The Genius Ben Stein Rolls The Fatuous Mayor Bloomberg's Salt-Free Abortions

Ben Stein is a gentleman to the backbone. Mayor Bloomberg is a parsing dweeb with billions of dollars. One is a mensch and a half and the mayor a nebish squared. . . or as Skinny Sheahan might say, "Ben's a Pair and Mike's Lacking Both."

I read this brilliant piece by Ben Stein in the The American Standard - published and edited by Fenwick Friar Bob Tyrrell.

I am endlessly amazed at how backwards we humans get things in our lives. Just let me give you two very basic examples, one of which is a crime against humanity.

I keep reading in the New York Times that Mayor Bloomberg, a billionaire health nut, is on a campaign against having too much salt in foods in New York City restaurants. His belief is that New Yorkers and visitors shorten their life spans by eating too much salt and therefore raising their blood pressure in a dangerous way. If he took control over the salt content in New York restaurants, he could save a few dozen lives per year, he believes.

But, wait a moment. I also read in the New York Times that New York City is one of the abortion capitals of the nation, with a much higher rate of abortion than most other parts of the nation. And Mayor Bloomberg is a great fan of "…a woman's right to choose…" to abort her baby.

As I calculate it in a rough way, New York City has about 8 million persons living there, or about (very roughly) 3 per cent of the nation's population. And New York has a much higher abortion rate than the rest of the nation. So it is possible that New Yorkers have about 50,000 abortions per year, or maybe a lot more.

That is 50,000 killings of totally innocent children every year. Does Mayor Bloomberg think that his anti-salt campaign means much compared with that number? If he wants to save lives, why doesn't he throw his tiny weight and his huge purse behind right to life? That's a truly life-saving act.

This whole subject endlessly fascinates and horrifies me. We campaign against obesity -- and we should -- because it shortens life. But nothing else makes life as short as abortion. We campaign for more exercise -- and I heartily agree -- because it lengthens life. But, again, no amount of exercise would offset the over 1,000,000 excess American deaths each year caused by abortion of the totally innocent. We want safer cars. We want cleaner air. We want cleaner water. All to save life. But there is nothing we could do that would save more lives than to truly stop abortion in all but the most extreme cases of need.

Why? Why are we so blind to the mass murder of the innocent?

It do give one pause, Ben.

A Note From R. Emmett Tyrrell to Chicago Voters

Public Nuisances
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

With Rahm in the Windy City

Washington—On Sunday Rahm Emanuel declared his candidacy for mayor of Chicago. Instantaneously, he had problems with his campaign, not the least of which is that he is as much a resident of Chicago as I am. So on Monday I declared my candidacy for mayor of Chicago. Why not? I did it on the national television show of the estimable Sean Hannity, who immediately threw his support behind me. I was born in Chicago, come from a long line of Chicagoans, and like Rahm I am occasionally in town. The place is a gastronomic paradise, a cultural delight with great museums and a fine orchestra, plus opera—surprisingly Rahm and I have never crossed paths while in town. Supposedly, he attends rock concerts. He could attend the Chicago Symphony but he opts for Bruce Springsteen.
My candidacy already had the national endorsement of the New York Sun, which tapped me the day before I declared. I have a new book out, After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery, to provide Chicagoans, and Americans generally, with a blueprint for getting out of our present political and economic fix. The blogs are alive with support (and occasional rudeness), and more newspaper support is rumored on the way. All Rahm has is a few big names and our mutually held residency problem. Rahm is still seeking newspaper support, and his “listening tour,” begun Monday, has gotten off to a rocky start. A lot of Chicagoans do not like him. He has a reputation for yelling at underlings and for profanity.
As for me, I am free of any hint of Chicago corruption, certainly no hint of a connection to ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich. Frankly, I could not pick him out of a police lineup—at least a police lineup of gaudily dressed gigolos. Rahm is recorded on the telephone with Blagojevich suggesting deals shortly after President Barack Obama’s election. All of this and any other questionable dealings will be rehashed over and again during the run-up to the February election. When it comes to political connections with the Chicago machine or for that matter almost any connection at all—my family lives in the suburbs—I am clean as a hound’s tooth.
More to the point, though Rahm owns a house in Chicago, he does not live in it and cannot live in it. He leased it out nearly two years ago to one Rob Halpin, and it appears that Rob is a patriot. He is not going to let some capricious politician run him out of his home just because the politician decided to leave the sinking ship of President Obama and enter the mayor’s race. He has responsibilities. Moreover, he renewed his lease just days before Mayor Richard M. Daley announced his retirement on September 7. That apparently inspired Rahm to run, and it does raise the question: why did Rahm not leave himself free to move back to Chicago when he took his ill-considered job as President Obama’s chief of staff? President Obama has maintained his home there and is freer to run for mayor than Rahm. Why, as recently as the first week in September, did Rahm not see this mayoral race as at least a possibility, or maybe some other Chicago electoral endeavor? As I say, he suddenly decided to jump ship.
It all smacks of opportunism, and Rahm’s usual proclivity for bullying people. He tried it on me, when as a prelude to siccing a grand jury on The American Spectator, his Clinton White House sent me not a dead fish but a copy of Bill Clinton’s book Between Hope and History, suitably inscribed but with no explanation. It was sent on February 26, 1998, and marked the beginning of a year-long investigation of the Spectator on felony charges meant to tarnish Ken Starr’s witness in the Whitewater matter. The proceedings were dismissed as a witch hunt, but it did last a year, and it was unpleasant. In fact it reeks of bully politics.
Now Rahm envisages his unpleasant bully politics for Chicago, but he is dealing with serious pols, Sheriff Tom Dart and state Senator James Meeks. Charges of “carpetbagger” are in the air and that word again, “bullying.” Still these guys can deal with bullies, especially Dart who is sheriff of all of Cook County. Moreover, experts on the electoral law have weighed in, and they see tremendous hurdles for Rahm to leap—and me too. I shall throw myself on the mercies of the court. Will Rahm trust the courts?
One of Chicago’s top lawyers, Burt Odelson, told the Chicago Sun-Times that “The guy does not meet the statutory requirements to run for mayor.” Odelson elaborated, “He hasn’t been back there for 18 months. Residency cases are usually hard cases to prove because the candidate gets an apartment or says he’s living in his mother’s basement. Here the facts are easy to prove. He doesn’t dispute he’s been in Washington for the past 18 months. This is not a hard case.”
Well, Rahm, how about joining my legal case and throwing yourself on the mercy of the court? You got one thing right in all of this. Now is a good time to leave the White House. It might be a good time for Barack, too. Can one run for mayor while being president of the United States? Check it out, Barack. We can all run.




