 4.7.12 @ 4:05PM

Where do you get this nonsense? Striking down unconstitutional legislation is PRECISELY the job description of the Supreme Court. And the fact that the court is unelected is absolutely irrelevant. The Constitution itself stipulates that the court shall be APPOINTED, and that they shall be a CO-EQUAL branch of government.

You are parroting a leftist narrative that is pure drivel.

Barack Mugabe| 4.6.12 @ 6:49PM

I don't see how you can find this arrogant, lecturing, demagogic, race-baiting imperialist likeable, in any respect whatsoever.

Aside from being an abject failure, an imperialist and a constitution-destroying wrecking ball, he's a complete jerk.

Sally McBryde-Rose| 4.6.12 @ 6:53PM

Mr. Obama is a socialist-marxist who is moving us intentionally toward a Marsist government. Why should Mr. Stein be surprised when, under Obama's administration, the country is moved toward the Chavez model? Obama KNOWS the Constitution....and hates it.

Erik| 4.6.12 @ 7:01PM

The Cold War is OVER, honey! Give it up.
Communist Revolutions come about suddenly by revolucione', after the people have been exploited and suppressed too much just like the GOP is trying to do.

ADuhe| 4.7.12 @ 2:46AM

Seek medical care Erik

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 7:06PM

Sally, before you mention Marxism again, you should first read about what it is. Factually, you couldn't be more wrong. Nixon was far more the Marxist than Obama is, and no one calls Nixon a Marxist (because he wasn't either).

If your thing is you really just want to call Obama a nasty name, may I suggest asshole or shithead? Or if those are too off-color, perhaps poo-poo head? Your comments will sound marginally smarter if you make that change.

janvones| 4.6.12 @ 7:48PM

Exactly Sally. Note the hysteria of your critics and take it as proof of your accuracy.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 8:13PM

So, I point out that Sally clearly misunderstands the meaning of "Marxism" (just as you do), and somehow that's hysteria? Are you saying you don't know what that word means either? Or are you prepared to point out my hysteria?

Matthew Jones| 4.6.12 @ 9:43PM

Well said. Before using a declarative statement, go to Wikipedia and read the definition. Same with people calling Obama a Nazi. "Yeeha! It's got Socialism in it's name! Let's get Obama Nazi!" His policies, platform or campaign promises don't even come close to the definitions of Communism or Nazism. And don't fool yourself into thinking the US is based on Socialism. Social Security, Unemployment, Fire Department, Police Department, Water Department.....

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 6:54PM

A couple things:

1) Obama did not "warn" the supreme court to do anything. He didn't threaten or cajole. There are no examples you can provide that suggest that he did. What he did was offer an opinion of what the supreme court would do. While doing so, he affirmed multiple times that the Supreme Court has the final say. You're free to disagree with that if you like. But to call it a "warning" is just another sad attempt for republicans to try and paint themselves as victims. It's childish and should stop.

2) Obama is arguing against "activist judges" overturning legislation that was voted on by Congress. Exactly how is that different from when a republican argues against activist judges overturning legislation that was voted on by Congress?

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:13PM

Strawman, Paul. Republicans and conservatives (they're not the same thing) typically complain about judicial activism not when said judges overturn laws, but when they WRITE them out of whole cloth. See, e.g., Griswold, Roe, myriad civil rights cases (particularly the ones where judges run school systems and prisons).

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 9:48PM

I know all too well that republicans are not conservative, but thanks for the reminder. Conservatism has a long and valid tradition. Republicans (conservatism's mutant stepchildren) are simply authoritarian nationalists who will say and do anything to accumulate power.

With that in mind, your claim that they don't like judges who write laws out of whole cloth is nonsense. What do you think Bush v Kerry was?

No, the fact is, you like it when judges are activist in putting republicans in power, and you don't like it when they're activist in other ways. Try not to pretend there's some overarching guiding principal in all this.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 9:48PM

Sorry, meant to say "Bush vs Gore," not "Bush v Kerry."

Paul| 4.10.12 @ 9:19PM

Also, I notice you didn't contest the first point I made, that Obama did not warn or threaten the supreme court, and that the reason you're all pretending otherwise is in a sad effort to paint yourselves as victims.

The DA| 4.6.12 @ 6:56PM

President Obama could not possibly be so clueless about the constitution. That's what make this a truly scary situation. His comments were meant solely to foment a backlash against Republicans and conservatives if and when Obamacare goes down. It is a desperately cynical campaign strategy for a candidate whose administration has been a total disaster. It doesn't matter to him if the legal community and the pundits point out the absurdity of his legal acumen. President Obama knows that the millions who have little knowledge of the law are not going to give a hoot what the eggheads have to say. He'd rather stir the pot. The man has no shame.

Peggy| 4.6.12 @ 7:01PM

I firmly believe that bho knows the Constitution and exactly what he's doing. He is well along the way of destroying America as we know it. He is working to make it a 3rd world country with no real power in the world. I think that it is congress who does not know the Constitution and has no idea how to stop him.

Roy N.| 4.6.12 @ 7:02PM

Ben writes "I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time. " I don't. He is a petulant, adolescent, man-child whose arrogance knows no bounds. Most of us can't stand him.

DK | 4.6.12 @ 7:27PM

join in your "most of us". The potus definitely displays a pretentious and unjustified arrogance that portends four years of tyranny, if he is reelected.

FiddlerBob| 4.6.12 @ 7:08PM

Obama knows the Constitution well enough to keep the circumstances of his birth secret to the point of issueing falsified documents and to keep the folks attention away from the fact that his father was a British/Kenyan subject. This means that, as Mr. Obama has openly admitted (oops), he was born under British jurisdiction. Pay no attention to the man behind the mirror.

He knows that the Supreme Court established as binding precedent in Minor v Happersett, 1875 that a natural born citizen is one born in the country to CITIZEN PARENTS. He even used this definition as sponsor of SR511.

Oh, and "Pay no attention to the man behind the mirror." Telling the truth could disrupt the dinner party. How crass!!

Pat| 4.6.12 @ 7:14PM

Why do people find Obama likable when he is not genuine? He has lied or flip flopped on so much, and has only been true on the negatives - like "negotiating with the Russians" to disarm ourselves, and bankrupting coal, and energy prices skyrocketing. His hypocrisy on the prior debt, - a Saul Alinsky follower his agenda is to bankrupt/overwhelm the economy. Likable?!?

