Ted Cruz should have foreseen the 9/11 attack, and Donald Trump is a magnificent douchebag when it comes to his New York values, Ben Shapiro argues. Ben Shapiro's full breakdown of the latest episode of The Ben Shapiro Show on CNN's "The Situation Room" with John Berman, where he and Jake Tapper discuss the latest in the Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump primary battle, including the latest on the birther controversy, and why the media should be mad at Ted Cruz for saying that Trump should be playing "New York, New York" in place of "Like a Virgin" in response to a question about his views on immigration and Muslims in the first presidential primary debate, and how they should be handled in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center in the wake of the September 11th, 2001, attacks in the United States, and the response to it by the New York City police response to the events in the days after the attack, but he didn't, and now he's in hot water for saying they should have been playing like a virgin instead of playing like they should play like a "Vanderpump Rules" in the debate, because he's from New York. Ben Shapiro explains why that's a bad idea, and what we should be focusing on in the future of the 2020 campaign, and whether or not it's time for him to apologize to the people of New York, not the people who lost their values in 9/Osama bin Laden's 7/11 response to 9/9/11. 11/11 in the day in the 1989 earthquake in the attack in the streets of San Francisco, California, and it's a good thing. Ben's full analysis of the Cruz's response to that 9/10/11 reaction to that happened in the late 90s, and his thoughts on the 9-11 attack in response, but not the response he should have anticipated it, and not the reaction to it in the 1990s response to those attacks in New York s response to their response to them being a good one in the 1980s in the Ground Zero earthquake in San Francisco's Ground Zero building in the ground zero building in 1989, and much more! and much, much, MUCH MORE! -- including a full transcript of the full clip from a clip from the show from a radio show on his radio show, here's what you can expect from him on that episode, here on The Benny Shapiro Show:
00:00:26.000There's the Republican debate, there's the Democratic debate, and of course, as I mentioned, I may keel over in the middle of the show from walking pneumonia.
00:00:32.000But in any case, let's start with what happened last Thursday night.
00:00:35.000So last Thursday night, and this extended over the weekend, the final fight broke out.
00:00:40.000We have now entered Mad Ted Thunderdome.
00:00:43.000And it's Cruz versus Trump, and they're going at each other.
00:00:47.000And this all started because Donald Trump decided he had to go after Ted Cruz because Cruz was doing better in the polls.
00:00:53.000And so there is this exchange in the middle of the debate about the birther issue, and Ted Cruz won that exchange, and then there was a second issue.
00:01:00.000And this is the one that the media have decided to jump upon.
00:01:03.000Not the birther issue, which is a silly issue.
00:01:05.000They've decided to jump on an even sillier issue.
00:01:08.000Okay, so apparently Donald Trump, at his rallies, was playing the song Born in the USA, which, just, as I sideswipe here, Bruce Springsteen sucks and that song is horrible.
00:01:18.000But he's playing Born in the USA at his rallies because he's trying to make fun of the fact that Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, and Ted Cruz responded on a radio show, made some sort of cheesy joke about how Donald Trump should be playing New York, New York, because he has New York values.
00:01:33.000And this turned into a big to-do at the debate.
00:01:37.000If that's the best line you can come up with, I mean, I love Ted Cruz, but that is not a strong line, that Trump should be playing New York, New York.
00:02:02.000You're from New York, so you might not, but I promise you in the state of South Carolina, they do.
00:02:10.000And listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York, but everyone understands that the values in New York City
00:02:22.000Are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage, focused around money and the media.
00:02:29.000And I guess I can frame it another way.
00:02:32.000Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan.
00:03:15.000And it was with us for months, the smell, the air.
00:03:19.000And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.
00:03:34.000Okay, so, what do we learn from this clip?
00:03:36.000One, we learn that Cruz should have foreseen the 9-11 attack would come, and two, we learn that Donald Trump is a magnificent douchebag.
00:04:32.000Now Cruz does something smart in that debate and he starts clapping when Trump says this because he doesn't want to look like he hates the people of New York.
00:04:38.000Everybody in New York lost their damn mind over this thing.
00:05:01.000I know people who are brash and rude who are Muslim extremists, and I know people who are brash and rude who are New Yorkers just trying to do their day job.
