Wednesday night on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," economist Ben Stein sounded distinctly unimpressed while discussing the relative intelligence of President Barack Obama with host Bill O'Reilly.
The following exchange is taken from a transcript posted by FoxNews.com:
O'REILLY: My final question is, Barack Obama is a smart man. You would say that right? He is a smart man?
STEIN: No, I wouldn't say that. … I mean, he's not in the same league of presidential genius as Nixon, for example. But he's smarter than the average bear, as they say.
For those of you scoring at home, Stein worked as a speechwriter in the Nixon and Ford administrations and later rose to fame as a character actor in supporting roles such as the boring economics teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Stein also won an Emmy Award for his work hosting the Comedy Central game show "Win Ben Stein's Money."
Politico blogger Caitlin McDevitt pointed out that Stein — a vocal Republican — "expects Obama to win another term (though) he favors former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the presidential race."
"I don’t expect Romney to win," Stein told O'Reilly. "I’d like him to win and I will vote for him, but I think Obama is a far more formidable campaigner. … Obama will swamp him in terms of money raising."
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Jamshid Ghazi Askar is an enterprise reporter covering Values in the Media for the Deseret News.
A proud half-Iranian born in Los Angeles, Mr. Askar spent his formative years growing up in Orange County. more ..
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the fact the Stein would hold Nixon up as a measure for intelligence pretty much tells you all you need to know about his judgement given his former bosses dark history.
Stein did not say anything about whether Nixon was morally upstanding, just that he was smarter than Obama. The fact that he got caught doing something illegal doesn't really affect the comparison. Granted, it's stupid of him to do what he More..
Two accusations of "arrogance", but as usual no specifics. I have no doubt that Nixon was smart, as Stein contends, but he wasn't able to separate the nation's interests from his own.