Unlike The caliph خليفة Benedict Arnold, Ben Stein knows about what he talks

h/t BH

Don't look now, but islam is becoming the MSM's official religion of America.

Something Is Wrong

By Ben Stein on 9.24.12 @ 8:27AM

Don't look now, but Islam is becoming the MSM's official religion of America.

Now, it's not just that no one bats an eye at the amazing truth that the United States is beaming TV ads all over Pakistan apologizing for a derogatory Internet trailer for a nonexistent movie demeaning the being that Muslims call "The Prophet Mohammed." No one in the MSM even slightly hints that doing the kowtow in the same country that sheltered Osama bin Laden to a group that reveled in, delighted in the terrorism against American civilians and still provides the framework for the terrorist Haqqani network, might be humiliating and an insult to the memory of the great Americans who were murdered just last week in Libya.
No, we just take it in stride that our President and our Secretary of State will apologize to the people who hate us and want us dead. That's not what I am referring to.
I am referring to something worse: Have you noticed that in the past few years, and especially in the past few weeks since the murder of the Ambassador and his guards and colleague in Benghazi (a city that Erwin Rommel loved and whose inhabitants he praised), whenever the New York Times refers to Mohammed, they always call him, without quotation marks, The Prophet Mohammed, as if everyone with any sense understands that OF COURSE Mohammed is The One True Prophet and that it's just understood that Mohammed is The Prophet.
I see this in other news outlets and on TV, too. Sober-looking newsmen and newswomen mention Mohammed as The Prophet Mohammed. No ifs, ands or buts. I hear it on the BBC World Service, too.
Now, if Muslims want to believe that Mohammed is The Prophet, God bless them. Fine and dandy. If anyone wants to believe that, good luck to him or her. But why does our mainstream media here in the USA, an overwhelmingly Christian country, refer to Islam's prophet as "The Prophet"?
Have you ever seen any major newspaper here in the USA refer to Jesus Christ as "The Son of God, God Incarnate, The Lord Jesus Christ"? Can you imagine the New York Times running a story about a crucifix resting in urine at an "art gallery" as an offense against "The Lord Jesus, Son of God"? Can you imagine any large newspaper in this country running a story about the Pope and referring to him as "The Holy Father, The Bridge Between Heaven and Earth"? Or about Mary, as "Holy Mary, Mother of God"? It would never happen.
But somehow, probably because the people writing the articles and editing them or the producers on TV news shows fear being beheaded -- and who doesn't? -- we have adopted in our media the Muslim assertion that Mohammed is The Prophet while giving other religious figures the back of our media hand.
This is frightening. We are not supposed to be doing obeisance to a religious group that has many adherents who want us dead. We are not, as journalists, supposed to be labeling anyone as "The" Prophet. But somehow, it's happening. The MSM has become a voice for Islam.
Hitler saw it long ago. Terror and fear of violence can bring about amazing changes in people's behavior. So can a misguided political correctness and self-loathing for the greatest nation on earth.
I overheard a conversation between two women at a dining table just yesterday. One said, "I don't care what anyone says, Obama is a Muslim" (she has said it before) and the other said, "He's not a Muslim. He's just stupid."
I didn't say anything to them. I am just telling you, these do not feel like normal days. They feel like latter days.
There is just a feeling in the air, a look in the sky at dusk, a look on people's faces. Fear is everywhere. Mr. Obama cannot lose this election unless enough people believe it's within their power to stop the ticking of the clock, and I do not feel that groundswell. Not at all. When the American media turns its back on our own religions of tolerance and adores a religion of intolerance, times are upside down. The MSM says it's all fine, trust The Prince of Grant Park, Chicago. But I have always preferred the admonition, "Put not your trust in princes." Something is wrong.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/24/something-is-wrong

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=151246

Ben Stein: hillary clinton should resign

http://nation.foxnews.com/hillary-clinton/2012/09/18/calls-mount-hillarys-resignation

