Ben Stein: Yahoo

Now that he's gone from The New York Times, we are of course going to have to keep track of Stein's other platforms more vigorously in order to sustain the viability of our humble Ben Stein Watch.

Fortunately for this feature, though perhaps unfortunately for other purposes, he has plenty. I'm looking just now at his Yahoo column.

On August 7, 2009, he wrote there a column titled, "Congrats, Bankers, You're Rich Again." Actually, they were never not rich, although the marginal people and institutions among their investor base became much less rich, as did their rank-and-file employees. But if "bankers" refers to the bigwigs, they weren't unrich even through the worst of the recent crisis.

Still, one knows what he means by the sentiment of that title, which is carried throughin the column. He means that the subsidization of banks in the final months of the old administration and the early months of this one was a bad, idea, qa classic case of lemon socialism, of government taking up the costs of the losers of an economy at taxpayer expense, thereby rewarding what Ben calls their "obscenely selfish behavior."

These sentiments seem unobjectionable. Indeed, I heartily share them. But they ought to come with some element of mea culpa. Because Ben was one of the great cheerleaders for the very subsidization against which he now rails.

Watch his screamathon with Neil Cavuto, for example. They are talking over each other through most of this clip, so you may have a tough time. But skip foward to about 1:50 in the clip. Stein is saying: "We go in for as much federal stimulus as it takes to keep us out of a Great Depression ... We've got to commit even more," and so forth.

That was the argument of the subsidization. That is always the argument. So he is now shouting "boo" to a bandwagon on which he was a rider back in the day.

He is entitled to "boo" that bandwagon. If he has changed his mind, I am happy to see it. But a "mea culpa" or two would be welcome.