James| 4.6.12 @ 7:15PM

Obama was referring to major legislation regarding health access which none has been overturned on constitutional grounds since before the new deal. To use a broad brush statement about overturning is a cheap tactic. The supreme five are not always known for judicial restraint as in the completely made up law , out of whole cloth, that no legislature voted for and overruled the legitimate voting rights, in Bush V. Gore. After that unconstitutional act, the Supreme's need to be reminded of their own judicial activism.

DK | 4.6.12 @ 7:25PM

Ben: well said as usual. I agree with all that you said here. At one time I thought he was upbeat but I am more disappointed in this man every day. I did not vote for him but I was hoping he would at least have some redeeming qualities.... Those hopes have diminished exponentially the last two years. His arrogance is most offensive and portends a tyrannical personality.

Jim Sweeney | 4.6.12 @ 7:30PM

Why say a "juvenile 1937 CCNY attitude" when what you really mean is the attitude of the communistic Jews of New York, when CCNY was almost totally Jewish. Jews are, sadly, notorius democrats, socialists and big-government lovers. Why is beyond me. You ought to comment on that issue from time to time.

Paul Smith| 4.6.12 @ 7:33PM

And if all that doesn't give you pause, go watch "The Pelican Brief" starring Julia Roberts.

Jones | 4.6.12 @ 7:36PM

I'm not so sure Obama doesn't know how the Constitution works. What I'm reasonably sure of is, he thinks Americans are dumb enough to not know how the Constitution works.

Also, obama is not likeable. He comes across as an insufferable pr|ck.

Kent Clizbe | 4.6.12 @ 7:37PM

Ben,

You should be scared. And you're quite naive if Mr Obama ever seems like a "nice guy" to you.

Obama's hate-America-first political platform has always been there. He just lied about it during the 2008 election. But it was there. All you had to do was look and think.

Obama is nothing new. He is the culmination of the Politically Correct Progressives' (PC-Progs) 80 years of deliberate covert influence designed to destroy our country.

They targeted the transmission belts of American culture--where our unique values used to be passed on to our children. Education/academia; the media; Hollywood.

They inserted the payload: "America is a racist, sexist, foreigner-hating, capitalist hell-hole that must be destroyed." And they created the attitude of "hip coolness" to go with the hatred.

Full details of the operation, the case officers and their American influence agents: www.willingaccomplices.com

Every American should read the website. Read the book if you have time. It's on Amazon.com.

Happy to send you a copy to review.

It explains why you should be afraid, and exposes the roots of PC-Prog politics.

Kent Clizbe
kent@kentclizbe.com
www.willingaccomplices.com

gmedmed| 4.6.12 @ 7:37PM

I wonder what speeches Ben Stein watches...all I ever seem to observe is a whining, negative, narcissistic, cocky attitude.

bscook111| 4.6.12 @ 7:38PM

Mr. Stein, if this is your first awareness of Obama as aspiring dictator with little knowledge of, and less belief in our country then you are very slow on the uptake.

Ellen K| 4.6.12 @ 7:39PM

First of all, this president seems to believe that the ends always justifies the means. His agenda trumps the will of any other organization or individual. What I find curious is how he waves around his Harvard laurels, but seemingly was the first Harvard Law Review editor to never write an opinion. Really? It's gotten to the point that any public incident that happens on a weekend, I look for what story is hidden behind. I know this is cynical to think this, but I truly believe that the uproar over the shooting of the 17 year old in Florida would never have happened had the SCOTUS not been casting a scathing look at ACA. In another life, I think Obama was standing on a corner running a shell game. You cannot believe a word he says. And we can't afford four more years of a lame duck opportunist in power.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 7:52PM

Ellen, I'm not sure if your comment was meant to be scrutinized (and if so I apologize), but I have a question about this: His agenda trumps the will of any other organization or individual.

Let's look that in terms of the health care debate. Obama reached out to republicans and blue dog dems to craft a plan that was conceived by republicans in the 90s and implemented by a republican in Massachusetts. That's the factual origin of "Obamacare," with all the "marxist socialst" nonsense notwithstanding. Given that, what do you suppose his agenda was, and which organizations and individuals were trumped by it?

janvones| 4.6.12 @ 7:47PM

Why didn't you run for President, Mr. Stein?

You are at least as qualified as Gingrich and eminently moreso than the Socialist creep from Massachusetts who is about to have bought the GOP nomination.

I blame you for not running. You would have won.

harry| 4.6.12 @ 8:34PM

I heard this very question asked of Ben in a meeting of 1000 people. He took the road of a comedian and suggested there was a woman or two in his past that would come out and embarrass him. He is an entertainer and that morning he told some of the oldest jokes and got no laughs until he reverted to his self deprecatory remarks, which did get laughs.

He has never run much of anything and is not qualified to be much more than the White Huse Jester.

S valenti| 4.6.12 @ 8:11PM

Obama is not stupid;rather, he thinks we are. His comments weren't directed at the justices, they were aimed at his supporters those who though educated are besotted and those who are stupid and also besotted.

Josh| 4.6.12 @ 8:18PM

What's startling is that Ben thinks that Judicial Review is a power given to the Supreme Court by the Constitution.

"Judging whether or not a law is constitutional is precisely, exactly what the Supreme Court does."

No it most certainly is not. Nowhere in the list of powers granted to the Supreme Court will you find anything that gives them a power like that. It doesn't even make sense. The Constitution itself is the supreme law of the land, NOT the Court. It's like saying 9 people should have the unlimited power to shape our laws any way they see fit. Lunacy.

Because the power of Judicial Review is not given to the courts by the Constitution, that means that as per the 10th Amendment, that power rests with the States. Of course, that isn't how it works right now. Right now the Court regularly judges the constitutionality of laws, which is unconstitutional. Go figure. Who knows how long it's really been since our country has worked the way the Founders intended?

