Ben Stein's Brain

I used to watch Win Ben Stein’s Money  and to some extent bought into the role he played as an intelligent man.  Intelligent is as intelligent does and perhaps smart people are just better at being stupid than others.  Yes, I knew he had been a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, but somehow his wit seemed to show that he had somehow recovered from a youthful indiscretion.  I guess not.

TPM Café gives us some fascinating insights into the Brain of Ben Stein with these quotes:

"Bush's response has not been unusually bad, but amazingly powerful and swift."
 
"George Bush... does not attack those who falsely accuse him of the most horrible acts and neglect. Instead, he doggedly goes on helping the least among us."

Stein still feels Nixon is a hero and professes not to know what Nixon did wrong. His vision of Bush seems to be similarly  wish-driven if not completely divorced from reality.  Stein writes a column for the American Spectator, a publication whose title is as much of an example of Orwellian antinomy as Stein’s portrayal of Bush as a powerful and swift leader.

I once had faith in human intelligence.  I thought it much less likely that a brilliant person could be fooled or be irrational.  Stupid is as stupid does.