Ben Stein: The Lynching of the President

Ben Stein's reaction to the SOTU address was very similar to mine.

So there I was, lying in my bed in Malibu with my dogs, watching Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech. I thought it was darned good. Realistic, gracious, modest, sensible. I happen to think we should get out of Iraq yesterday, but I thought Mr Bush put forward his case well. And Congress responded graciously and generously on both sides of the aisle.

Then, whaam, as soon as the speech was over, ABC was bashing him (I was watching FOX and it wasn't much different-ed.), telling us how pathetic he was, how irrelevant he was, how weak he was, how unrealistic he was.

Right after that, Jim Webb gave a very short speech biting Bush's head off -- but not making any concrete proposals about anything. No network person mentioned how simple minded and unrealistic he was.

Yeah, Webb struck me as kind of a jerk. I figured he got to deliver the rebuttal because he had all the requisite military credentials--son in Iraq, served in Vietnam, father served in WWII. The part about keeping his father's picture under his pillow was a little much. I think rebuttals to the SOTU are a bad idea because the opposing party no matter who the President is or what the truth actually is will always say the opposite. It's like a free campaign ad for that party--Vote for us because the President sucks, rah, rah, rah. Should that be legal under McCain-Feingold?

And suddenly it hit me. The media is staging a coup against Mr. Bush. They cannot impeach him because he hasn't done anything illegal. But they can endlessly tell us what a loser he is and how out of touch he is (and I mean ENDLESSLY) and how he's just a vestigial organ on the body politic right now.

The media is doing what it can to basically oust Mr. Bush while still leaving him alive and well in the White House. It's a sort of neutron bomb of media that seeks to kill him while leaving the White House standing (for their favorite unknown, Barack Obama, to occupy).

Yes, I'm quite tired of the MSM telling me how to vote and how to feel about every issue they want to ram down my throat.

My point: let's be aware that Bush has presided over a lot of success in addition to substantial failure. My second point: no one elected the media to anything. If we let them lynch the man we elected as President we are throwing out the Constitution with the war in Iraq. In the studios and newsrooms, there is a lynch mob at work. Let's see it for what it is. We have a good man who has made mistakes in the Oval Office. He's the only President we have, and I trust him a lot more than I trust unelected princes of the newsroom.

Here, here! Who knew I'd agree so much with the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off?