William Cook| 4.6.12 @ 8:20PM

I wonder how much longer Ben and others like him will be allowed to editorialize. How much longer before the “Chicago Way” begins to press in, or DHS gives him extra scrutiny when passing through airports or leaving / entering the country? The BHO machine is watching!

james gore| 4.6.12 @ 8:25PM

Obama scares me too; but beyond him, the voters who are either so ignorant or uncaring that they voted for him are even scarier. Even when we get rid of Obama, they will still be there.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 8:48PM

Imagine how the rest of the world feels about Bush supporters.

harry| 4.6.12 @ 8:29PM

The President was correct in reminding the Court that laws are presumed to be constitutional and reminding all of us that the Court was not elected directly by the populous. The fact that CJ Rogers made a show of the three day oral arguments, a first in American history, certainly merited a reminder by the President of the role of the court. The issue is not if they like the law; the issue is if it is unconstitutional. Many of the questions unfairly suggested that the Commerce Clause had never been used to require payment. That flies in the face of many cases and our history.
The grand standing was done by four Justices. The President had every right to speak out in support of his program.
Your references to his law school roots is a silly argument intended to suggest the President is not informed. He certainly is. You are using a red herring argument, Ben. Cases are not decided by the law school that educated anyone, but on the Constitution. Your argument is silly.

David in MA| 4.6.12 @ 8:50PM

And so are you!

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:21PM

Wow, where to start. The Chief Justice's name is "Roberts," not "Rogers." Please cite one case (of the "many cases and our history") where the Commerce Clause requires "payment," and explain why it would be "unfair" for the Supreme Court to suggest that it does not. And that last paragraph makes no sense at all. Really, it doesn't.

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:23PM

Oh, and "populace" was the word you meant to use, not "populous." One is a noun that has to do with electing people, the other an adjective that has to do with population density.

David in MA| 4.6.12 @ 8:37PM

COMMUNISTS, Masters of Deceit.....there was a booklet by that name in circulation at one time, I believe.

David in MA| 4.6.12 @ 8:48PM

I have wondered for a long time if obozo's college documents and his admissions of ocumplishments are not actually documents, etc., of his fathers and mothers that he simply placed his name on and is using as his own.

Buck Ofama| 4.6.12 @ 9:04PM

As each day passes and Amateur Hour continues, led by this egomaniac, Ovomit, it becomes ever more urgent: WE MUST RID THE WHITE HOUSE OF THE COMMIE C0CKSUCKER ASAP.

Chris| 4.6.12 @ 10:58PM

your a complete moron who is infeccting the lives of your children with hate, go back under the rock you crawl out of & hide cause 4 more years are coming your way .no gop president until 2200 not good enough ever. your a traitor to your country you think you love, no one love a idiot fool like you

CK| 4.6.12 @ 11:37PM

Get that kool-aid IV out of your arm before you overdose, moron.

civisisus| 4.6.12 @ 9:05PM

This entire piece groans with the weight of its own stupidity. Of course Obama is aware of the Court's powers. Anyone with a grain of intelligence could interpret his remarks as "encouraging" the Court to respect nearly a century's worth of Commerce clause precedent. It's pathetic to suppose Presidents of every political persuasion have not made similar use of the podium in the past.

The mind boggles at the depths of ignorance required to believe the President was asserting the Court lacks authority to review the Constitutionality of federal statutes.

Ben, you're often funny, but in this essay, you're merely ridiculous.

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:25PM

And what is your definition of "unprecedented"? I would argue that declaring hundreds of statutes unconstitutional, going back to 1803, establishes a pretty firm precedent.

Buck Ofama| 4.6.12 @ 9:06PM

Would love to see Romney offer his Harvard transcripts, and DEMAND same from the g0ddamned c0cksucker... the clown excuse for a president, the anointed one, the bowing ass-kissing embarrassing joke: OVOMIT.

Chris| 4.6.12 @ 11:01PM

your a most moron I have read lately, your not qualitified to open the sore under nose for anything cause no substance of class exist in you, i hope you don't have kids cause who wants genic defective brats of your running around polluting the world with you hate,complete pig is too good for you, hitler fuck your mother most likely

CK| 4.6.12 @ 11:36PM

Obamabots are so funny these days.

hank rearden-wi| 4.7.12 @ 7:23PM

Another Ivy League English major heard from.
Wow, what syphlittic backwater did you slither out from? Talk about polluting the world with hate - we could do with a whole lot less of your mumbling kind - EVERYWHERE.

Jack Kenny | 4.6.12 @ 9:10PM

Well, it's not so much ignorance as indifference to the Constitution, but who was the last President who respected the Constitution? Surely not Boy George (W. Bush), nor Mr. Stein's hero Richard Nixon, who explained to the world, "It's not illegal if the President does it."

James B.| 4.6.12 @ 9:22PM

"Unilaterally disarm?" With this administration's record, defense and foreign are not even an issue in this election. Period. The President has kept most of Bush's policies (along with many of his people) and terrorists are taken out, left and right. I'm sure Frank Gaffney/Mark Levin-type nut jobs can get some people in a lather but most people know got Bin Laden and who's bombing the holy living crap out of the bad guys.

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:29PM

Well, as for getting bin Laden, I believe that was SEAL Team 6, supported by 160 SOAR, following up on some painstaking work by the CIA and others in the intelligence community. If the President were to have turned down the opportunity, it would have been political suicide. So, yes, technically he did give the order, but so would have President McCain.

CK| 4.6.12 @ 10:10PM

Obama pulled the trigger, he did not build the gun.

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 11:41PM

My guess is he's never pulled a trigger in his life (although I get your point). At least on the DMZ he was smart enough (or his handlers were) to take the lens caps off the binoculars for the mandatory photo op, unlike Clinton.

Matthew Jones| 4.6.12 @ 9:32PM

Franklin D. Roosevelt also questioned the Supreme Court over their ruling that "The New Deal" was unconstitutional also. If I recall, that bit of legislation pulled the US out of The Great Depression. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, also criticized the Supreme Court during their tenure. Only now, with a Black president, does this become an issue. And come on Ben, what does Oil subsidies have to do with health care? Stay on point, this article is all over the place. Sounds like "Grasping at Straws."

Jim| 4.6.12 @ 9:41PM

No, I think the evidence is pretty clear that World War II pulled the US out of the Great Depression. Nothing works to end unemployment like taking 10 million out of the workforce and putting them in uniform at low wages.

CK| 4.6.12 @ 10:08PM

Bush criticized the SC AFTER they made their decision. BIG DIFFERENCE!
Obama can criticize all he wants, AFTER they make their decision.

Edward Cropper | 4.6.12 @ 9:33PM

Obama must be a nice guy, doesn't suck-up O'Reilly tell his viewers that at least once every program?
Also remember Mr. Stein supported dirt-bag
Al Franken for US Senator.

bahmi| 4.6.12 @ 9:36PM

Mr. Stein is just your garden variety Obama lover. He huffs and puffs about Obama's distrust of the Constitution, but just thinks Obama is wonderful in all ways. Stein would love Hitler, he killed millions but was so cute when he interacted with children as he wore his lederhosen. A snake is always a snake, Mr. Stein. Who better than you should know this?