00:05:08.000You know that brash and rude is not a description of your values,
00:05:23.000Well, I think perhaps, you know, Donald Trump, who's a cynical, I mean, this stuff angers me because the fact is I don't like BS attacks on any candidate.
00:05:30.000It annoys me when there are BS attacks on any candidate.
00:05:33.000I've defended on this program Trump from nonsense attacks about him supposedly wanting a Muslim registry.
00:06:03.000But to pretend that those values of firefighters running into buildings is unique to New York is to rip on the courage of firefighters outside of New York, which is silly.
00:06:12.000I mean, you can say these are just wonderful values.
00:06:14.000They're not unique to New York values in terms of what happened on 9-11.
00:06:19.000Did people in DC react significantly worse than people in New York on 9-11?
00:07:19.000And, again, it may be a little bit of a New York background because there is some different attitude in different parts of the country and, you know, I was raised in New York and grew up and work and everything else in New York City.
00:09:01.000So, like, people have been ripping on New Yorkers for a really long time, and for a pretty good reason.
00:09:05.000But for people, all the New Yorkers are saying, how dare Ted Cruz suggest that we have a set of values different from anyone else, or just the same as everyone else?
00:09:16.000Okay, even people on the left don't believe this.
00:09:18.000They understand there's a difference between, say, Texas values and Chicago values.
00:09:23.000But if you really want to know what New Yorkers think of the rest of the United States, here they are complaining and whining and complaining and whining.
00:09:30.000Okay, I thought you guys, for number one, were supposed to be tough, rough-and-tumble crowd, and you can't take a little bit of a ding from Ted Cruz.
00:09:37.000Here's what New Yorkers actually think of the rest of the country.
00:09:48.000Okay, and what you see, folks, if you haven't subscribed, you can't see it, but here's what you see.
00:09:52.000It looks like a map of the United States, but what it actually is, it just says 9th Avenue, 10th Avenue, Hudson River, a brief stripe for New Jersey, and then the Pacific Ocean.
00:10:03.000In other words, to New Yorkers, the rest of the country simply does not exist.
00:10:11.000And they believe that their values are American values, but that American values are not their values.
00:10:16.000In other words, New York defines America.
00:10:18.000So don't give me this routine about how New Yorkers don't know what Ted Cruz is talking about.
00:10:22.000Now, is it smart politics for Cruz to talk like that?
00:10:25.000Maybe not, in a general election, because you don't want to alienate any part of America.
00:10:29.000But in a primary, it actually is kind of smart.
00:10:31.000Because the truth is, nobody in Iowa likes New Yorkers or cares about New Yorkers being offended.
00:10:37.000In fact, they kind of think it's charming that Ted Cruz doesn't like New Yorkers.
00:10:41.000Nobody in South Carolina or New Hampshire or anywhere else in the country cares that New Yorkers are offended.
00:10:47.000Whenever New Yorkers are offended, like, understand something.
00:10:50.000The reason 9-11 was an outlier in terms of Americans' feelings about New York is because the rest of the time, i.e.
00:10:57.00099.9% of the rest of the time, we think New Yorkers are obnoxious and terrible.
00:11:01.000On 9-11, everybody fell into line and loved New Yorkers because New Yorkers showed what wonderful people they can be.
00:11:07.000But the truth is, New Yorkers are only wonderful people on occasion.
00:11:09.000And so, and so everybody sort of fell into line on 9-11 because they were wonderful and they demonstrated tremendous bravery on 9-11 and in the face of catastrophe they have before and will again, I'm sure.
00:11:20.000That's a very different question than, what are their values?
00:13:52.000I'm not sure that he knows what he means, to be honest with you.
00:13:54.000I thought it was very... He should have never said it.
00:13:57.000I thought it was very insulting to a lot of people, including Maria, who was asking the question.
00:14:01.000I thought it was very, very insulting.
00:14:03.000And I immediately thought of the World Trade Center and the bravery of New Yorkers and the genius of New Yorkers to be able to take that whole section and rebuild after
00:14:13.000The tragedy, the worst thing that ever happened to our nation in terms of an attack, worse than Pearl Harbor, because Pearl Harbor they were attacking the military, here they're attacking civilians, having breakfast and being in offices.
