Dear God what hath Ben Stein wrought? His latest
column was as dreadful as most, but it seems to have touched one hell of
a nerve.
I have a weekly Ben
Stein Watch; I had to respond
to it. But I was far from alone. I’ve already mentioned Paul
Krugman, Dean
Baker, Yves
Smith, Roger
Ehrenberg, and athenian_abroad;
to that list should now be added numerous posts at DealBreaker (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6),
as well as posts by Fake
Ben Bernanke, Brad
DeLong, Calculated
Risk, Chew
Your Grouse, Ryan Avent,
Thoma, and many others. (Update: Add Herb
Greenberg to the list.)
In the friends-of-Stein camp (it does exist), we have Daniel
Altman, Howard Lindzon, Donald
Luskin, and Charlie Gasparino (1,
2),
as well as a bunch of strange
bedfellows who would normally repudiate Stein’s Republican views in a heartbeat
but who now think he might be on to something, seeing as how he’s bashing Goldman
Sachs.
The reaction was so intense, indeed, that Henry
Blodget and New York magazine (1,2)
were able to turn the whole thing into a media story. Gapper nodded in that
direction too, saying in Stein’s defense that "a columnist ought to be
provocative and entertaining".
Which makes Andrew
Leonard’s response seem all the more sensible: can’t we all just stop
reading the guy? Stein’s an archetypal troll, and the best way to respond
to a troll is to ignore him. But I have to say it would be a lot easier to ignore
him if the NYT stopped giving the chap one of the most valuable soap-boxes in
the land.