I just saw Ben Stein's new book 'Can America Survive' in the bookstore.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Oh, dear God, what mad, mad stuff. Lots of ranting about 'ultra-leftist saboteurs'. Stein has no idea what an 'ultra-leftist' looks like. You know what? I pity this man.

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401903339/qid=1092332103/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/702-4261232-4392835

America may be waging war against "certain deranged souls in the Moslem world," but the real enemy—lurking alarmingly within—is a Fifth Column of angry, "Anti-American" leftists fomented by Al Gore and John Kerry, contend conservative humorist Stein and journalist-cum-psychologist DeMuth (co-authors of Yes, You Can Time the Market). The authors maintain that these enraged liberals, whom they say characterize the Bush administration as imperialistic, overreaching and racist, have essentially joined Islamist fanatics’ assault on the United States. Worse, the authors argue, the Left’s relentless invective—during wartime, no less—threatens to drag the nation into its most divisive crisis since the Civil War (although they concede that this will not lead to an actual war). Instead, "a more likely and potentially equally bloody sequel to today’s anger from the Left would be a failure to adequately wage the war on terror," they warn. Stein and DeMuth blame the usual suspects—the "liberal news machinery," Marxist academics, befuddled environmentalists and Hollywood radicals—with the unoriginal gusto of apparatchiks. When they aren’t heaping accusations on their straw adversaries, they’re trying to uncover the psychological clues to liberals’ "perceptual disorder" and "irrational" anger with the Bush administration. The Left’s rant is a manifestation of an infantile personality, they say, while environmentalists "have projected their inner sense of guilt on to the world at large, and are seeking their personal redemption by redeeming the planet instead of redeeming themselves." In other words, this volume will be appreciated primarily by those who already sympathize with the authors’ views.

[swag]

1. I see his time in the Nixon Administration was well spent.

[Fenris]

2. As a Marxist academic, I weep for poor Ben's curdled soul.

Not really. He can fucking go to Hell for all I care. But what do I know? I'm apparently allied with Islamic fanatics and "certain deranged souls" because I dare question the policies and tactics of my own goddamn country.

God that guy's a douchebag.

[specimenfred1984]

3. He's Trying To Win Annorexic Coulter's Money!

I saw some freak pumping the book on propaganda TV. "Why does he hate so much?"

Here's a question: is Jimmy Kimmel his little lackey boy or what? How the heck does that guy get any TV time, he's so boring.

[Lavender Brown]

6. Stein should stick to those Visine commercials he does.

I wonder if Kimmel's a Republican too? I've only seen his show once and it is so bad... he never has any good guests. It'll probably be canceled.

[Beware the Beast Man]

4. Wow. I knew Stein was a rightie

But I had no idea how far to the right he really is. Basically another shrill asshole who is appalled that there are actually some Americans who dare to question the motives and intentions of our officials. Ben Stein can take his book and his money and shove them up his ass.

[reprehensor]

5. He's not that smart.

He was on the Al Franken show the other day and had no clue as to how destructive Bush has been to environmental legislation, etc, etc...

[terrya]

7. This is just...idiotic blathering.

It's the same old "the Left hates America" deranged nonsense spewed by the Ann Coulters in this country.

Why anyone takes this verbal diarrhea seriously is a total mystery to me.

[flamingyouth]

8. But will anyone read it or care?

Anyone? Anyone? Anyone .... anyone???

[Screaming Lord Byron]

9. I wonder what the sales figures are like? Bulk buys anyone?

[Dogmudgeon]

10. It's the New Ben Stein

Granted, he's always been a conservative, but Ben Stein had usually placed himself on the "sane" side of the "Massive-Dickhead Line".

With his new book, Ben Stein has decided to join the Screech Monkeys. And much poo is flung.

--bkl

[PsN2Wind]

11. Yet another fortunate son for Bush(AFSFB)

Prime VietNam age, born 1944, but like others that "had other priorities" he spent almost all that era in one school or another and then shilling for Nixon and Ford.

[Downtown Hound]

12. What an asscrack

You really got to wonder where the morans get their ideas. In their world, pretty much most of Europe, all of the Middle East, about half of the United States, Asia, and let's not forget Satan of course, is out to destroy America. Can you say persecution complex?