00:14:24.000And frankly, you had two 110-story buildings fall down.
00:14:30.000Thousands of lives, death, and the smell of death.
00:14:33.000I mean, the smell of death, and to see what happened, that resurrection, that whole thing take place.
00:14:38.000New York has gotten tremendous credit for it, and for him to be criticizing New York.
00:14:43.000You know, you're thinking about the firemen running up the stairs, knowing they may never be able to come down.
00:14:47.000I mean, those buildings were in bad shape.
00:14:49.000The first one comes down, and the second one, they're running up the stairs.
00:14:52.000And the policemen and everything else, I thought it was disgraceful that he brought that up.
00:14:57.000Okay, it's just, this stuff is so perverse.
00:15:33.000I'm campaigning on behalf of American values.
00:15:36.000And I don't seek to divide people against each other.
00:15:38.000That's the problem we have with the current president.
00:15:39.000I think the bigger problem is Ted has raised a lot of money out of New York.
00:15:43.000He didn't say that when he was there raising money.
00:15:45.000He says that in one state and then says something different in another.
00:15:48.000And time and again it's proven the sort of level of political calculation that voters are only starting to find out about now as the campaign gets deeper and more heated.
00:16:00.000Everyone knows what New York values means.
00:16:02.000If I ran for president, I would raise money from New York, too, and Los Angeles, and I also would not want America to embrace the political values of New York, which is what Ted Cruz is talking about, or the moral values of New York, because I think that it's a left area, and I want to see America be more right-wing, not more left-wing.
00:16:20.000I guess we're all going to pretend now.
00:16:22.000We've got Donald Trump, the supposed arbiter of political correctness.
00:16:26.000He's going to say everything that's politically incorrect, except when it comes to New York values, he goes totally PC.
00:16:31.000Marco Rubio, who says he's anti-PC, going totally PC.
00:16:34.000And New Yorkers, who say that they're brash and rude and willing to take on the world, except if somebody dings them a little bit and then all of a sudden you prick them, do they not bleed?
00:16:45.000All of this really is just an excuse for Donald Trump to go after Ted Cruz.
00:16:51.000So Trump's latest attack is one that I actually think is not going to work at all.
00:16:55.000And this is Trump's attack on Cruz in which he says that nobody likes Ted Cruz.
00:16:59.000That Ted Cruz is rude and terrible and so nobody likes him.
00:17:01.000Here's Donald Trump on Fox & Friends this morning about this.
00:17:04.000Okay, but that's not the way you do it.
00:17:05.000You get Congress, you get them together, you get everybody together in a room, you cajole, you get along, you have dinner, and you make deals.
00:18:18.000I don't need somebody who wants to get along with folks.
00:18:21.000If I wanted someone who's gonna make friends, I'd back that nice little puppy Marco Rubio, who seems like he makes friends with everybody, and he seems like a nice guy, and he's got good hair, and he seems all nice, and...
00:18:35.000Okay, let's move on to the Democratic debate.
00:18:38.000So that's the fallout from the Republican debate.
00:18:39.000By the way, Ted Cruz is going to win Iowa.
00:18:42.000If Trump continues to push on this New York Values thing, I don't think that that's a winner for him.
00:18:47.000I think he's going to move off of that pretty quickly and start talking about Cruz and Goldman Sachs and suggesting that Cruz is a Wall Street insider.
00:18:53.000Which, by the way, I think that it's worth noting.
00:18:56.000Whenever the left attacks Wall Street, nobody ever says, you're attacking all the people who died on Wall Street during the World Trade Center attacks in 2001.
00:19:02.000Remember, the World Trade Center is on Wall Street.
00:19:05.000So the idea that you can attack anything is all about Cruz, right?
00:19:10.000So they don't like Cruz, so they're finding an excuse to go after him.
00:19:13.000Alright, let's go to the Democratic debate.
00:19:15.000Democrats held their big debate, their latest big debate, which I really shouldn't call big, last night.
00:19:20.000It was only two candidates plus Martin O'Malley.
00:19:22.000It was Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and then Martin O'Malley they cut to every so often because they just want someone who looked like a leprechaun for comic effect.
00:19:31.000So Debbie Wasserman Schultz has scheduled all of these things when no one will watch.