R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute. His new book is After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery.

R. Emmett Tyrrell - The Anti- Rahm is Running for Chicago Mayor

Only one day into the Rahm Run and Chicagoans are reacting to the sight of Emanuel at Whole Foods, Munchies in Bronzeville, and on the L-Stops of Windy City! From what I can gather, Rahm's pressing of flesh -as it were - is being treated by us helots with all of the joy and delight that a hot tub owner might elicit had Jimmy The Leper done a cannon ball into the foaming brine!

Now here come the anti-Rahm!

Fenwick Alumnus and publisher of the conservative American Spectator, Robert Emmett Tyrrell announced his bid for Chicago Mayor last night on the Sean Hannity Show.

I received an e-mail from Bob this morning and I must say - R. Emmett Tyrrell comes armed with a newspaper endorsement - The New York Sun.

Chicago's most talented writers are in exile - Dan Mihalopoulos, Mick Dumke,Jim Warren and the great Dan McGrath - writing the Chicago News Cooperative for the New York Times; therefore, an endorsement from a New York paper is not too much of stretch for this Chicago jingoist.

It is a very solid case for Mr. Tyrrell - give this a close look -

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. for Mayor:A Typhoon Brews in the Windy CityEditorial of The New York Sun | October 3, 2010

http://www.nysun.com/editorials/r-emmett-tyrrell-jr-for-mayor/87100/

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The reason Rahm Emanuel is leaving the White House, it is said, is that he’s getting set to run for mayor of Chicago. There’s actually a lot we admire about Mr. Emanuel, and we wish him luck. But our sentiments are with the editor-in-chief of the American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. The word is that Mr. Tyrrell, a contributing editor of The New York Sun, is hatching his own plan to run for mayor of Chicago the way one of his heroes, William F. Buckley, once ran for mayor of New York. Tune into the Sean Hannity broadcast Monday evening. If he does run a campaign, it’ll be the freshest breeze out of the Windy City since Lincoln.

Let us say right off the beam that we understand some will be puzzled in respect of why a newspaper in New York is making such an early endorsement in Chicago. We would just remind our readers that it was The New York Sun that gave Chicago its most famous nickname — the Windy City. The moniker was penned by our erstwhile editor, Charles Dana, in 1893. He was referring to the gusty nature of the politics of what the other papers liked to call the Second City. Wikipedia contends that others used the term before Dana, but it was Dana who made the phrase synonymous with Chicago.

Mr. Tyrrell is right in the Chicago tradition. It is said that Mr. Emanuel can’t say but a few words without delivering himself of the most awful expletives such as require parents to clap their hands over the ears of their children. Mr. Tyrrell is of the more literary turn, but he can talk with the windiest of the Chicago wise men. If the topic is Chicago itself, a certain twinge of warm affection starts to enter his voice, no doubt due to the fact that he was born in Chicago of a family with deep roots in the best tradition of Illinois politics.

The first time we met Mr. Tyrrell was in his private study, where he was seated beneath the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that the family of the 16th president gave Mr. Tyrrell’s family in appreciation for the role that one of Mr. Tyrrell’s ancestors, an agent of the Secret Service named P.D. Tyrrell, played in foiling a plot, by a band of currency counterfeiters, to steal Lincoln’s body from its first grave. The Lincoln connection may be what impelled Mr. Tyrrell to align himself with all the best traditions in the GOP. Mr. Tyrrell’s great-grandfather, Frank Tyrrell, was for many years the last surviving officer of the Haymarket Riot.

