Ben Shapiro attacks Jon Stewart

Not much of a fight. The crux of Shapiro's argument, from his latest article, is that Stewart criticizes Fox for being Conservatively biased while not admitting that the mainstream media and himself are liberally based. Of course Stewart has responded to these charges by saying that the media isn't liberally biased as much as it is biased towards sensationalism and laziness, and saying that he has a majority comedic bias while leaning left.

This is apparently lying, because Jon Stewart is, according to Shapiro, more of a leftist than a comedian.

He uses his comedy to propagandize. That's not against the law and not immoral, but it is a betrayal of his self-proclaimed primary motivating force: to be funny. True comedy attacks the targets at hand. It does not pick and choose based on political affiliation. Stewart does, and that's why the quality of his comedy has declined dramatically since Bush's re-election.

I'd disagree with that last statement; Stewart continues to be hilarious. I'd also argue that he does attack Liberals pretty regularly. Just recently he unloaded on Wiener who was not just a liberal but a personal friend.

I pretty much agree with Stewart's Fox Analysis; there is a difference between having a small "b" bias and an agenda. Stewart has a liberal bias. The media has a liberal bias. FOX has a conservative agenda. It drives what they do; and it's clear. Wallace himself gave the game away when he noted that the mainstream networks give one side of the story and FOX gives the other.

But what Shapiro is accusing the media and Stewart of having is an agenda; their news and their comedy are beholden to their agenda. If something contradicts their agenda, they toss it out. There's sufficient evidence in both cases to suggest that this isn't true; but I don't think you can convince either Shapiro or his readers of that.

To Stewart and his ilk, there is no religion other than "goobermint." There is no god other than "goobermint."
All Dem/Prog/Libs have no individuality. For the good of the "hive" they must be subsumed into the omnipotent, "goobermint." They can't stand individual thought or action, it frightens them too much. The "utopia" can only be obtained when all become one.

All must become slaves of the Goobermint! Sorry that doesn't have much to do with FOX, just made me laugh. I suggest this person should go out and meet some actual liberals before spouting off like a moron.

What I want to know is just what 'gives' with all of those marxists Jewish types? Huh?????

Jewish types? Oy. There are actually a number of posts complaining that Stewart is hiding his jewishness by using the name Jon Stewart. He certainly doesn't go out of his way to hide his Jewishness on his show; it's pretty much front and center so not sure what the problem is.

It's comical and farcical that the liberal propagandist Jon nitwit Leibowitz actually considers himself to be a comedian!

Not sure how it's farcical, but being a comedian, assuming you are funny (which Stewart is), is kind of funny.

"The most evil population on the face of the planet"

Ben Shapiro's latest article is about the Israeli Palestine conflict. In particular he writes about a particularly brutal murder of Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

And the Arab Palestinian populace, which by and large constitutes the most evil population on the face of the planet, celebrated.

So that is Shapiro's opinion of the Palestinians. But he's particularly upset about a movie shown at the United Nations.

It was a premiere screening of "Miral," a film by Julian Schnabel, a self-hating Jew and world-famous director; it's based on a book by his Arab Palestinian girlfriend, Rula Jebreal. "Miral" is a virulently anti-Israel movie casting the state of Israel in the worst possible light. Every Israeli soldier is a brutal murderer; every Palestinian is a wounded innocent; Jews are usurpers of Arab Palestinian property rights. Every anti-Israel trope is employed. "These settlers living here are our real cancer," says one Arab Palestinian character.

A few interesting points to make, but let's start with the key one. Moments after writing Palestinians off as the most evil population on the face of the planet, Shapiro excoriates Schnabel for not showing both sides in the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Presumably, in Shapiro's mind, a fair representation of the Arab Israeli conflict would show the Arabs to be the monsters they are, and would completely exonerate the Israelis.

Unfortunately for Shapiro the events portrayed in Miral are historically accurate; they did happen. By all accounts (and the movie hasn't made it's way to the US yet), the movie is disjointed and ungainly, but has some good performances (although reviewers are torn about the performance of the actress in the title role). But the history is essentially correct, even if presented from one specific point of view.

