What is wrong with Conservative Men of Late?

Here is another man who I normally respect that has just gone around the bend. Ben Stein wrote an article regarding the imprisonment of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF who has been accused of rape.

1) If he is such a womanizer and violent guy with women, why didn't he ever get charged until now? If he has a long history of sexual abuse, how can it have remained no more than gossip this long? France is a nation of vicious political rivalries. Why didn't his opponents get him years ago?

2.) In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category? Maybe Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty but if so, he is one of a kind, and criminals are not usually one of a kind.

Oh, and he goes on:

3.) The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it's anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?

Since no one knows who this women is, she could be someone like me, who is 100lbs. It doesn't take much for a man to be stronger than me. Then he decides to talk about the alleged victim:

6.) People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid? I love and admire hotel maids. They have incredibly hard jobs and they do them uncomplainingly. I am sure she is a fine woman. On the other hand, I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman's word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker's is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it's done.

This is a very wealthy man who if he makes his way back to France will never see the inside of the courtroom and this possibly "lunatic" maid will never have her day in court. Did you forget about Roman Polanski, Mr. Stein? Just because he was denied bail doesn't mean he is not presumed innocent. Oh, I think it is time that you get that medication that was stolen from you refilled. It sounds like you need it.

Bowing To Tehran - Ben Stein

Bowing to Tehran

By Ben Stein

There are words for national leaders who attempt to appease their enemies while at the same time shaming and humiliating their friends. One of the kindest of the words is "naive."

This comes to mind because of President Obama's recent overtures to the terrorist state of Iran, while shaming Israel.

In recent months and days, President Obama has, once again, reached out a supplicating hand to The Islamic Republic of Iran, only to be met by mockery, sarcasm, and rebuff. He has also agreed to only the most modest of sanctions against the Tehran regime to induce it to abandon its nuclear weapons program -- a program which Tehran's Ahmadinejad has said he will not abandon no matter what the rest of the world does.

These love notes go out to a nation that has brutally repressed its own people, is training our vicious Taliban enemies in Afghanistan, has long been aiding factions killing Americans in Iraq…the same nation that killed 244 American Marines and other fighting men in the Beirut bombing of 1983 and seized the U.S. Embassy and kept our Foreign Service personnel hostage there for over 400 days.

These roses are going out to a nation which has shown absolutely zero interest in making peace with the United States.

At the same time, Mr. Obama has done all he could to humiliate Benjamin Netanyahu, Premier of Israel, because Israel wants to build 1600 apartments for its citizens in Jerusalem. This is in Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Not a settlement. The capital of a sovereign state.

The humiliation included personal insults and slights to Mr. Netanyahu, who had flown to Washington to plead with Mr. Obama to understand why Israel is doing what it's doing. Just by the way, I do not see Ahmadinejad flying to D.C. to speak to Mr. Obama at all. In a nutshell, Barack Obama is more concerned about Jews building homes in Jerusalem than about Iran building a nuclear weapon. This is almost unbelievable.

I guess the idea is that if the U.S. treats Israel badly, the Moslems and Arabs will like the U.S. better. Why don't we tell that to the Russians, who were Israel's sworn foe and against whom the Moslems fought desperately in Afghanistan -- with our help. Is Israel the reason Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq by drilling holes into each other with electric drills? Does President Obama really believe that making Israel give up building on a few acres in Jerusalem will change the mood of a terrorist state pledged to annihilate all of Israel -- and to do whatever it can to bring down "the Great Satan…" The United States of America?

Western nations have tried bowing down to aggressive dictatorships before. It was called appeasement in the 1930s and it led to World War II. There is absolutely no sign it will work any better this time. Dictators do not respect weakness. Israel knows it. Mr. Obama doesn't, but let's hope he will learn.

The American Spectator

My Thoughts on Watching the Dems Stab the Constitution on the Congressional Floor - Ben Stein's Thoughts on ObamaCare

1. This is a "bill" that is clearly not really a Constitutionally allowable legislative entity, eligible for signature into law. For it to be that, it would need to be identically passed in both houses. It was not. It was passed as a corned beef hash of vague promises in the Senate. Then a vote was taken in the House to eventually pass the same bill but with a few changes and a further vague promise to reconcile both versions. This is not how the Constitution defines a bill en route to becoming a law. This is just a demand by President Obama to submit to his authority, which the Democrats meekly passed. This is not Constitutional.






2. The slovenly laziness of the Majority to not even read the vague bits of the bill floating around is further evidence of contempt for law and the Constitution.






3. This is not how the U.S. government is supposed to work. This is how a South American junta does its work with a puppet legislature and a supreme Caudillo above law. This is, tragically, Barack Obama's America. It took a mere 14 months to get us from the government of Jefferson to the government of Trujillo.






4. The supine cowardice of the mainstream media here is almost beyond imagining. To fail to even notice the attack on the Constitution going on here is stunning and discouraging in the extreme.






5. For those of us who still believe in the Constitution, I offer the words of the great civil rights anthem, "We shall overcome, " and "We are not afraid." In that spirit, we continue the fight for the return to Constitutional government. Loyal to the nation and the Constitution, but most certainly opposed to the subversion or either.






As Churchill said, "In war, resolution. In defeat, defiance." And this is a war for Constitutional government. A war of words, to be sure, but a war we must win.






6. One more thought. If Mr. Obama's goal really is to protect life and health, the surest way to do that would be a right to life amendment to the Constitution. May we expect that proposal from Mr. Obama soon?


By Ben Stein