Matthew Jones| 4.6.12 @ 9:44PM

This comment is brought to you by delusion.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 9:50PM

How did you pick that one to criticize? They're all about the same, only different by degree.

Erik| 4.6.12 @ 9:39PM

A clear case of JUDICIAL ACTIVISM!
The US is NOT a Monarchy of 9 black robed aristocrats.

Paul| 4.6.12 @ 9:52PM

You forgot to add "...unless their decision appoints a republican as president."

Jim| 4.7.12 @ 11:47AM

OK, since you've raised this multiple times, go back and actually read the opinion. The bottom line is that, in a federal election, states can't change the rules for how votes are counted after the votes are in. Doesn't sound very radical to me. And by the way, multiple recounts, by NYT and others, confirm that then-Governor Bush did indeed have more votes than Vice President Gore. It's been 12 years, Paul. It's OK to let it go.

Paul| 4.9.12 @ 2:14PM

Bush vs Gore was considered so radical and out-of-the-ordinary by the supreme court justices that they included in the decision a statement that that judgment should not be considered legal precedent for any cases that might follow, but should be considered purely a one-off. The decision has been hailed as one of the most partisan, corrupt products of the Supreme Court.

You like it purely because it put a republican in power. Don't try and give it any further virtue than that, it just makes you look foolish. Had the supremes put a democrat in power, you would still be howling about it almost as loudly as you complain about Jimmy Carter and Mary Jo Kopechne's death.

Dan Johnson| 4.6.12 @ 9:56PM

I believe this entire discussion has to be viewed in context of the alternative. President Obama is so deeply flawed that if the focus can be placed on the President's policies and beliefs it will be Romney's race to lose. What is not often discussed is how would Romney perform as President as opposed to the constant discussion of how he must perform as candidate. This time around I am more interested in experience and the ability to do the job. I feel we currently have a pure politician in the White House where every utterance is placed through a political prism. I long for true leadership.

Mike Dar| 4.6.12 @ 10:03PM

Ben, you're behind the times. People are aware the Judicial are appointees, By Presidents... and other politicians. They WILL do, for the powers that be, not intrinsicly by law.
Woe are us to live in a time when contract law rather than rights are the concern most of the time for the highest Judges.
These Judges are simply doing what the rest are in power are doing. Going along to get along.
AND satisfying the the ones whom put the politicians in office.
Such that we are aware that the dirivitives will continue to rise where futures exist in Oil. Which make commisions for selling/originating the dirivitives associated with the oil market-rising.
Red or Blue, it's about getting in the cash flow from the Federal reserve and the disbursement of those same funds.
Obama is just another agenda driven strawman, funded by N.Y. Banks, Primary dealers to the Federal Reserve, doing what all strawmen do, try to not catch on fire.

richme| 4.6.12 @ 10:06PM

Ben is 100% correct. Obama is juvenile who hates oil companies. Good news is Romney will do a lot better.

“We can be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil.”
Candidate Barack Obama
Springfield, Ill Energy Speech

JerryA| 4.6.12 @ 10:12PM

Ben, what did you expect from a man who thinks there are 58 states in the Union?

Nixonfan| 4.6.12 @ 10:21PM

Ben, Here's my question: What courses in con law did he teach at Chicago and what were his course materials? Something te;;s me it fell within the penumbra of critical legal studies.

Henry Cilley| 4.6.12 @ 10:26PM

Ben doesn't like Obama, that's why he sticks with the simple interpretation "Obama thinks the Supreme Court never declares a law unconstitutional", rather than the explained, and explained again "precedent" of not overturning a national economic law regarding the commerce clause since the nineteen thirties.

I have a feeling, even after the overexplanation By the Pres and Press Sec carney, Mr. Stein would still have problems with Obama's intellect. Notice how he goes out of his way to say how much he likes him because he's "upbeat" even though he's stupid.

I bet some of your best friends are "upbeat"...Ben.

grassroot| 4.6.12 @ 10:40PM

Obummer does of course know the
constitution and the proper operation of
the supreme court. He is at his root a
Marxist and a top down dictator, would be, as he is a n acolyte of Saul Alinsky and wants to tear down what capitalism
is left in this country. He and his bosom
budy Bill Ayers who wakes up every morning thinking, " Today I'll take
down capitalism". Yes, he knows what
we have in this country and how we
began, but is against all of it. A true
marxist. He said when he began to take
over the presidency, " If you want to know where I'm coming from, look at
the people I surround myself with.
All marxist leaning czars, bent on controlling the populace.

valwayne| 4.6.12 @ 10:45PM

That other side of Obama, terrifyingly, is all there really is Mr Stein. The other part is just political cover!

Independent Texan| 4.6.12 @ 10:53PM

Ben: "If he does not know how the government works under the Constitution, he should not be President."

Tex: "Ben, if you do not know by now that Obama doesn't care about the Constitution, you should not be a political analyst.

Chris| 4.6.12 @ 11:04PM

the lowest form of white man on earth is a white man from texas, like perry, w, g h w bush, you and i am sure your genic defective family,guys like you make me wish santa anna had won

trumpman| 4.7.12 @ 12:02AM

So true, "Independent Texan". All of the well-known conservative pundits waste our time with fluff like this, instead of exposing the truth. It's like a mass murderer being asked if his meal was aesthetically pleasing.

Chris| 4.6.12 @ 10:55PM

your impression of the President proves that the right thinking gop people are not only totally cluesless about it seems EVERY issue from woman rights, to stop giving tax breaks to the oil companies, to thinking that romney is qualitfied to be elected(Big Joke), to swearing themselfes to a traitor like grover norquist which makes the traitor to my country, now your notion that the President who's alot more inteligent on his worse day than you are on your best doesn't understand complex issues like the right thinking corrupt supreme court. Like most gop idiots you don't even understand the question why he should point his finger at them for being disloyal to our country. Because he can, W did. and he went about fixing it like the President will too.

CK| 4.7.12 @ 12:00AM

Obama intelligent? I guess the Constitutional Law Professor failed Constitutional Law 101.
Where are his grades? I want to see his college transcripts.

hank rearden-wi| 4.7.12 @ 7:38PM

What? Aside from basic English you missed your classes on US Law and the Constitution, too? Please, countless immigrants before you are cringing at your lack of basic US civics knowledge. You're an embarrassment to your home country. Go back, they're burning down your childhood home, in shame. Don Rickle's just called - even he says your bitterness sucks.