At any rate, the choice for the United Nations to screen this movie, and to allow the attendance of Hollywierdos like Robert DeNiro and Sean Penn proves the immorality of the United Nations.

His readers certainly agree.

Yes, our departure from the UN should be immediate for a thousand reasons. It is corrupt from top to bottom.

I'll say it again: GET THE U. S. OUT OF THE U. N. AND THE U. N. OUT OF THE U. S.

there should be a new united nations for CIVILIZED nations only! no muslim nations need apply. agree 100% this UN should be shut down.

So nice to see some unity; although crapping on the United Nations is always popular over there at Townhall.

Ben Shapiro, Boy Prognosticator, auditions to be Mini-Beck

Shapiro's latest article essentially regurgitates Beck's theories that the Union Protests in Wisconsin and the protests in Egypt and Libya are part of the same movement designed to destroy everything that is good.

Why now, after 9/11 and after the fall of the Soviet Union, is the socialist-Islamist axis of ideological evil rising once again? Because the president of the United States stands at the center of that axis, bridging the gap.

President Obama is a committed socialist with a history of warmth toward Islamism. His father was a communist and a Muslim; his grandfather and mother were communists; his stepfather was a Muslim.

American Unions and Muslims are also apparently united in their hatred of jews. This is proved by a lot of international unions taking the palestinian side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Apparently American unions do this too, although poor Ben is unable to find any actual examples of the part of American Unions. It's kind of pathetic really.

And sad that Ben doesn't get a lot of comments on his article; only ten. A really popular article can get hundreds. Still they is a gem or two.

An enemy is an enemy and will spill your blood the same no matter what you label them as.

Unless, presumably, you spill their blood first.

Into the Depths

In July of last year, Andrew Brietbart posted a heavily edited video claiming that Shirley Sherrod was a racist who didn't want to help white people. Sherrod was subsequently denounced by the NAACP and let go by the Obama Administration. Then the full video was released, which revealed that actually she was willing to help white people. The story was essentially that she was hesitant to, but then did, and learned a valuable lesson about helping all people.

Brietbart, naturally enough, largely admits to no wrongdoing. Instead he constructed an alternative timeline in which the fact that Sherrod got some money in the Pigford settlement lead to her being fired. For those who don't know, Pigford was a class action suit against the USDA, which alleged that Civil Rights discrimination complaints went ignored. This was because they went ignored; Reagan had shut down the branch of the USDA that would have responded to them. Sherrod got part of this settlement. For a longer look at this subject, see here.

Days after being embarrassed by the appearance of the full video, Brietbart hit upon this as a new way to justify his attacks. And he's been hammering her all year, culminating in his appearance at CPAC over the weekend. Apparently Sherrod has had enough, because she has opened a lawsuit against him for disparaging her character.

Fortunately Brietbart has allies like Ben Shapiro, who uses his latest article to defend Brietbart. Let's check it out.

Sherrod, you may remember, was a ranking Department of Agriculture official in Georgia. Breitbart released a video of Sherrod speaking to the NAACP, where she told a story about discriminating against a white farmer before realizing that such discrimination was wrong.

OK this is at best a half truth. The video actually shows Sherrod considering discrimination but deciding that she was there to serve everybody. Thoughts of discrimination aren't actually the same as discrimination.

The purpose of releasing the video, as Breitbart clearly stated, was to demonstrate that the same NAACP that labeled the tea party racist tolerated racism within its own ranks. The video accomplished that purpose -- members of the NAACP cheer and laugh as Sherrod describes her past racism in the video.

This is not entirely true either. They cheer her speech, but not specifically that she didn't help a white person. Shapiro is either lying or deceived. Or possibly stupid.

No matter what you think of the original Sherrod incident, Breitbart's commentary falls squarely within the protections of the First Amendment.

No it doesn't; lying to defame someone isn't allowed even against famous people. Now it's hard to prove, but if you are frankly lying, there's probably a case. And Brietbart's edited video is deceptive at best.

Shapiro paints this as a poor Internet journalist who is unfairly sued by Sherrod and the sinister forces backing her for telling the truth (despite the fact that, well, he didn't exactly tell the truth. Some of his readers are even more forthright, with a spirited defense of taking things out of context.