By: Alex Byers September 18, 2012 09:12 AM EDT

Washington has debated and compared the responses of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to last week’s attacks in Libya, but Ben Stein has his eye on a different politician. It’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who has to answer for the death of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, in Benghazi, he says. And she could start by resigning. “I think there’s been a very, very serious breach of decorum by Mrs. Clinton in not offering to resign over failure to protect her diplomats adequately,” Stein, a Republican, told POLITICO. “She’s in charge of the ambassadors, she’s in charge of the foreign service. She absolutely should not have let those people go to Benghazi, which she knew was in a state of extreme unrest, without having adequate protections. That was a very serious mistake that cost several people their lives, and she’s responsible.” The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. Stein, an author and TV personality, is well known for his writings on economics and personalfinance. But a family history of military men and visits with wounded soldiers have left him passionate about national defense. As deficits continue to pile up, talk in Washington about military spending tends to be a question of how much, if any, should be cut. Stein, though, would cast a vote for a significantly bigger defense budget that includes much higher military pay — and he says you would too if you got to know some of the people at Walter Reed Medical Center or the National Naval Medical Center. “I see what I think everyone would see if he or she thought about it, which is the moral outrageousness of asking people to risk their lives and still pay them a very meager wage,” he says. “That is almost unbelievable that we would ask people to go fight and die and be away from their family for long periods of time, and then pay them so little they can barely live a middle class life.” The former speechwriter for presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford has made headlines this election cycle for saying Romney has the look of a losing candidate, and that he doesn’t think Obama is a very smart man. But even though he’ll continue his streak of voting GOP in November, he still doesn’t think Romney has much of a shot of winning, in large part due to a “night and day” discrepancy in charisma between the two candidates. “When I watched President Obama at the convention, saw his passion and then compared it with Romney, it just made me want to weep,” he told POLITICO. He added that, with a few exceptions – like the administration’s response to this month’s unrest in the Middle East – Obama “hasn’t really been that bad.” And he buys the president’s argument that Obama inherited a badly bruised economy in 2009, saying nobody really “had a cure” for the 2008 economic collapse. But if you want a prediction about how Romney or Obama’s policies will affect the economy, look elsewhere. Even as the pair tries to sell voters on how their actions will benefit the middle class, there’s no right answer, Stein says. “You can’t get an actual answer,” he says. “The results of fiscal and monetary policy are impossible to quantify and even now, years and years after the event, we don’t know what the effects have been of fiscal and monetary policy during the Great Depression.” Of course, that puts economically-minded voters in a bit of a pickle. And so they may have to just go with their gut in November, he says – even if the choices aren’t perfect. “It’s incredibly difficult and I think you just have to say to yourself ‘Do I trust this person, do I like this person, does he seem like an intelligent, well-informed, capable, honest person?’” Stein says. “And I have to say in that respect, neither of them is going to win the Nobel Prize.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81330.html?hp=r1

What Romney Should Have Said

PRINTEMAIL

TEXT SIZE 

BEN STEIN'S DIARY

By BEN STEIN on 9.12.12 @ 8:25AM

It's not too late for him to say it after yesterday's vicious attacks.

This is the speech I would have liked to have heard from Presidential candidate Mitt Romney yesterday.

"My fellow Americans, today is the eleven year anniversary of the horrible mass murders of innocent men, women, and children in the United States by sick, twisted terrorists hiding behind the cloak of Islam. By a terrible stroke, today also marked vicious attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya. These attacks, by raging, cowardly mobs, were supposedly instigated by an amateur e-mail about the being whom Muslims consider sacred and a Holy prophet, Mohammed. This e-mail was made in the United States under the protection of our Constitution, which protects freedom or speech and expression. The mobs who attacked our missions objected to the e-mail cartoon or whatever it was. They have the complete right to object. But they do not have the right under any international law to attack our diplomatic stations for any reason at all.

"My opponent, Mr. Barack Obama, chose to meet this international outrage by apologizing to the mobs in the form of a letter from Mrs. Clinton's State Department condemning the making of the offending e-mail.

"Let me be clear about this: Mr. Obama is wrong. We have complete freedom of speech in this country. We do not apologize to mobs of thugs and bullies for our residents having free speech. When I take office, the era of apologizing to foreign thugs and bandits for the United  States of America and our freedoms is over. We are not ashamed of being a free country. We are proud of it.

"We expect the governments of Egypt and Libya and all other nations to do their duty under law to protect our embassies. If they can't, we will take appropriate action. We are not going to be pushed around and we are not going to be bullied by gangsters and we are not going to apologize for the Constitution.

"There was a further default in Mr. Obama's leadership today. At a time when the whole world is desperately concerned about the certainty that Iran will soon have nuclear weapons and that same Iran has promised to use them to have a second Holocaust against the Jews and '…wipe Israel off the map…', the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, pleaded with Mr. Obama for a face to face meeting in New York when the President will be there for the opening of the UN General Assembly session. Mr. Obama brushed off Premier Netanyahu, head of government of one of our closest allies, saying his schedule did not permit such a meeting. It turned out that Mr. Obama did have time, however, on this trip to New York City to have a comedy interview with David Letterman.

"When reaction to this behavior turned negative, Mr. Obama hastily did an improvised phone call with Mr. Netanyahu and denied his own version of events released earlier.

"This is unacceptable, especially at a time of extremely  high tensions in the Middle East. In the Romney-Ryan administration, peace and the maintenance of security for the U.S. and our allies will take precedence over talk shows and comedy and campaigning, no if's, ands, or buts. Our administration will take war and peace seriously. We realize this may seem uncool to some, but we really don't care. Peace is what we are about, and security. Not laughs."

He didn't make that speech but it's not too late.

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.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/12/what-romney-should-have-said