Questionman| 4.6.12 @ 11:01PM

President Obama arguing against more tax cuts for the rich, while running Trillions in deficits, and deregulating the crooks on Wall Street AGAIN, has a lot of historical value.

Deficit when Jimmy Carter left office; $1 Trillion.
Ronnie Ray Gun, who was President of the Screen Actors Guild, before he was against unions, ran up $5 Trillion in deficits while cutting taxes for the rich, deregulating the financial system and then bailing out the S&L's and Chrysler with taxpayer money causing the Wall Street crash of 1987 and 10% unemployment.
Clinton campaign signs "It's the economy stupid".
Clinton got the revenue and spending side sorted out in 8 years and left Dumya budget surpluses and no additional deficit.
Dumya decides Ronnie Ray Gun didn't do enough to destroy America so he cuts taxes for the rich, runs up another $6 Trillion in deficits and deregulates the thieves causing the $850 Billion TARP and stock market crash of 2008 leading to 10% unemployment.
Currently, the USA has the lowest effective tax rates since the 1950's but we are spending Trillions on taxpayer subsidies for global corporations that are making record profits and tax cuts for the rich while contemplating cutting Medicare and Social Security according to the GOP mantra of restoring feudalism and serfdom .
Now, we are paying almost $400 Billion a year in interest, on deficits run up by anti American GOP economic terrorists, and that will be so every year going forward, no matter who is President, because these pimps for the 1% want to bring down our Constitutionally elected President.

Obama is not a marxist or socialist. Obama is not a super scary dictator. He is just a willing corporate puppet with NO REAL POWER or true say in ANY policy making decision.

And no he's not a "fraud". He is a very important person in history. Just like every other president.

The scumbags here Believes anyone that does not think or look like him is Evil.And you racist scumbags have the galls to call The President a traitor?
He is not a Muslim or a traitor. Surprisly, you hate being called "Racists" but that's what you are. The ONLY people who hate this man are in fact, racists that hate that America elected a Black Man as President!

You people are disgusting and make our country look bad!

CK| 4.6.12 @ 11:57PM

No, Obama is just a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

Just saying.

Defend| 4.6.12 @ 11:02PM

How the hell can anyone - ANYONE - who has taken Civics in high school not know that the person who calls himself Barack Obama is not qualified to hold the office of POTUS?

An admitted dual citizen, he's not qualified or eligible for POTUS.

Hello?

threeleafclover| 4.6.12 @ 11:06PM

Obama has proved once more - the mediocre man is always at his best. To use the argument" a group of unelected persons.." and not be called on his little fiefdom of czars, ruining our lives - his sneak-'em-in-the-back door recess appointment of people he knew could not survive confirmation hearings strains credulity.

Obama portrays the Supreme Court as a bunch of black hats in black robes who just rode in on black horses and took over the joint.

Why does Elena Kagan, who helped fashion this monstrosity also get to vote on it? Who chose this unelected person?

Ernest Schwell| 4.6.12 @ 11:47PM

Pharaoh Hussein is a useless nig-nog qunt dirty shxtter

trumpman| 4.6.12 @ 11:49PM

Ben Stein wrote: "This man is getting to scare me." - Really...just starting?; "What else besides the Constitution does Mr. Obama not know?" - Au contraire, Mr. Stein. I guess there's a remote chance otherwise, but IMO this deceiver knows exactly what he is doing.

The only reason that Obama touts the dubious claim of his being a Constitutional scholar is to use and abuse it to advance his Marxist-communist agenda.

Our angst about Obama's edicts, policies and proclamations can be traced back to the usurpation of one our the Constitution's primary safeguards - Obama illegally holds the office as he is NOT a natural born citizen. Moreover, both Congress and the Court are complicit in allowing this national travesty to continue unabated, while the mainstream media act as a fifth column undermining America and its sacred values.

How is it that writers for so-called conservative portals suppress information about Obama's forged/missing documents (see Arpaio investigation) and Obama's Constitution obliteration (not a natural born citizen). Any conservative pundit not exposing Obama's crimes is in fact aiding his destruction of our Country. "Silence in the face of evil is evil itself: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer~

References:
- foundational Constitution breach - http://www.patriotsunion.org/P.....ations.htm
- the media joins in - http://www.canadafreepress.com.....icle/39748

(p.s. - great insight comments from "Wayne SW" above)

Rocky Mackintosh | 4.7.12 @ 12:00AM

Great article ... Love Ben's work ... Typo in paragraph 8: "The provide employment to millions ...". The should be They.

RED white and BLUE | 4.7.12 @ 12:13AM

I am sure President Obama knows his days in the White House are numbered. The impending Supreme Court rejection of 'Obamacare' will be another reminder of this President's incompetence. Sadly, November can't come soon enough.

Somebody| 4.7.12 @ 12:22AM

Ben Stein has said more than once that he likes unions. And now he says he likes Obama. No real conservative likes unions or Obama.

Randall Smith| 4.7.12 @ 1:41AM

The President supposedly went to Harvard Law School? You're questioning Harvard Law's accuracy to record who attended their school? Shame on you, in the name of Harvard.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 10:08PM

He did go to HLS. That I have no doubt. I know people who went to HLS and YLS, and Michigan LS as well. All were below me in intellectual firepower, and I'm just an normal country doc.

PNP| 4.7.12 @ 2:50AM

Question: What Constitution was he being taught, as a Law professor, what laws did he teach and did his students know this?

JGD| 4.7.12 @ 2:53AM

Ben - Take a glance at the wikipedia entry for Lochner v. New York, and I think you'll see what Obama was talking about.

Rich Rostrom| 4.7.12 @ 3:44AM

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, there is considerable discussion of these points. Some who took his Con Law class at U of Chicago remember him as a good instructor, whose personal views on constitutional controversies were invisible. His course syllabus appears balanced and appropriate.

All this makes his remarks the other day all the more surprising. There is no question that Obama knows better.

Right now Obama's Justice Department is arguing for the courts to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA was passed by a far stronger majority than Obamacare, and has been repeatedly upheld by courts in several different Federal circuits.

So what the heck was he thinking?