Yeah, man...it's OK for the left to take things out of context, but not for the right...yeah...keep flappin' yer yap...you folks are far more guilty of perpetrating that BS...daily...

Sherrod is a walking example of reparations. A worthless hack feeding off the public. She and thousands of other public employees who think they warrant special consideration and are belligerent towards those generous taxpayers who fund their payroll and benefits.
Obviously Sherrod the toad is the quintessential example of Black O's diet efforts.
I am past the point of caring about these worthless pond scum government employees.

Sherrod is a pawn? She sounds more like a black queen. She is clearly one of the biggest race-hustlers afoot. Her personal wealth is built on it. She sounds like she could rival Jackson, Wright & Sharpton in ill-gotten gains.

Why she is now or ever has been on the federal payroll is testament to the racist panderings of the federal government. Time to end it. Good luck, Andrew!

It's hard to know what to say about Race in this matter; it's at the heart of it. Pigford was a lawsuit about racial injustice and Brietbart, essentially, edited the video to accuse Sherrod of racism. This is basically where Limbaugh Conservatives come down on the issue; there is no relevant white on black racism, and black on white racism is endemic. Blacks accuse whites or racism because they are racist and/or hucksters trying to get a buck. That's the template. That's the way Limbaugh Republicans look at the world.

If Wishing Made It So

I got sick last week which is why posting tailed off, but I did want to point out this article from good old Ben Shapiro, Boy Prognosticator. This week Ben has girded up his loins in a silly attempt to be an Ann Coulter like fire breather.

. . . we don't need to be lectured about our intolerance for Islam when we object to radical terror-supporting Muslims building a mosque on the bodies of those murdered by radical terror-supporting Muslims. Our objections to the ground zero mosque aren't based on xenophobic notions about brown people or baseless ideas about the nature of all Muslims. Our objections to the ground zero mosque are simple: We will not submit to a group of people who agree with terrorists in ideology, share funders with terrorists, and seek to use a site of Islamist victory as a site for the worship of an Islamist god.

The key argument here is that Imam Ruaf is a terrorist supporiting radical. He isn't. He clearly isn't. His public statements show him to be the opposite of a terrorist-supporting radical, unless you carefully cherry pick his statements.

I don't know whether Ben knows the truth, but has decided it's more fun to lie, or if he genuinely doesn't know that Imam Ruaf is a moderate.

I'm also amused at that "We will not submit" line, as it does seem to imply that simply complaining about the Mosque isn't going to be enough. This is amusing because plenty of consrvatives have been keen to point out that nobody is saying Muslims can't build a community center there; they just would prefer that they didn't. It's clear that some, young Ben among them, would like to see more stringent opposition that would actually stop the Cordoba center.

The general thrust of the article is about Michael Moore; young Ben really doesn't like Michael Moore.

Every Title Tells a Story

Sometimes it is fun to respond to a title before reading the article proper. The title of Ben Shapiro's latest article is "Why We Treat Obama Like a Dog."

Nice.

I don't believe in calling every conservative racist, and I am not sure Shapiro is racist - I tend to think he isn't. But a statement like that - did it even occur to him how that would read? I mean there's being a racist and just being stupidly insensitive, and I am pretty sure this article title falls into the later camp.

As for the article itself let's take a peek.

If Obama were a dog, he'd be a bad dog. The kind of dog that routinely drinks from the toilet, and simply will not be taught that drinking from the toilet is bad manners (think Obama on health care). The kind of dog that barks at all hours of the night, just for attention (think Obama's pathetic need for constant adulation). The kind of dog that runs from intruders when danger's in the air (think Obama on Iraq, Iran, Russia, North Korea, China -- hell, just think about Obama's position on any country that isn't an American ally).

In fairness Shapiro is using the dog metaphor because the President complained that his enemies see him as a dog. That said, it's a bit uncomfortable to read him talking that way about the President.

Particularly Stupid

Ben Shapiro is regularly grist for my mill, but sometimes he outdoes himself, as he did in this weeks article.

