Ben Stein Calls Joe Miller A 'Stupid' Thug In Paper Whose Editor Was Handcuffed By Candidate's Security

Conservative thinker and comedic actor Ben Stein took to the pages of the Alaska Dispatch on Sunday to slam the state's Tea Party candidate Joe Miller as a brutish thug for having a private security detail handcuff one of that paper's reporters.

In an endorsement of incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowksi (R-AK), the longtime commentator made the case that detaining an inquisitive reporter simply because he is inquisitive is antithetical to Tea Party values. But Stein does it with a hint of intellectual elitism strong enough to seem out of place in what is ostensibly an appeal to salt-of-the-earth Alaska Republican voters.

A candidate as stupid as Miller, he writes, can't possibly have graduated from Yale Law School -- Stein's alma mater -- unless "he somehow slipped through the Ivied doors when they weren't looking."

Maybe Miller thinks he is boss of some kind of third world country and his mirrored sunglass-wearing Tontons Macoutes can just bully anyone who gets in his way.

That is not what the Tea Party is all about. It is certainly not what the GOP is about. It isn't even what the Democratic Party is about.

Can you imagine a statewide official doing this or allowing his guards to do this -- and not then sending out a full throated apology? Yet Miller is accusing the reporter of assaulting his guards, who, as apparently seen by witnesses, surrounded [editor Tony] Hopfinger and menaced him, and then cuffed him when he tried to escape. How stupid can a candidate be? How can this be happening?

Stein also expresses alarm with another Miller head-scratcher -- the candidate's declaration that the closing of the border by communist East Germany could serve as a template for how the U.S. handles the Mexican border.

By writing his piece for the Alaska Dispatch, however, he may have limited his own reach. After his security detail's brief detention of Hopfinger, Miller went out of his way to pin the blame on the paper and its hostile editorial staff. And at this juncture (certainly after the handcuffing incident) it may be that undecided voters see the Dispatch as a venue for anti-Miller content.

Comments

[cheesesteak8]

01:32 AM on 11/23/2010

That's just the way it is in the rough and tumble world of Sarah Palin's Alaska! Luckily, Joe and Sarah are heading up Check Point Charlie of the Ice Curtain.

[whyputaname]

01:17 AM on 11/23/2010

Ya know Joe in the words of your mentor Phalin, Stop Your Whining and Get Over It!

Ben Stein as much as I can't stand listening to him is right on this one......All Fleabaggers are thugs!

[marilyn 63]

02:41 PM on 10/26/2010

dang Ben. i don't think you like old Joe. but why for the first time. do you sound surprisingly right??

[Clevelandinwi]

10:42 AM on 10/26/2010

Hey, is this cool or what? benstein is right for the first time in his entire life. WOW.

[Wallysmom]

08:34 AM on 10/26/2010

Miller, for all his posturing, is now neck and neck with Murkowski, the write-in candidate. Perhaps Alaskans are realizing that their primary decision may have been a mistake. Time for Joe to return the leather couch and Senate Seal rug.

[Ed and Deb Shapiro]

06:31 AM on 10/26/2010

Anyway you look at it Joe Miller is a thug - a boring one at that. Shame on you Joe! You insulted Alaska on the world stage!

It is astounding that someone who is a senate candidate would have the arrogance - or stupidity - to pull off such a stunt - unless he thought Alaska would allow this to be acceptable?

When this kind of bullying happens - so outright - you know there is more tackiness where this comes from.

What Joe is really saying is - screw anyone who screws with Joe Miller -

hey Joe Alaska is not a dictatorship - and you have no right to be a senator - you brought it to a new low!

Handcuffing is no way to deal with anyone!

Does anyone agree with me?

Ed

[EthicalJournalist]

07:18 AM on 10/26/2010

Oh, yes. Lots of us agree with you. I do, for one. But I would add something.

Miller isn't even a good thug. In any self-respecting branch of organized crime, he would be the water boy, at best. No matter who he roughs up, his inability to cover his thuggishness when the situation requires it would make his ascent up the thug ladder of success problematical. Even if he killed ten people, his complete lack of common sense would keep him from being a "made man." So poor Joe is a failure even at being a thug.

He's an insect. Too insignificant to notice, except by other insects. If there are enough insects, he may get elected. In which case, I feel sorry or Alaska. First, it was forced into national disgrace by the TundraTart (and I stole that one from lizt on HuffPo), and now the poor state might end up with a thug wannabe who really doesn't even deserve a nickname. Not a political nickname, and not an organized crime one. He's an insect. I hear the mosquitos and flies are pretty vicious in Alaska during their brief lives. And then they are gone. As I said, Miller is an insect.

[marilyn 63]

02:43 PM on 10/26/2010

most definitely!!! a lot of these Tea Rethugs are thugs.

