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Ben Stein's Diary
Master of Ceremonies
First, the National Gallery. Then, the Spectator’s 45th anniversary dinner.
Wednesday
Off to CNN to talk about “the
fiscal cliff.” That was fun but on the way out I ran into another
guest, an economist who spoke harshly to me. I guess he has his
reasons. I read the newspapers in the car. The Post and
the Times are in full Protektobama mode. Well, of course.
It is a cover up by the media. That’s how the liberals do it. The
right way. They are the law. Will the full truth about Benghazi and
Petraeus ever come out? Well, would any bank robbers be caught if
the robbers owned the police department?
Then, a lovely visit to the National Gallery of Art to see the Lichtenstein exhibit for the third time. The gallery was deserted and I got the best looks ever at those super art works. If you are possibly in D.C. in the next couple of months, don’t miss it. It is free and magnificent. I don’t know why, but it seems to me to be about one hundred times more alive than any other artist’s work that I know of. Maybe that’s because it’s so simple. That’s okay. Art can be simple and still great.
At our son’s boarding school, the perfect Cardigan Mountain School, the single best school of any kind that I know of anywhere, there was a chapel. I believe it was Congregational but it might have been Episcopal. In the front of the chapel was a small brass cross. Highly polished. It was haunting and yet completely simple.
Maybe the most beautiful object I have ever seen, framed in front of an immense mullioned window looking out at Cardigan Mountain and the fastnesses of New Hampshire.
As I left the National Gallery, I stopped to buy a necklace for Alex. As the saleswomen were ringing it up, I started singing, “Boom, boom, boom, boom.”
One of the women, with total grace, fluidity, and pitch, moved exactly right to the beat and said, “Uh, huh, huh, huh, huh,” precisely the way John Lee Hooker did it when he sang it. It was a great American moment. I hugged her and thanked her. Her name is Linda and I love her.
Then, off to pick up Alex — after a stop for a delicious hot dog at Five Guys on L Street. A man about my age waiting for his food at the counter told me he was a working man, a union electrician. “We need Nixon back again,” he said. “Someone who knows what he’s doing.”
I was very touched.
Alex, Bob Noah, and I headed over to the Capital Hilton for the Spectator’s 45th anniversary dinner.
It was fun, fun, fun. All the old pals. Aram Bakshian, super genius, super pal, Fr. Vince Rigdon, defender of life, Don Rumsfeld, Ben Wattenberg, Michael Novak, and, of course, the ultimate weapons, Bob Tyrrell and Wlady Pleszczynski (or however you spell it), the two bosses of the Spectator.
At our table were my wifey, my new pal, E., a spectacularly glamorous law enforcement official and my biographer and running partner (HAH! Fooled you! She is just a friend from the CVS!!! I barely know her), Bob Noah, a Professor Charnetzki, who is a big reason for the survival of TAS, and his staggeringly, breathtakingly beautiful daughter, Elena, who is an expert on counter-terrorism, and Wlady and his ever graceful wife, Joanna.
I was Master of Ceremonies. It was swell. We gave an award to T. Boone Pickens, who is a super guy and a fabulously successful businessman, also a member of Eldorado CC, which we used to go to with Barbara “The Bod” Duke, but no more, since she died. We had a long talk with a judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals who had been a law school pal of my incredibly witty friend Ellis. He told hysterical stories about the young Ellis.
Then we gave an award to Mike Novak, who read a wonderful speech about the Revolutionary War and God, and then to a young and very capable editor named Jim Antle. Bob Tyrrell gave a fine, defiant speech. Sen. Tom Coburn, a super smart physician member of the Senate, gave a terrifying speech about our fiscal problems. He said we were really going bankrupt very soon. Yikes.
It was a quick evening. The food was good but the lighting in the room was poor. Too dim. I felt sad that my parents were not there. Time passes very, very fast and if you have your parents, cling to them and tell them that you love them over and over again. It is too late when they’re gone. I know that sounds simple but it’s like that brass cross at Cardigan. It’s simple but it has power. I look to my parents for guidance still, and they are gone 15 years and 13 years. Life and death. There are only two kinds of people, my father used to say: The live and the dead.