We used to call it tyranny. Now, apparently, we call it an "independent judiciary."

At least that's the way the left sees it. The role of the judiciary in this country, according to liberals, is to act as a sort of super-Senate, qadis on the hill who decide based on whim and fancy how the rest of us should live. The American people are benighted morons; the judiciary is full of brilliant moral thinkers. They must rule us.

Note how Ben thoughtlessly avoids any engagement with what the courts are actually doing or with what Liberal might actually think. But to clarify, Courts interpret laws in regards to the Constitution and precedent; if a law is found to be in conflict with constitutional principles, the courts will overturn said law. This isn't because these judges are "brilliant moral thinkers," this is because they know what the constitution says. Now we might disagree with their assessment (with the current Supreme Court I often disagree), but let's not pretend it's something it's not.

Shapiro basically then argues for the legislatures and Congress to remove several hot button issues from the Jurisdiction of the courts (those issues regarding Gay Marriage, Abortion and Immigration), and if the Courts continue to hear such cases to defund them. I'm not sure exactly how this would work; if you have a case involving abortion you could go to the lower courts but not the higher ones? More to the point, once we've taken this idiotic step, what's to stop the Legislature from moving such cases as Worker Safety and Consumer Protection out of the Courts Jurisdiction as well? Seems like a pandora's box.

The Second Great Depression

Ben Shapiro really is dumb. I mean really. I make fun of him a lot, but it takes a certain kind of idiocy to write todays article. Not because he's conservative; a lot of conservatives think that Obama is messing up this country. Nothing wrong with that per se. But . .. well just read this.

And just as during the First Great Depression, economic liberals are declaring that it doesn't exist. "The depression is over," President Herbert Hoover told a group of clergymen in 1930. "I am convinced," he said in 1931, "we have passed the worst and with continued effort we shall rapidly recover." . . .

Hoover was wrong and so are Obama and his lackeys. And just like Hoover, Obama will take measures that are economically feasible in a strong economy but absolutely disastrous in a weak one.

He does, I have to admit, point out that the tariffs passed were a pretty bad idea. But he also suggests that Obama is just like Hoover in that he is proposing Government spending and higher taxes. Except that sounds a bit like good old Roosevelt too, who doesn't appear (directly) in Shapiro's article.

If you are going to rip into Hoover for Government projects, isn't it almost necessary to point out that Roosevelt did much the same thing on a far larger scale? Hoover frankly didn't spend a fraction of what Roosevelt spent, and in fact wasn't really an economic liberal. Certainly not by today's standards.

More to the point, Shapiro even references Roosevelt at the end of his article, albeit obliquely, with "Happy Days are Here Again." Does Shapiro really believe that his readers aren't going to remember the existence of Roosevelt, the great liberal president?

Fools Rush In

Not that I am calling Ben Shapiro a Fool, mind you. Just that it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to decided to get back into the Sherrod controversy, which Shapiro does in his latest article.

To be fair, Shapiro admits that the Brietbart tape was heavily and unfairly edited. Basically Shirly Sherrod isn't a racist based on that heavily edited tape. But the media and other sources are missing the larger context which is that Sherrod is a Marxist and kind of a racist.

But the context the media found was also out of context. The speech makes clear that Sherrod is a Marxist rather than a racist, but that she has racial tendencies nonetheless.

Apparently Sherrod has a history of standing up for black farmers. Horrors. And Obama apparently wanted to promote someone who stands up for black farmers. What an evil, evil man.

It's hard not to read this article as either making a mountain out of a molehill; Obama is a Democratic President; albeit a center of the roader. It's not surprising he would nominate at least a few liberals (and lets be clear, Marxist in the mouth of Shapiro means anybody more liberal than, say, Mitt Romney).

Ben Shapiro the Jackass

Ben Shapiro's latest article is on Al Gore being accused of being a philanderer by a masseuse.

Now, that "old-fashioned, romantic innocence" has withered away. According to the 73-page police report by a Portland, Ore., masseuse, Gore is not only an attempted adulterer, he's a "crazed sex poodle." And if any of what is laid forth in the report is true, he's also exceptionally weird.