00:19:34.000I think the next Democratic debate is actually during the Super Bowl on like a cable access channel being broadcast from a moving train or something.
00:19:43.000They definitely don't want anybody seeing these things.
00:19:45.000Number one, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and I call her Debbie Wasserman Binks because the resemblance is uncanny.
00:20:10.000Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she was asked about why they're holding all of their debates on Sunday nights and Saturday nights and times nobody's watching.
00:20:21.000We have had a collection of robust viewership that, again, has broken our records for prior debates.
00:20:27.000And, frankly, we've had, more importantly, a much more substantive and serious discussion where Americans have a chance, instead of watching the food fight happening on the other side of the aisle, get to hear our candidates talk about how they're going to move our country forward.
00:20:41.000Obviously, it's in television network's interest to have more debate, but it sounds to me like you're not wiggling at all.
00:20:46.000There's no indication that you might add some to the calendar in the next couple of months.
00:20:51.000You know, Brian, it's really important that the candidates have a variety of opportunities to be seen by voters.
00:20:57.000We've had candidate forums and we'll be having additional forums going forward.
00:21:02.000But that's what kind of frustrates me, the Fusion forum earlier this week, the black and brown forum.
00:21:07.000You couldn't even see the ratings, they were so low on the Fusion network.
00:21:10.000I feel like your all's voices aren't getting heard the way they could be if there were more of these events.
00:21:16.000Well, we believe strongly that a combination of opportunities for voters to see our candidates and make sure that we're not pulling them off the campaign trail every other day to prepare for a debate.
00:21:27.000We have an early primary state window for a reason.
00:21:29.000So voters can get that up close and personal look and make sure that
00:21:33.000Unlike in later primaries, where there's a big collection on multiple Tuesdays, and harder for the candidates to spend that close-up time, that we're giving those candidates and the voters an opportunity to have that really up-close-and-personal kick-the-tires time.
00:21:47.000A lot more debates would take away from that.
00:21:50.000Brian, there's no number of debates that will satisfy everyone.
00:21:54.000So I did my best to make sure, along with my staff and along with our debate partners, to come up with a schedule that we felt was going to allow for the, to maximize the opportunity to vote for voters to see our candidates.
00:22:29.000So, Brian Stelter, number one, over at CNN, I mean, if you could see the questioning, this guy is supposed to be unbiased and he's saying to her, I wish I could see more of your candidates because they're so glorious.
00:22:39.000He's supposed to be the unbiased anchor.
00:22:41.000But they're clearly trying to hide these people.
00:22:43.000There's a reason they're trying to hide the Democrats during the primaries.
00:22:46.000During the primaries is when the Democrats say all of their crazy crap.
00:22:49.000All of their crazy crap gets said during the primaries.
00:22:51.000So, for example, Hillary Clinton last night in the debate, she was asked about cops and Black Lives Matter, and here is what Hillary Rodham Clinton, the most charming woman ever to walk the earth, the godlike witness to her own power, here's what she had to say about cops.
00:23:13.000Heartbreaking and incredibly outraging to see the constant stories of young men like Walter Scott, as you said, who have been killed by police officers.
00:23:29.000There needs to be a concerted effort to address
00:23:33.000The systemic racism in our criminal justice system and that requires a very clear agenda for retraining police officers
00:23:46.000Looking at ways to end racial profiling, finding more ways to really bring the disparities that stalk our country into high relief.
00:23:58.000Just in time for Martin Luther King Day, she says that we have to get rid of this whole one standard of justice.
00:24:03.000For everybody, we need two standards of justice, okay?
00:24:07.000That cop is being prosecuted for first degree murder and there is no one on the right side or left side of the aisle who thought that he shouldn't have been prosecuted for first degree murder.
00:24:13.000It was a really bad case and everyone agreed it was a really bad case.
00:24:16.000But she has to spit out all of these, all of this pablum.
00:25:48.000Okay, what's amazing is the way the media treat this stuff, by the way.
00:25:50.000The Washington posted a fact check on this, and they said, The Bureau of Justice Statistics compiles annual reports on the constitution of U.S.
00:27:17.000Number two is, Hillary Clinton basically got blackmailed into being Barack Obama's biggest supporter when the Obama administration dumped all of this criminal investigation stuff on her.