As a journalist, Mr. Tyrrell has lived in the grand tradition. President Reagan once ducked out of the Oval Office to have dinner with Mr. Tyrrell in his home. When, during Mr. Tyrrell’s long journalistic campaign against President Clinton, the editor found himself in the same restaurant with the 42nd president, the editor sent over a bottle of champagne and the two ended jousting jovially about the president’s political crisis. Such is Mr. Tyrrell’s charm that Mr. Clinton’s great counsel, Bernard Nussbaum, while defending Mr. Clinton, once gave a favorable review to Mr. Tyrrell’s book on Mr. Clinton.

Mr. Tyrrell, in contradistinction to Mr. Emanuel, is not a man who pokes people in the chest. Mr. Tyrrell runs a supper series called the Saturday Evening Club that meets mid-week. To these dinners repair Supreme Court justices, foreign dignitaries, governors, senators, and presidential aspirants, all to be drawn out by Mr. Tyrrell’s friendly spirit and passion for the political debate. It’s a spirit that will serve him well if he actually mounts his campaign for mayor, in which, incidentally, the talk is that he’s going to unfurl the slogan “a tax cut in every pot,” demand an investigation of the city’s pension obligations, and unveil a plan to maneuver the Cubs into the World Series.

One of the things Mr. Tyrrell will no doubt do is seek to remind voters of Mr. Emanuel’s entanglements with Governor Blagojevich. Mr. Tyrrell likes to put it this way: “Having lived in Washington longer than Mr. Emanuel, I’m cleaner of Blagojevich than he is.” He’ll no doubt stress the ties between Mr. Emanuel and President Obama, whose health care nationalization will hurt Chicagoans so hard. And Mr. Tyrrell will be able to assert that he himself is blameless in the mortgage crisis, having never served on the board of Freddie Mac.

* * *

There are those who will set down Mr. Tyrrell’s campaign as satire, and satire is one of his favorite journalistic weapons. The great scoop of Mr. Tyrrell’s career is the story of how, during the 1970s, liberalism had become laughable. There are others who will say that the crisis into which Mr. Obama, with Mr. Emanuel’s help, has precipitated the country is no laughing matter, what with the government’s trillion dollar deficits, the dollar having collapsed to below a 1,300th of an ounce of gold, and the Bush momentum ebbing in the war. The Democrats may have their mandate in the Congress trimmed sharply or even revoked. But there are others who say Mr. Tyrrell’s penchant for good humor and optimism are just what our country needs, and what better place to start than by restoring to the heart of the American heartland a fair wind.

Bob, I think that you will find a much warmer greeting from Chicagoans at L Stops and at Whole Foods , than Robo-call Rahmbo.

Founder of American Spectator Bob Tyrrell Entering Chicago Mayoral Pool?

Word comes that a distinguished conservative man of letters intends to enter the lists and touch lances with the cavalcade of candidates for Chicago Mayor. Fellow Loyola Alum and thoughtful writer, Mark Rhodes gave me the heads-up.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, the founder of The American Spectator is interested in running for Mayor of Chicago. Bob Tyrrell, like Governor Pat Quinn, is a proud Alumnus of Fenwick High School.

Unlike Pat Quinn, Bob Tyrrell is a conservative Democrat. Hey, I am one as well. So are many of my neighbors. Bob's entry into the race for Mayor could spark a groundswell of support from middle class Chicagoans who are beset with endless and growing taxes and sickened by the waste that is the hallmark of city government.

Bob Tyrrell would be the only candidate untarnished by the Illinois/Blago/Tax-Up-A-Storm/Kill-Middle Class crowd.

Welcome to the brawl, Bob!

It is becoming apparent for all to see, that a man who made his name as a community organizer does not have the skills to be President of these United States. Maybe he could develop the requisite skills as a governor. Possibly, he could develop such skills were he to sit in the Senate for a couple of terms. Yet there are delicate sensitivities, the ability to listen, to stick by your guns, occasionally to remain reticent. These are the fundamentals of a leader, and President Barack Obama has demonstrated that he lacks all of them, most notably reticence. I now think it is clear even to Official Washington that President Obama is the worst president of modern times. President Jimmy Carter is redeemed.

Bob Tyrrell in The American Spectator

Robert Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (born December 14, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American conservative magazine editor, New York Times bestselling author, and columnist. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator. He writes under the byline R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. but is known socially as Bob Tyrrell. Tyrrell is a 1961 graduate of Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois, where he was on the swim team. He then went to Indiana University where he was a swim team manager for the notable coach James "Doc" Counsilman. While at Indiana University, he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi, living in a chapter house where Steve Tesich resided and in years when Bob was not at IU, such figures as Mark Spitz, and Evan Bayh. He did not live in the chapter house for his entire stay at IU but rather lived off campus with swimmers John Wagner and Terry Townsend.
In 2000, government investigations of The American Spectator caused Tyrrell to sell the magazine to venture capitalist George Gilder. In 2003, Gilder, having a series of financial and legal setbacks, resold the magazine to Tyrrell and the American Alternative Foundation, the organization under which the magazine was originally incorporated, for a dollar