The projectors at the dinner showed various Spectator luminaries at earlier events. Wow. We all looked so young. Now, I look in the mirror and I see an old guy. But a happy old guy.
About the Author
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” for every issue of The American Spectator.
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Bob Grant| 11.15.12 @ 7:50AM
"Mr. Obama has a mysterious charisma for blacks and for gays and for lesbians and for college kids."
Wow. Mr. Stein, I'm shocked you are mystified at this point in the game.
That statement might have been acceptable after his first year in office, but NOW?...you continue to be mystified?
Dude, you are in one serious bubble.
Bob K| 11.15.12 @ 8:51AM
Ben,
You know, there are dinners after funerals too, don't you? You old geezers at AS who have been there 45 years must be getting senile if you think the reason the Republicans lost was because of the black vote.
They lost because they could not get the portion of the white vote that helped make the Tea Party election of 2010 the success it was.
When are you guys going to figure that out?
Seek| 11.18.12 @ 9:07PM
The "geezers" are right, Bob. The Republicans lost on account of the black vote. How do I know? Simple math. Blacks constitute about 12.5 percent -- one-eighth -- of the U.S. population. And exit polls showed they voted anywhere from 95 to 98 percent for Obama. Assuming reasonably similar turnout rates across the races, blacks provided the margin for a Democratic victory in every single competitive state, save for North Carolina -- and even there it was close. Indeed, it is fair to say that if the black vote didn't exist, every "competitive" state would be solidly GOP.
Throw in the strongly pro-Democratic Hispanic and Asian blocs, and the handwriting on the wall is clear: There is no way the GOP can be simultaneously victorious and on the Right. They can be one or the other, but not both. And with whites comprising a smaller portion of the electorate with each passing election cycle, the balancing act gets more difficult. The GOP stands a very real chance of going extinct within a few decades due to its timid refusal to court whites.
Rather than join the diversity bandwagon, the Republicans should disdain it. Because the swing vote is almost all white. They'll vote for us if we give them a reason. Outside of Tom Tancredo, I see no GOP politician of any note willing to fight this fight.
Peppermint Tea | 11.15.12 @ 9:13AM
Bob, Ditto. Romney needed Sarah and he didn't know it.
Ben, thankfully you are over the election and back to ogling beautiful women. You are the creme de la creme and the boom boom boom of the AS.
Alan Brooks | 11.15.12 @ 5:27PM
"Ben, thankfully you are over the election and back to ogling beautiful women"
I cood go for HIM mysef!
Ralph Novy| 11.15.12 @ 8:30PM
No. Methinks he's the "boom, boom, boom" of the American Super Spectator -- ASS.
Rhoetus| 11.15.12 @ 9:21PM
Romney needed Rubio, he needed to have David Horowitz run his campaign, he needed to realize that his opponent was not honorable - he needed to fight!
Ralph Novy| 11.15.12 @ 11:47PM
It's not that complicated, Rhoetus.
All he needed was a vision and a message.
He had neither.
Seek| 11.18.12 @ 9:11PM
Marco Rubio is a pro-amnesty, mass-immigration enthusiast. His presence on the ticket not only wouldn't have helped, it would have dragged it down. Granted, he's not an incoherent airhead like Sarah Palin. But in the end, he's not what the doctor ordered.
Acton Thrush| 11.15.12 @ 10:24AM
Balderdash!
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.15.12 @ 10:37AM
Ben, Republicans lost because they pandered. Romney was the essence of the pandering, moderate Republican. We were all fooled by the first debate, but we should have realized that it was not because Romney won it, but mainly because Obama didn't show up. You were right to be worried about Romney on the basis of his lackluster 3rd debate performance. It did show lack of leadership after all.
Minority groups need education and leadership and Republicans would rather pander than lead. For that reason -- despite Jonah Goldberg's optimism -- the Republican Party appears to be on its way to disbanding like the old High Federalists or becoming a Ross Kaminsky style moderate, go-along-with-the-cultural-rot Party. In that case, who needs it?
Ralph Novy| 11.15.12 @ 8:33PM
"Minority groups need education and leadership and Republicans would rather pander than lead."
Yes, they do.
But the majority group needs them even more -- especially education.