RME KRNL | 4.7.12 @ 4:54AM

Although never the law professor the media persists in saying he was (he was a law lecturer -- big difference), Obama, although also not as "brilliant" as the media also says he is, does know how things are supposed to work under the Constitution. He just doesn't care. And, like many bullies, he constantly pushes to see how far he can go in getting away with things. Bullies always push, until someone pushes back -- like the 5th Circuit Courts of Appeals recently did.

jeffmet| 4.7.12 @ 5:26AM

President Obama very well knows about Marburry vs Madison. He was making the Court do a little thinking before the decide on this case. Conservative commentators are way out of bounds with this assessment.

Richard Billies | 4.7.12 @ 6:25AM

Being likeable and attractive are the characteristics that enabled Mr. Obama to be elected in the first place. He was a politician of very little experience with an ability to make speeches. The voters never looked beyond the surface and delved into the substance of his beliefs.

Rod Brooker| 4.7.12 @ 6:59AM

Ben, how disingenuous of you. You know very well the President is taking a line historically favored by the Right in addressing SCOTUS as he is. Next he'll be saying "Unelected judges legislating from the bench." Sound familiar? Maybe you've used it once or twice yourself?

Pelton| 4.7.12 @ 9:25AM

He knows allot, but clearly he just doesn't care about the poor.

The libs talk a good game, but could care less about the poor and middle class. They are stuck in the 60's.

Verne| 4.7.12 @ 9:29AM

Ben, how can you "like a guy," who is destroying our constitution and our Country?

ADM| 4.7.12 @ 9:33AM

How would our Man-child President be able to constantly fly around the country and the world on "the big jet", without "Big Oil"? Does he think jet fuel comes out of thin air?

Avigdor| 4.7.12 @ 9:35AM

The New York Times, July 30, 2008: "... At a school where economic analysis was all the rage, he taught RIGHTS, RACE AND GENDER..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07.....wanted=all

russ in nc| 4.7.12 @ 9:45AM

Affirmative Action resulted in a completely incompetant and unqualified "community organizer" rising to political heights in Chicago, Springfield and now in Washington DC. Next November will be a test. The results will go far to answer the question: Are we Citizens or are we Subjects?

Avigdor| 4.7.12 @ 9:53AM

If anyone can find the audio or a transcript [that hasn't been scrubbed] from Obama's participation in a public radio panel discussion on Chicago's WBEZ-FM, entitled "Slavery and the Constitution" (9/6/2001), that would be a public service. From NewsMax coverage:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama described the U.S. Constitution as having “deep flaws” during a September 2001 Chicago public radio program, adding that the country’s Founding Fathers had “an enormous blind spot” when they wrote it.

Obama also remarked that the Constitution “reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.”

The discussion that led to the statements took place on the now-defunct Odyssey program, which also aired statements by Obama bemoaning the fact that the Civil Rights movement had failed to bring about an economic redistribution of wealth in America.

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideC...../id/326165

edward reese| 4.7.12 @ 10:05AM

I seldom diasagree with Stein, but in this article I take issue with his summation that Obama is usually upbeat. When Obama appears to be upbeat is when he is actually at his lying and acting best. He is not upbeat, he is doing a most excellent of fooling the American public.

jrl| 4.7.12 @ 10:08AM

BStein- you're too kind..and maybe wishful thinking bc it seems so beneath the presidency - which it is. Since you dont have to be a "constitutional scholar" to understand Marb/Madison, or the role of SCOTUS, obviously Obama knows this narrative is absolutely false - even if he thinks it is wrong and not worthy of compliance or respect - but is purposely appealing to the worst emotions of those ignorant of this basic understanding of the judiciary. He is community organizing for his re-election - those who might be persuaded to think or already do, that "the system" is rigged against them, without his help, would deny you your rights and the life you deserve, and which the Right is trying to deny you. Cynical, a false choice, but perfectly in line with his entire presidency.

Timely Renewed | 4.7.12 @ 11:41AM

Obama's hypocrisy here is palpable. He has no problem when the courts overturn laws he doesn't like, such as Arizona's immigration law.

However, conservatives need to remember that there is such a thing as inappropriate judicial activism. That is not where the Supreme Court is forcing the Congress to follow the Constitution, as with (we hope) the Obamacare litigation. It is when the Supreme Court itself does not follow the Constitution, as with all the decisions of the FDR appointed Supreme Court which ripped a massive hole in the interstate commerce clause to allow the vast expansion of the federal government's power over the last 75 years.

The solution must go deeper than simply replacing this arrogant ideologue. Further, if we want to permanently stop and roll back the advance of the federal leviathan, we can not rely exclusively on the Supreme Court either. We need to revive the power the Framers gave the People which overrides even the Supreme Court - amendment. Even if Obamacare is overturned, that still leaves in place all those New Deal decisions and lots of other ways for the Left to take over our nation including our healthcare. Only when the Constitution is amended to restate and re-affirm the original limits on federal power will we restore our Republic and preserve our freedom from not only future Obamacares but every other federal encroachment on our rights. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com

Mary| 4.7.12 @ 12:16PM

Excellent--and frightening.

BackToBasics| 4.7.12 @ 1:27PM

He's not likeable, he's arrogant and his agenda is to not only change America as we know it but to impoverish and subjugate the white population as much as possible.

Rebecca Phillips | 4.7.12 @ 2:00PM

SCOTUS is politically biased.

hank rearden-wi| 4.7.12 @ 7:43PM

You are right - Breyer, Ruth Buzzy Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Lou Costello Kagen are hardcore Brezhnevians through and through. It's funny how the only ones being considered as possible swing votes are not mentioned in the list above.

Greg Jones| 4.7.12 @ 6:05PM

" . . . getting to scare you"? Dude - what took you so long?

hank rearden-wi| 4.7.12 @ 7:04PM

"I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time." Really. Somebody please explain to me - Just WHAT is there to like about "Mr. Obama"?

Leslie Ferrell | 4.7.12 @ 7:49PM

Mr. Ben Stein,
I believe Laurence Tribe ( a familiar name) was one of Obama's professors, was he not?
What would he think of his student?
Thank you for your editorial, and other writings.
However, your defense of the GSA employees and their arrogant video was surprising! Again, thank you for your insightful articles and support of Fox News which seems to be the only legitimate news agency left in the USA.
LF

VincentMVNY | 4.7.12 @ 9:48PM

Huh?
"I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat"

Come on Ben, grow up, Reagan was likeable and upbeat. This guy is an arrogant phony, self-agrandizing, lying dog. His law review position was a popularity contest, at best he was an adjunct professor at Chicago. Funny how not one person has come forward as a former student of his classes. We agree on one thing, your reference to Con Law, i.e., how to con the American people into voting for him

Allen Jenkins| 4.8.12 @ 12:51AM

Thanks Mr. Stein and I hope the Passover brings joy to your family and enduring strength for the coming year!