I haven't seen a ton of writing on the Al Gore story, perhaps because most Conservatives are a bit leery of writing that particular phrase - the one where they have to admit that this story may be total bullshit. Doesn't stop young Ben though. He's happy to write his whole article, castigating Gore, praising this masseuse, and complaining that the Media is ignoring this very important story.

In related news, Salon's War Room reported that the Portland Tribune tried for three years to verify this story and couldn't. They apparently went so far as to place an ad on Craig's List, looking for masseuses who might have had a bad experience with a prominent person. So maybe they did look at this story, and, not wanting to admit that it was all heresy, decided to drop it.

So given that the story is unverified and nonsensical why does young Ben want to believe it? Because it fits the narrative that he believes in. All Liberals are hypocritical scumbags.

When the masseuse told her friends that she'd been sexually assaulted by the horny horned-owl hero, they answered her in typical liberal fashion: "suck it up; otherwise, the world's going to be destroyed from global warming."

You have to love people who are so stupid that they think Al Gore's blustering blather about saving the planet means he gets to rape anybody he pleases.

That right there shows that Shapiros hated and disdain for liberals has blinded him to reality. What kind of person would really excuse rape for environmental concerns? Well in Shapiro's mind, that's what a Liberal would do. In my mind, that wouldn't actually happen; it reads like a parody. If further confirmation of this masseuses story come forth, well, we'll have to deal with that. But for the moment it's not that believable.

Ben Shapiro - then and now

Maybe I'm a hard-hearted guy, but when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don't really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way. One American soldier is worth far more than an Afghan civilian.

Fall 2001 (I believe, don't have a direct link to the article)

Since the death of the Soviet Union, we are unquestionably the world's only superpower, the world's remaining empire. Acquiring an empire requires a different mindset than maintaining and expanding one. Empires either decline or they grow. If America is to survive and flourish, Americans must realize that empire isn't a choice: It's a duty.

- August 2005

Some restrictions, however, are just and right and Constitutional -- and necessary. No war can be won when members of a disloyal opposition are given free reign to undermine it.

- February 2006

President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms -- not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually.

-February 3, 2010

I know I'm missing some doozies by Ben Shapiro - but this is just sad. After arguing that President Bush and the Republican Congress should embrace Empire and should pass and enforce sedition laws to silence criticism, not to mention glorifying civilian death on the grounds that only American Soldiers matter, he has the gall to attack President Obama as a fascist.

His technique is to take Obama's state of the Union and translate it as nastily as possible.

But in Obama's mind, it is not even the government that embodies us -- it is Obama himself who encapsulates our hopes, dreams and spirit. "What keeps me going -- what keeps me fighting," he blathered, as though we were all deeply interested in the state of his psyche, "is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism, that fundamental deceny that has always been at the core of the American people, that lives on."

See - when Obama talks about being inspired by the American people that's supremely arrogant. He assumes that the American people care about what inspires him. I wonder if this awkward assignation of arrogance manifests itself in Bens normal life.

"Hey Ben, Great show today."

"Why are you so arrogant as to assume I care what you think about my show?"

Oh well, consistency and logic really aren't Ben's strengths.

Ben Shapiro, Still Young After All These Years

Most people studying the healthcare bill about to be passed by congress have twigged to the fact that it's a giveaway to the insurance industry. Jonah Goldberg admits as much in his latest article, and why not. It's not like people are raring to defend health insurance companies.

But not Ben Shapiro; in his latest article, he's determined to paint the insurance companies as victims (even as he calls for consumers to stop using them).

Congressional Democrats, after all their faux wrangling, open bribery and bully tactics, are poised to reach agreement on a massive makeover of the American health system. This makeover will bankrupt the insurance companies, raise premiums, and eventually lead to the full nationalization of health care.

He recommends that American doctors begin refusing payments from both insurers and medicaid, and only consent to treat patients who pay for their own health care. This will somehow bring costs down through "competition." Another possibility - the Doctors trying this foolish scheme go out of business as their customers go across the street to someone who will take their health insurance/medicaid cards.