Paul A'Barge | 11.15.12 @ 1:07PM
the single best school of any kind
I went to Williston Academy in Easthampton, Mass so of course I beg to differ.
Little Minnie| 11.15.12 @ 7:30PM
Does anybody know what they want for Christmas?
Occam's Tool| 11.15.12 @ 7:34PM
My High School turned out Hillary Clinton, Harrison Ford, and me. I took Honors Russian, AP Chem, AP Calculus, AP English. It was public. It was over 30 years ago. It is no longer that good. But it was. Out of our top 8 graduates, 1 became a Psychiatrist MD, 1 became an accountant, one went to work as a mathematician doing work he'd have to kill you after he told you about it, and one became an MD/PhD and is a Professor at U of Minnesota School of Medicine. I don't know what happened to the others, and don't much care.
Ben, start by lowering taxes to increase government revenue.
Ralph Novy| 11.15.12 @ 8:41PM
"... lowering taxes to increase government revenue."
Uh-huh. That's what applying Occam's Razor would produce, right? -- along with something like "If you want more vegetables, plant fewer seeds."
I.e., your prescription is anti-Occam, Occam.
Ralph Novy| 11.15.12 @ 9:08PM
Well, aren't you special, Ben.
And isn't your life just so hunky-dory.
So glad.
I'd be so sad if I thought a special person such as yourself didn't have a comfortable life.
Please tell us more about how much you enjoy your comfortable life and how awful, evil people like Obama would unjustly deprive you of it.
I know you're a busy man -- what with all that shuttling between tea parties and ogling your friends' nubile wives and daughters -- but please do continue to honor us by occasionally throwing us a few crumbs of your wit, wisdom and recollections.
We crave it so.
Rhoetus| 11.15.12 @ 9:19PM
Ralph, did you fall on your head? Making Ben suffer won't make your life better, and neither will Obama. Politicians are thieves- white collar criminals that gave us a 16 trillion dollar debt with out the personal responsibility to pay it back. No go back to watching Sesame Street.
Ralph Novy| 11.15.12 @ 11:55PM
Rhoetus:
Stein put himself "out there," blathering about how nice his life is and how awful Obama's "socialist" policies are.
So he's "fair game."
What does "Making Ben suffer won't make your life better, and neither will Obama" mean?
Thank G.W. Bush for 90% of that debt you abhor.
And if you think that watching Sesame Street and holding white-collar criminals to account is an incompatible proposition, methinks you need a remedial course in basic logic.
Rhoetus| 11.15.12 @ 9:23PM
The Republicans need to purge the Bush family and other big government believers.
Ralph Novy| 11.15.12 @ 11:56PM
On THAT we will agree, Rhoetus.
LOL.
Ronsch| 11.16.12 @ 1:43PM
Ben advocates for higher taxes, just not the kind NerObama wants...So, Ben, pray tell how much are you going to pony up all on your own to help the US?
Better enjoy the posh dinners and good times because they will not last for you...You are an evil 1%, don't you know?
Ralph Novy| 11.20.12 @ 9:14PM
"NerObama"
Precious.
Not slightly racist, right?
Lickfuck!
Get a fucking mirror, boy!
pigdog| 11.16.12 @ 5:05PM
"... the ultimate weapons, Bob Tyrrell and Wlady Pleszczynski (or however you spell it)...."
Don't know about the other three, but I'm pretty sure you spelled "Bob" correctly. Even I can go 1 for 3 with RET. Why not take a crack at Emmet?
Ralph Novy| 11.18.12 @ 1:11AM
http://readersupportednews.org.....n-shuts-up
Now YOU shut up about that too, eh, Ben?
Ralph Novy| 11.18.12 @ 11:40AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11.....d=fb-share
Boom.
Ralph Novy| 11.20.12 @ 9:10PM
Ben:
I know you're getting quite a chuckle out of all this folderol generated from your smug posts.
Fine and dandy.
You're essentially immune, given your age.
Your progeny, however, are not.
But you never really cared about them, did you, Ben?
No.
You only cared about the here-and-now of your own reputation.
What a selfish pig-dog you are, Ben.
Rut in your own back yard and leave your neighbors' alone, please, eh?