It’s bad enough that Ben Stein buys into the Intelligent Design nonsense. Now while chatting with Conservative douchebag pundit Glen Beck he suggest that Obama could be Hitler reborn:
STEIN: I want—I’m glad you brought up this Denver thing. I don’t like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people. That is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America. We have a contained number of people in an arena. Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that’s something the Fuehrer would have done. And I think whoever is advising Senator Obama to do this is bringing up all kinds of very unfortunate images from the past.
BECK: Well, yeah, you know what? I’ve been—I’ve been saying that we’re headed towards a Mussolini-style presidency forever.
STEIN: Well, I think—
BECK: I mean it’s crazy.
STEIN: It’s a scary situation. I mean, I think he has to recognize some bounds on his own ego. I understand politicians are politicians because they have ego deficit problems and they try to cure them by having lots of worship and adulation and adoration. But 75,000 people screaming at an outdoor arena, that’s just too much. It’s just—it’s scarily authoritarian.
The irony of having Ben Stein complain about someone else’s ego problems is almost too much to take. Not that Beck isn’t engaging in some grade-A douchebaggery in that little interview himself. I sometimes wonder if there is a low so low that the folks on the Right won’t stoop to it. All appearances so far suggest that there isn’t.
But to hear the screeches of the right-wingers today, it was only the free bands who drew 200K people to Obama’s speech in Berlin. So which is it? So the acceptance speech will be open to more people than just Democratic Party insiders. But wait! Obama’s supposed to be an elitist! How’s that work again? Or—don’t tell me—could this be another one of those Lucy-holding-the-football setups again? Just like McCain and his shills are wringing their hands that Obama has no foreign policy experience: So of *course* he shouldn’t be racking up any “experience” by meeting with heads of state as a candidate for POTUS, right? WTF?
Is it just me, or are they (meaning the Right) starting to come unglued? Granted, logic and consistency are never their strong points, but sheeeesh…
No, Mr. Stein, what’s “scary” is that after four years under an overgrown frat boy who never had to answer for his mistakes, 49% of this country voted for another dose. Trading their birthright as Americans for the illusion of security. Believing that going to war on two fronts would somehow make us “safe.” Complicit in the undermining of the rule of law in favor of the cult of personality. Choosing to close their eyes to the consequences of letting someone else point out the enemy. Remind me again, who resembles Nazi Germany?
Feh. Apparently the Right’s contempt for the rule of law also applies to Godwin.
You can pretty much bet that McCain’s camp will refused to be one-upped by the Denver spectacle, and will happily inconvenience the Twin Cities with something similar—even if they have to pay their crowds to cheer. Only I don’t think that we’ll hear a peep out of Mr. Stein, somehow…