He also encourages every healthy American to refuse to get health insurance and to be willing to go to court to fight for the right not to have health insurance, and he advocates not electing Obama or Democrats. OK, I kind of see where he's coming from on that last one.

Still it does kind of speak to Shapiro's mentality. I'm not a fan of the phrase Ivory Tower Academic, but it does seem to fight Shapiro - he really doesn't seem to have a clue how the world works.

Personal Responsibility

Conservatoids like to pretend that liberals are opposed to personal responsibility. Take Ben Shapiro's latest article.

Here is how the free market works: open competition among sellers, informed bidding among buyers. Sellers are responsible for competing; buyers are responsible for informing themselves. When the government pledges to increase competition or keep buyers informed, the market is no longer free.

He argues that Wall Street types were happy taking bad investment vehicles because they assumed that the government would take care of them. You know like how people don't bother preventing fires because we have Fireman. "Why shouldn't I smoke in bed? If my bedsheets catch on fire, Dennis O'Leary will be in here like a flash to put me out."

At any rate, I personally am keen on personal responsibility, but am not keen on letting the crooks and frauds off the hook by blaming their victims.

Ben Shapiro Grows up and gets less interesting

Ben Shapiro has, it seems to me, always wanted to be a thinking man's columnist. He's more interested in being Robert Novak or George will than being Doug Giles or Ann Coulter. That hasn't prevented him from saying some shocking things from time to time (in most cases shockingly stupid), but most of those were seeming aberrations, not a deliberate style. In contrast, Coulter is aiming directly for the most controversial and hateful things she can say.

The upshot to all this is that in the long run Shapiro is trying to be dull. And as he's grown up he's gotten better at being dull. Which is why I don't write him about him nearly as much as I used to. His latest article compares President Obama to President Jimmy Carter, somewhat ineptly, but also dully.

Shapiro points out that both Carter and Obama hate Israel, which in this context means they disagree with the Israeli right wing. Many Israelis disagree with the Israeli right wing, and one wonders if they also hate Israel.

Then there's this bit.

Carter surrendered Afghanistan to the Soviets; Obama is on the verge of surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Not exactly. Obama remains committed to Afghanistan despite many in his party and on the left believing it's time to pull out.

The article continues in this vein noting that both Obama and Carter caused inflation (not really), both tried to mess with the economy (sort of true, but not a negative), and both came from racist backgrounds (yeah, that one is pretty convincing if you think Obama hates white people).

Mordently funny

It's humorous to read Ben Shapiro's latest article in which he warns that attempts to shame critics of the Obama Administration are an early warning sign of Nazism or Leninism. Of course such attempts are far more unorganized and sporadic than they were under President Bush, attempts with Shapiro happily supported. Such as these lines from an article in 2006.

Americans may be unhappy with Republicans, but Republicans must make clear that the alternative is a country run by those who consistently side with enemies of the American people.

It is fairly simple though - to conservatives like Shapiro the conservative point of view is worth defending and the liberal viewpoint is to be stamped out if possible. So freedom of speech is great when a conservative is talking. When a liberal is talking? Well, it's at best a necessary evil.

False Choices

Young Ben Shapiro's latest is interesting; he takes Obama for task for using the phraseology of "false choices," which he describes as childish.

And so Obama claimed in the Chicago Tribune that Americans “need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy.” That choice, he said, is a “false choice.” It is a false choice as he phrases it -- capitalism isn’t chaotic and unforgiving. But the simple choice between capitalism and a government-managed economy is a real choice -- and it’s the most important choice Americans have faced in half a century. Obscuring the need to make that choice by glossing over it with happy talk does a profound disservice to the American people.

It is in fact a false choice, Shapiro. It presents, as Conservatives tend to these days, two poles. The pure pristine clarity of unfettered, laissez-faire capitalism verses, in a word, communism. But the truth is that it there is a long continuity between those two poles. Conservatives are trying to blur that distinction right now to suggest that any proposal Obama puts forwards is a step on the way to Communism; but I don't know how successful they are going to be.

Those Darned Hollywood Policy Makers

Ben Shapiro's latest article is about Hollywood and Iran. He's peeved.

Last week, a group of prominent actors and movie executives from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences visited Iran.

