I went to hear Ben Stein speak as part of the Broward College Speakers Series last night. He has had a varied career: lawyer, professor, economist, actor, writer (speeches, articles, books, diaries, screenplays), and quiz show host. I was most familiar with his work in these last two roles, having been a fan of Win Ben Stein’s Money (my, and many people’s, first introduction to Jimmy Kimmel) and a bipartisan reader of print media.
His conservative side came through when he expressed incomprehension at the vitriol directed at the current president. Perhaps understandable for a man who not only worked for but “loved” Richard Nixon. But Nixon, for all his deviousness, possessed intelligence and political savvy; Trump’s grasp of history and economics, Stein admitted, is like that of a child. He added that he simply knows how to make money, which is not the same thing as economic knowledge.
Still, when asked whose economic policy he would suggest the nation adopt he answered without hesitation: Clinton’s.
He said he owed a great deal to Kimmel for all that the current talk show host had done for him. (I would think the debt and the gratitude would be in Kimmel’s court). Recalling his high school years, he said that he and his friends used to play Scrabble in Latin. He described his wife of over 50 years as a “goddess, a deity come down from heaven” and left the audience with an image of them lying in bed at night watching documentaries of the two world wars.
