Ben Stein: Still a rat-bastard

Posted by Josh Rosenau on June 24, 2008
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As Ben Stein’s egregiously bad Expelled opens in Canada, the Canadian press is getting a taste of the offensive bile Stein unleashed in his US media tour. Peter McKnight, of the Vancouver Sun, asked Stein about the ADL’s condemnation of his movie:

Nowhere does Stein mention the centuries of anti-Semitism before Darwin — in fact, Expelled all but ignores anti-Semitism as a reason for the Holocaust. Consequently, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement saying, “Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.”

When I asked Stein about this statement, his response revealed his hostility toward the Anti-Defamation League more than anything else, as he told me bluntly, “It’s none of their f—ing business.”

That’s right folks! Ben Stein has decided that the Holocaust is none of the ADL’s business. Err, “fucking business.”

He also claims not to have known that he misquoted Darwin in the movie, telling McKnight that he was “kind of dismayed if that’s true.” But in an interview with the National Post’s John Moore, he waved it off, saying “If any Darwin fans are listening and we misquoted him we are sorry we don’t meant to diss Darwin.” Somehow, I think he meant to do exactly that.

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Comments

  1. #1 Ian
    June 25, 2008

    Another entirely predictable instance of Steinwalling….

  2. #2 TheNerd
    June 25, 2008

    I love the uncensored medum that is the blog! We can freely call Stein the rat bastard that he is, and thoroughly enjoy typing every letter of the word “fucking” wihout any stupid *** to get in our way.

  3. #3 Kristine
    June 25, 2008

    Now Ben Stein, after saying this to Darwin ["You are a wealthy man, you married a wealthy woman, why don't you just live quietly out in the countryside and not torture us with your half-baked suppositions, which have caused so much misery?"], is describing Charles Darwin as “My friend and yours.

    What a smarmy media whore!

    Ben Stein, you are a wealthy man, you are the privileged, callow son of a wealthy man of true achievements, unlike yourself, so why don’t you just list quietly out of the country and not us with your half-baked suppositions, which have caused so much polarization?

    Scoot! Media whore.

  4. #4 Modusoperandi
    June 25, 2008

    Ben was on Canada AM (look for “Ben Stein on new film ‘Expelled’”). He, as usual, conflated the Theory of Evolution with the Theory of Everything. Dink.

    Worse, the interviewer was entirely credulous. Slime pushing propaganda I can understand. The interviewer lobbing softballs, however, makes me sad. Morning television is shit. It makes me kind of glad, actually, that I’m at work too early and I work for too long to find out about this any other way than second hand. Better, the video appears to go garbled about five minutes in, so I didn’t have to watch the rest (although I tried. I kept hoping for the interviewer to call him on his lies).

    The truth (small t) doesn’t matter when you have the Truth (capital T), I guess. Why do some people go out of their way to avoid saying “I don’t know”? I freely admit, here for the oodles of eyeballs glued to my rambling post, that I don’t know. I don’t know about a lot of things. Most of what I do know, in fact, is separated by giant gulfs of “I don’t know”. I’m not comfortable with not knowing everything, but the truth of “I don’t know” is more honest than the Truth of “God did it”. Not knowing everything is not the same as knowing nothing.

  5. #5 Mike Smith
    June 26, 2008

    Personal attacks against Ben Stein cheapens the validly of what you say. Once again, if someone speaks against popular theory, i.e. Darwinism, they are torn apart, not on subject, but personally. I’d hoped that the article and comments would have been more constructive and intelligent. OK, bring it on, let me know what kind of rat bastard I am!

  6. #6 Josh Rosenau
    June 26, 2008

    So it’s “not on subject, but personal[]” to point out that Stein misquotes Darwin, waves off that dishonesty, and dismisses the foremost group opposing Holocaust denial by telling them that “it’s none of their fucking business”?

    Or is your only problem with my title?

  7. #7 CLM
    June 26, 2008

    I guess Ben can never escape the stain of being a former Nixon speechwriter.

  8. #8 Anon
    June 30, 2008

    @#5–

    This appears to be much less “personal attack” and much more a conclusion (understated, if anything) based on Ben Stein’s loathsome behavior. Or do you approve of his actions?

    When someone acts abominably, and others describe that behavior accurately, the only “personal attack” is a the first person’s metaphorical suicide bombing.

  9. #9 JerryM
    March 11, 2010

    I am shocked to learn that Ben Stein did interviews for this so called movie with people who weren’t fawning supporters of the creationist or ID movement. How in the heck did they get permission to ask Stein any non-softball questions?