Fresh from the Academy’s triumphant Oscar-night celebration of homosexuality and religion-bashing, Sid Ganis, president of the Academy, Oscar-nominated actresses Annette Bening and Alfre Woodard, former president Frank Pierson, and producers William Horberg and Tom Pollack made the journey to Tehran.

There they met with the Iranian House of Cinema, the film organization operating under the auspices of the Islamic, homosexuality-banning Iranian government.

. . . Since when have Hollywood stars become proxies for actual policymakers?

OK a few points; is Ben Shapiro disapproving of Iran's policy towards homosexuals? Or envious of it? Cause it seems like he disapproves of Hollywood being in favor of Homosexuals being treated like full citizens and equally disapproving of Iran discriminating against Homosexuals.

Whatever, the other oddity is him taking a meeting of American film makers with Iranian film makers as some sort of statement by the Obama administration. I'm not surprised that Shapiro doesn't know this, because Iran is the enemy and showing any interest at all in the enemy is weakness to the meathead right wing, but Iran actually does have a vibrant film scene.

The War on Terror is Over

That's the good news. Now for the bad news; we apparently lost. This according to young Ben Shapiro, boy prognosticator.

On Nov. 4, 2008, America lost the war on terror. President Barack Obama’s feckless, pathetically apologetic perspective on foreign policy spells the end of the quest for liberty in the Middle East. It spells the end of America’s moral leadership in the global war for freedom. And it spells the end of a hard-fought campaign to protect America. Our enemies must be happily celebrating their great good fortune in America’s election of this platitudinous, morally relativistic, Jimmy Carter carbon copy in the midst of battle.

Yeah Ben's still pretending to see the future. He's mostly responding to an interview Obama gave with Al Arabiya; basically Ben Shapiro feels that Obama has abandoned this country and his oath to protect us by not continuing the belligerent policies of the Bush Administration.

Predictable enough

It turns out Republicans weren't keen on President Obama's inaugural speech.

President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech was supposed to be one of the great inaugural addresses of all time. It was supposed to encourage us, to inspire us. Instead, it deflated us.

Obama’s inaugural address deflated us because it perfectly crystallized the quandary America now finds itself in: we wanted our faith renewed through a “transformational moment” -- but now we’ve got a faithless man for president.

Ben Shapiro, "Obama’s Inaugural: Hubris Will Bring Him Down"

President Obama's Inaugural Address?

Clichéd, surprisingly dull, naive, and memorable only insofar as it was forgettable.

Wynton Hall, "An Army of Clichés Marching Across the Presidential Palate"

Obama's speech was a carefully crafted self-contradiction, with a beginning and end that could have been delivered by a conservative and a middle that envisioned government unleashed from constitutional restraints.

Terence Jeffrey, "We the Government"

It was more somber, just listening to it and looking at the occasional crowd shots, the occasion seemed to be more somber than anybody was led to believe. All this is surprising to me, that there was very little inspiration, that there was soaring phrases that just weren't there. Now, it was said that Obama was writing this himself. And that was the news that we got. Obama was going to write this speech himself. He sequestered himself for two days and didn't want to be interrupted with anything while he worked on this. If that's true, it was said that he was writing it himself, the results show that he probably did, because most of his speeches are written by David Axelrod. But this was buzz kill for the assembled billions out there. This was buzz kill. This was no buzz. There was bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz. You'll have to forgive me if this offends you, folks. I'm just sharing with you my honest reaction to elements of the speech.

Rush Limbaugh, Yesterday's Show.

To be fair Thomas Sowell and George Will were largely complimentary towards the speech.

Brave Ben Shapiro does battle with a Strawman

Yep - and Young Ben does a pretty good job of it in his latest article. The particular strawman he is fighting is the theory that Liberals claimed that electing Obama would prove, once and for all, that we weren't a racist nation. Yep. But we've had racial problems since the election, so I guess it was all a scam. Thank you Ben Shapiro for successfully defeating that Strawman. I guess voting for Obama was a waste of time; unless, of course, you voted for Obama because you thought he was the best candidate for the job.

But what are the odds of that?