It is unfortunate that the first Negro to run for the presidency came before we actually knew who he was. He never worked or held a job, never owned a business, never held public office until the next election.

He has sacked us with Cap & Trade, Obama-care, tortured big-oil, big-coal, coal powered fossil fuel generators and all the workers therein.

We now know that he "rescued" GM & Chrysler to gain the votes of the unions and has turned on them by allowing the price of gasoline to determine sales.

He has invested $B's in a solar-energy industry that unfortunately has no market.

There are now two types of professors of the Constitution, those that are proud of it's creation and those that wish it were abolished.

We have seen quite a show of the Republican Primaries. Rightly so...you cannot "appoint" or simply "elect" a President of the United States, for Presidents like master workers must be MADE, by experience and must show leadership and originality of actions, attitudes & aspirations they will be responsible to produce daily!

Let's make sure our next President of our United States of America has at least had years of showing they will be true to the Constitution and to the US-America!

Thanks again Ben, for sharing your knowledge and wit.

Allen Jenkins
United States of America, Tennessee, Cookeville

michigander_sandusky| 4.8.12 @ 12:55AM

I will give Mr. Obama credit for one thing: He proves the veracity of the Bible.

"...the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men." (Daniel 4:17)

CECrouch| 4.8.12 @ 1:32AM

Ben, I think you're better when you're talking to the squirrels; that ad was pretty good!

GLR| 4.8.12 @ 2:34AM

You are good Ben! We have been saying now for months that we were told how intelligent BHO is. But it is like, IF he is highly intelligent, then he is a traitor committing subversive actis against the country and not defending the Constitution. However, if he is not highly intelligent, then his acts show his intelligence is so low he cannot properly run this country. And for those out there wanting to scream "racist" at anyone opposed to BHO, it ain't the race, dude, it is all about his acts destroying the country, period, nothing else. never was, except of course for all those statements he made in his books that were as racist as can be. It is he, BHO, who is the racist, the Muslim, not a Christian and oh so much more! But now I agree with BHO, especially about following his CHANGE and HOPE ads and think all should follow that advice. IF we make the CHANGE from BHO, we shall be filled with HOPE forever more, as long as we keep the PROGRESSIVE Democrats out of our government!

Subotai| 4.8.12 @ 4:34AM

Ben Stein was nearly as boring and scripted in "FB's Day Out". Fact is, the Whackjobs whined for decades about judicial activism. Now that the good guys are doing it, they're whining because somebody is advocating actually following the Constitution: SCOTUS has rarely interfered w Commerce Clause (in spite of unAmerican Radicals' claims that somehow it used to mean something else). The Prez is right, the Whackjobs are wrong. If Romney is against this weird judicial activism, he's too dangerous to be Prez. I just never knew how much old Boring Ben had become radicalized.

Boomer| 4.16.12 @ 12:01AM

Subotai:

You obviously know nothing about Constitutional law. The commerce clause, until 1937, was recognized as allowing only regulation of the actual commerce between states, not of things that might be said to somehow "affect" commerce.

Contrary to your liberal bullcrap, Obama is not the second coming of Christ; he is the coming of unmitigated EVIL.

Michele San Pietro| 4.8.12 @ 1:59PM

Obama mistakes the United States for North Korea or Iran.

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:57PM

Actually, he's trying to turn the US into North Korea and Iran. And, he's well on the way to doing it, just to make everything "fair" so everyone is equally poor and miserable.

Marc Jeric| 4.8.12 @ 2:06PM

Let us consider the relative virtues of private corporation oil companies versus government-owned ones. Exxon handles twice as much oil as Pemex: Exxon has 80,000 employees and Pemex, the Mexican government-owned oil company, has 280,000 employees.

John II| 4.8.12 @ 9:26PM

What a strange experience scrolling through all these responses--the good ones, the bad ones, the bewildered ones. I guess the keynote is Professor Obama's single talent: he strikes exactly the right chord to do all he's interested in doing--aggrandizing power. He knows how to keep his base in line simply by blathering lefty bromides; and he knows how to flummox his enemies simply by eliciting rhetorically inspired responses, such as "I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time."

In fact, I certainly find the Professor contemptible and degenerate all the time. I have worked in academia for more than 40 years, and I know EXACTLY what the Professor is about--and Ben Stein gets paid 10 times more than I do to write and speak Romneyesque half-truths, complete with calculated faux-nuances.

Crap. Crap. Crap. But I love you anyhow, Ben.

And now back to Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" (2004), which I always watch this time of year as a penance. I particularly love the part in which Jesus invents the table.

John II| 4.8.12 @ 9:26PM

What a strange experience scrolling through all these responses--the good ones, the bad ones, the bewildered ones. I guess the keynote is Professor Obama's single talent: he strikes exactly the right chord to do all he's interested in doing--aggrandizing power. He knows how to keep his base in line simply by blathering lefty bromides; and he knows how to flummox his enemies simply by eliciting rhetorically inspired responses, such as "I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time."

In fact, I certainly find the Professor contemptible and degenerate all the time. I have worked in academia for more than 40 years, and I know EXACTLY what the Professor is about--and Ben Stein gets paid 10 times more than I do to write and speak Romneyesque half-truths, complete with calculated faux-nuances.

Crap. Crap. Crap. But I love you anyhow, Ben.

And now back to Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" (2004), which I always watch this time of year as a penance. I particularly love the part in which Jesus invents the table.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.12 @ 10:09PM

John II---may I recommend the argentinian film "Phase 7" for you. The politics are crap, as is usual in Argentina, but the thriller aspects are awesome.

John II| 4.8.12 @ 10:43PM

Thanks, Occie. I shall take your recommendation under advisement. (I still can't figure out how my rant posted twice.)

Occam's Tool| 4.9.12 @ 2:52AM

It happens to me, too.

For the reason why, read "Computers don't argue" by Gordon Dickson, which is available for free, on the web, I believe.

By the way, stay fantastic. I wish I had been blessed enough to have had you as a prof.

Bob N| 4.8.12 @ 10:45PM

Ben - you "find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time?" Then you must also find Hugo Chavez likeable and upbeat most of the time, because BHO is striving to be our Hugo Chavez. BHO is as likeable as the plague.

