Wow. It looks like none other than Ben Shapiro has taken over the reins at Andrew Breitbart's site Big Government. He's the one who has been writing all those hit pieces on Barack Obama and Derrick Bell and that 1991 video. He's officially the Editor-At-Large for them now.
So, funny thing. Ben Shapiro and I were undergrads at UCLA at around the same time. So was front pager Dante Atkins. Shapiro was a viewpoint columnist for our school newspaper, the Daily Bruin. He of course wrote right-wing columns that were full of misrepresentations and loony right-wing views.
Here's Shapiro in a nutshell. He was considered a child prodigy, and started at UCLA at the age of 16. No doubt, he was a child prodigy. From what I've gathered about him, the problem was, because of that, he was always the smartest one in the room, and all the adults would constantly heap praise upon him. He was always right, always so smart.
And then he gets to college, and he has these professors challenge his pre-determined way of thinking about things. Some of those didn't mesh with what his parents had taught him about how the world worked. So when he encountered "liberal" professors smarter than him who had different political viewpoints than those he grew up with, what's a child prodigy to do?
One, really try and develop critical thinking skills to critically analyze what those professors were saying to see if they had merit, and if so, change your own way of thinking to adapt to these newfound ideas. Second, and this is the path li'l Ben chose, automatically assume your professors must be wrong, because you're soooooo smart, since everyone's told you you were so smart since you were a baby, you must be even smarter than those professors, and since they're all liberals, oh, that must mean those liberals are all wrong, and trying to brainwash you!
So his poor ego couldn't handle it, and he couldn't admit these professors could somehow be smarter and know more than he did. Therefore, they must be wrong, he must still be right. And so he'd find anything he could to justify how "right" he was, which meant writing a craptastic book railing against how professors are brainwashing their students into becoming liberal automatons.
That's who Ben Shapiro is. And now he's the new Andrew Breitbart.
I must apologize for my university. We've produced some amazing folks, but we've also had Ben Shapiro and Breitbart protégé James O'Keefe and pro-life activist Lila Rose come through here as well.
I did a parody of David Bowie's "Young Americans" back in 2004 about people like Ben Shapiro. That parody, and some of Ben's earlier college work, below the fold.
(OK, specifically, I had Andrew Jones in mind when I wrote this, but it applies to Shapiro as well.)
Young Republican
A young man's raised conservative, he looks around, he frowns,
"Gee those libs are funny things, why are they so loud?"
He married his high school sweetheart, she took his ring, made some babies,
It took him minutes, took her nowhere, Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything, but...
Chorus:
All white, he is a young Republican,
Young Republican, young Republican, he is a young Republican,
All white, he is a young Republican.
Arriving on a college campus, he majors in the humanities.
He scoffs at his profs who are Democrats, but Heaven forbid, they'll say anything
To try and brainwash him, all for nothing, he won't listen to those libs preaching,
And learning nothing, he still graduates, without ever learning critical thinking.
Chorus
He moves out to Washington, he works for his local Congressman
Who's been there the past twenty years, and we'll be suffering for the fifty more.
Chorus
Do you remember, your President Nixon?
Do you remember, the tricks he tried to pull? And how we played the fool?
He thinks Dems are un-American 'cause that's the message he gets from RushBo.
'Bout money, money everywhere, but not a drop left in the ghetto.
Well, well, well, would you go kick a woman, if she's, if she's just trying to protest?
Sit on your hands while our soldiers are dying, never thinking about volunteering.
Ain't that close to Rove? Well, ain't that vintage Rove?
Well, it ain't like Barbara Bush, her heart's been set on helping fight AIDS.
Chorus
You were not born with no food in your stomach, your dad's got a Caddy and mommy's got a Lexus.
Take all their lies and repeat them as gospel, don't even care that none of it's truthful.
(I heard the news today, oh boy)
I won't lose sleep when bin Laden's defeated, ain't there a man that has no job now?
And ain't there a woman you can take away rights from? And ain't there a child that hasn’t been left behind?
And ain't there a pen that will write down the whole truth? Ain't you proud that Bush misled this country?
How many more troops must die before you break down and cry?
Repeat Chorus 3 times
Copyright 2004 BruinKid
Oh, and as a reference, here are his former
Daily Bruin columns as well, just so you get an idea of the batshit he was spewing as a douchey 18-year-old.
You know you’re at UCLA when loony liberal ideas abound, May 14, 2001
Enough is enough: truth about Israeli conflict must be told, May 28, 2001
Israeli loyalists support outdated notions, May 31, 2001
Effects of campus liberalism far-reaching, Nov. 19, 2001
Pro-military films prove opportunistic, Dec. 2, 2001
Bush not connected to collapse of Enron, contrary to liberal opinion, Jan. 21, 2002
Launch of War on Terrorism warrants Nobel nomination, Feb. 2, 2002
‘Defiant’ liberals actually conformist, Mar. 3, 2002
Reparations lawsuits hurt blacks, Mar. 31, 2002
Bush’s cloning ban is morally correct, Apr. 14, 2002
Heh, while searching through the Daily Bruin archives, I came across this letter from Dante excoriating another right-wing global warming denying columnist at UCLA that was published. :-)
Ben's also been mentioned here on DailyKos in a couple diaries as well.
Obama Wants A Race War Says Ben Shapiro
Ben Shapiro, Fascist Virgin
(However, I don't believe he's a virgin anymore, as he got married in 2008. So he's just a regular fascist now.)
5:43 PM PT: Ah, I see Shapiro was on Sean Hannity's show last night to discuss his "shocking" video of Obama at Harvard. Given Jon Stewart's bit last night on Sean Hannity trying to expose Obama (will have a diary on that tomorrow, probably), I would looooooooooooove to see Jon mock Ben Shapiro next week. :-)