[gorgol]

06:21 AM on 10/26/2010

With all these upstanding candidates running for office, and those in office...its just hard to believe this country is bankrupt...how did it happen....I'm shocked...I tell you, shocked.

[fisher65]

05:03 AM on 10/26/2010

dont even want to go to alaska now!

[rgilley]

05:38 AM on 10/26/2010

Must be alot of ignorant people there to put this Kansas hustleer in office.

[Waiting for Something]

06:32 AM on 10/26/2010

My parents just got back from there and said it's an amazing, beautiful place. Go see it now before the pristine beauty is destroyed by drill baby drill types. Go for the native peoples (which I understand 'Eskimos' now prefer to be called) and your own satisfaction and ignore the politics, if you can. After all, I go into the city of Chicago regularly despite having disdain for many of the crooks there (hey, Todd!).

[siamao]

04:47 AM on 10/26/2010

THE BONNIE & CLYDE OF REPUBLICAN POLITICS

Joe Miller has suddenly gone all Christine O'Donnell on Alaskan Voters.
He's unzippered his full-length Yale Law, West Point graduate cover and
exposed his under-belly of greed, failed commitments, and hypocrisy.
Now, like the equally fiscally irresponsible, wheeling-dealing Christine O'Donnell,
Joe Miller says, "I'm YOU!"

From the article, "Miller said Alaskans probably know more about him than any other
candidate. And he said that's probably a good thing because they "get to understand
that, hey, they're electing somebody LIKE THEM." [emphasis added]

Except, we all know that Joe Miller didn't unzipper his Yale-West Point body armour
voluntarily. He figuratively had the ole journalistic and Court-ordered exposure of
his past applied before he copped to any misdeeds.

Now, like his "Bonnie" who lies over in Delaware--Christine O'Donnell--he's trying
to shift his image as a corrupt villian by seeking an identification with the electorate.
"I'm You!" Who out there hasn't been caught red-handed with on-the-job computer
tampering in order to influence politics?

[siamao]

04:35 AM on 10/26/2010

JOE'S WOES

Ultimately it's unbridled narcissism which is Miller's own worse enemy.

If he hadn't been so grandiose as to believe that he, personally, could influence
the political process of Alaska, he wouldn't have tampered with coworkers'
computers at his government job.

If he didn't hold such self-centered disdain for the less fortunate, he wouldn't be
out ranting against the very entitlements which have sustained him and his family.

If he wasn't as guilty as sin, he wouldn't be wearing that scruffy beard to cover
the fact that he's the one who stole all the chocolate! (And I stole that line from
another commenter here.)

If he didn't feel weak and inferior, he wouldn't be hiring active duty military security
guards from Drop Zone to accompany him wherever he goes.

If Joe's entire adaptation wasn't a compensation against his underlying dependency
needs, he wouldn't be ranting about the evils of "big government" programs that
sustained him and his family in their times of need.

WHEN will Joe Miller stop being the story long enough to communicate the needs
of the people of Alaska--if he should be elected to the U.S. Senate?

[iw]

03:22 AM on 10/26/2010

It's pretty amusing to note how the teabagger candidates, while taking a puffed up, aggressive righteous stand for the Constitution don't seem to quite embrace the 1st amendment and freedom of the press. Give them the scratch and sniff test, and most of them reveal themselves to be cowards who run like scared bunny rabbits from the press (the better not to be quoted saying stoopid things), then Miller has his thugs just attack, which is just another cowardly dodge. How do they think they would survive the DC climate? ok, they don't think. They huff and puff and spout slogans, like Orwellian caricatures of politicians. It's sort of fascinating in a macabre, car crash kind of way...

[siamao]

04:37 AM on 10/26/2010

Great comments. "How do they think they would survive the DC climate", indeed?
Thanks with a big Fan and Fave.

[MarsAmbassador]

01:59 AM on 10/26/2010

He'll be apologizing by lunch after Rush picks up the story.

[rgilley]

05:39 AM on 10/26/2010

I don't think Ben Stein will be bowing to the drugster....he's a bit more independant than the run of the mill corporate Republican.

[Stephen]

01:47 AM on 10/26/2010

To sum up: Miller graduated from a military academy (on the public dollar), took a law degree from Yale and ends up being an attorney of a small borough in Alaska? (on the public dollar). While in Alaska, he wore out his welcome at a law firm, lived on public assistance at times, was suspended for an ethics breach? Something does not add up here. Keep digging journalists. He is running from something. I have seen the pattern before.

[Kevin Ghiassi]

01:21 AM on 10/26/2010

IT TAKES ONE $ tu pid TO KNOW ANOTHER $ tup id

[MissMapleLeaf]

12:55 AM on 10/26/2010

I still don't like you very much, Ben.