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:54PM

We know Chavez is likeable because he smiles all the time. LOL

Peggy | 4.9.12 @ 8:23AM

Likeable and upbeat? Oh Please!!!!!!!!!!!!
He is still fooling you! (I do believe you voted for this man)?
BO has one thing on his mind and that is to destroy this country.

JeffT| 4.9.12 @ 11:18AM

There will be a book written about what Obama doesn't know or has the wrong idea about. He is so ill-informed that he believes doctors cut off people's feet for money. He doesn't know that Pediatricians don't perform tonsillectomies. That's done by surgeons. He is the most ignorant man to ever be president. The tragedy is that he can get away with this nonsense because our system of education allows functional illiterates to get diplomas. The great unwashed believe Obama because they are ignorant. Kept that way by an underperforming, overpaid education syndicate.

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:52PM

Well, that's part of it, but actually the reason so many believe him is his voice. He SOUNDS oh so cultured to the unwashed masses because of his speaking voice. Of course, anyone with an educational level above about the 6th grade recognizes that he's a charlatan, but there aren't enough of us in the general population.

Angela| 4.9.12 @ 8:58PM

I don't find him likable or upbeat, ever.....

Patricia Keen | 4.13.12 @ 1:40AM

AGREE!!
I do not understand why people say, "I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time." He is a smug, condescending, narcissist LIAR. Who can 'like' someone like him, on any level?

Ronald Ackenberry| 4.10.12 @ 11:55AM

That's funny, I thought the SCOTUS, all of them, were supposed to know and uphold the Constitution on a solemn oath, too.

That sure went out the window with the 2004 presidential election travesty.

In any case, speculation at this point regarding their decision on Obamacare is futile because they are so erratic and unpredictable.

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:48PM

IMO, it'll come down to Justice Kennedy. The other 8 will be evenly split 4-4. If I had to bet, I'd bet, when push comes to shove, that he'll NOT scale back Congressional power under the commerce clause. Of course, the commerce clause was intended to allow regulation only of the commerce itself, not of things that might be said to "substantially affect" interstate commerce. But the court long ago abandoned common sense and history.

B. Johnson| 4.10.12 @ 2:52PM

Here's why Constitution "expert" Obama's warning the Supreme Court not to overturn Obamacare amounts to closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped.

Surprise! The USSC has previously decided the constitutionality of federal healthcare.

More specifically, what the mainstream media isn’t telling people about Obamacare is the following. Previous generations of justices have already clarified that public healthcare is a state power issue. This is evidenced by the terms "health laws" and "medical practice" in the following excerpts from case opinions. Note that some of the excerpts address healthcare laws and reflect the limits of Congress's Commerce Clause powers in a single sentence.

"State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

Note that Justice Barbour referenced the above excerpt in New York v. Miln, expanding it as follows.

"Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a state and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass." --Justice Barbour, New York v. Miln, 1837.

And before Constitution-ignoring socialist FDR nuked the Supreme Court with activist justices, Constitution-respecting justices had reflected on the excerpts above by clarifying in Linder v. United States that the states have never granted Congress the constitutional authority to stick its big nose into intrastate medical practice.

“Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously beyond the power of Congress.” –Linder v. United States, 1925. (But evidently not obvious to Obama, Reid and Pelosi.)

And for the icing on the cake concerning not only unconstitutional federal Obamacare, but also constitutionally unauthorized federal spending beyond healthcare issues, Justice John Marshall had clarified in general that Congress is prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues, taxes which Congress cannot justify under Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." --Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

Finally, given that the Court has already clarified that healthcare is a state power issue, individual states free to experiment with their own healthcare programs, the real reason that the constitutionality of Obamacare is now being challenged is the following imo. The 111th Congress wrongly ignored Article V of the Constitution which requires Congress to first successfully petition the states to ratify a proposed amendment to the Constitution which would have granted Congress specific new power, the power to regulate public healthcare in this case, before establishing Obamacare. And Congress has been wrongly ignoring its constitutionally limited powers and Article V since FDR was president; Article V is arguably the best kept secret of the unconstitutionally big federal government.

Paul| 4.10.12 @ 8:10PM

Your entire comment begins with a false premise: that Obama "warned" the Supreme Court not to overturn Obamacare. Nothing of the sort happened. He gave his opinion that they would not overturn it, and he supported that opinion with reasoning. You can freely disagree with that opinion and/or the reasoning. But to claim that he "warned" or "threatened" the supreme court is pure nonsense.

Of course, if you had an ounce of integrity, you would now go find some quotes from Obama's speech showing him clearly "warning" and "threatening." But because you absolutely lack integrity, and because no such quotes exist, you will now either quietly slink away, or write some kind of vacuous comment in retort.

Paul| 4.10.12 @ 8:21PM

Let me repeat the main point, in case it was unclear:

The "event" that everyone on this page is fretting and screaming about (Obama warning the supreme court not to overturn Obamacare) never occurred. Didn't you notice the conspicuous lack of quotations in Ben's article? Wouldn't it have been a more powerful article had it included a quote like "They better not overturn my health care legislation or they'll be sorry!!" said Obama from the Rose Garden. That's because Obama never said anything of the sort. Nothing even close. You're all whining about a fictitious event because the real events taking place do not support your worldview in any way whatsoever. That is illuminating to me, and I wish it were illuminating to you as well.

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:38PM

Paul:

He said it would be "unprecedented" for the court to overturn a major piece of legislation. His "warning" was implied, not stated expressly. It's his modus operandi.

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:44PM

B. Johnson:

What you don't recognize is that the court, after 1937 pretty much abandoned the concept that Article I, Sec. 8 of the constitution was any sort of limitation on Congressional power, and, in effect, converted the commerce clause into a bottomless fountain of new powers.

Patricia Keen | 4.13.12 @ 1:39AM

I do not understand why people say, "I actually find Mr. Obama likeable and upbeat most of the time." He is a smug, condescending, narcissist LIAR. Who can 'like' someone like him, on any level?

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:36PM

Patricia:

Exactly!!! The guy is not a loyal American; he is a traitor, pure and simple. He first showed it with his "Apology Tour" and everything since then has been of the same cloth.

Boomer| 4.15.12 @ 11:33PM

He knows they have overturned laws; he's actually speaking to try to convince those who are too stupid to know. It's pure intimidation on his part. Nothing more.

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