00:27:27.000Edward Klein was a reporter for the New York Post.
00:27:30.000And just a few months ago he reported, I think it was about eight months ago, he reported that it was Valerie Jarrett of the Obama administration who originally leaked the news that Hillary was using a private email server.
00:27:41.000And so the Obama administration leaked all this out to put pressure on Hillary and naturally she has been moving over to the Obama administration side all throughout this debate process.
00:27:51.000Hillary, by the way, the number one question that was asked about Hillary Clinton in the Google searches during and after this debate, the number one question was, will Hillary Clinton be prosecuted?
00:28:03.000That was the number one question that was being Googled yesterday during this debate.
00:28:07.000And the answer is, it depends on what Barack Obama feels like, really.
00:28:11.000And by the way, Jake Tapper asked Hillary, if the FBI has questioned her about her server, if you want to watch her get super, super, duper nervous and upset, watch this clip.
00:28:41.000And Bill Clinton has received that on more than one occasion, by the way.
00:28:43.000Bill Clinton has received that a lot, I would imagine.
00:28:46.000Hillary says that she will take Bill's advice in this campaign.
00:28:49.000She looks forward to using him on the campaign trail.
00:28:51.000At the same time, apparently Linda Tripp is now coming out and saying that Monica Lewinsky told her that Bill had had sex with literally over a thousand women while married to Hillary Clinton, and also that there was a second person in the White House that Bill was having sex with.
00:29:05.000Well, well, the Monica thing was going on.
00:29:09.000The fact that we're even talking about Bill coming back into the White House is really kind of sickening.
00:29:13.000Okay, back to the other side of the aisle for just a second.
00:29:15.000Donald Trump, you know, we were talking about the Republican debate.
00:29:18.000Donald Trump is campaigning now for the evangelical vote.
00:29:23.000If Trump wins the primary in Iowa, Trump probably wins the nomination.
00:29:27.000If he wins Iowa, he will win New Hampshire, which means he'll win South Carolina.
00:29:31.000He could in fact run the table if he wins Iowa.
00:29:33.000So he's pushing very hard for the evangelical vote.
00:29:35.000Today he was over at Liberty University, and Liberty University hosted him, and he was introduced by Jerry Falwell Jr., Jerry Falwell's son.
00:29:43.000And Jerry Falwell's son said that Trump was a great Christian, and Trump then cited two Corinthians.
00:29:48.000Which is not the name of, it's not like Five Guys Burgers.
00:29:51.000It's like Two Corinthians is apparently Second Corinthians, is what it's called.
00:29:55.000Trump doesn't know that, so he called it Two Corinthians apparently.
00:29:58.000And then Trump proceeded to talk about his religious scruples.
00:30:02.000He's really pushing hard for the evangelical vote now.
00:30:05.000Here is Donald Trump talking over the weekend to Jake Tapper about his religious scruples.
00:30:10.000I mean, when I say that Trump is insincere, this is what I mean.
00:30:13.000Let me ask you, because one of the potential attack lines has to do with an answer you gave to Frank Luntz months ago when you said that you've never asked God for forgiveness.
00:31:07.000Okay, if you actually believe that Donald Trump has a great relationship with God, that he spends a lot of time thinking about God every day... Okay, I'm a deeply religious person.
00:31:15.000I know lots of deeply religious people.
00:31:17.000I have yet to identify a deeply religious person who says they never...
00:32:23.000Because I can, like, Jeremy talks back to me.
00:32:25.000We can talk about when we're having issues.
00:32:27.000Like, God is not famous for getting back to me very often.
00:32:30.000It's mostly me leaving God messages and God sometimes answering, but I can't, that's me just trying to interpret his answers, sometimes it's not what I want.
00:32:36.000It's such irreligious, silly language, but I guess if you're gonna buy into it, you're gonna buy into it.
00:32:41.000Donald Trump at one point a few months ago was asked by Mark Halperin what was his favorite Bible verse.
00:32:46.000And again, you wanna vote for him, vote for him.
00:32:47.000I just think that, let's not be stupid here, folks.
00:32:50.000And saying that he's a deeply religious guy, listen, I've said Barack Obama's not a deeply religious guy, because he's not.
00:32:55.000Donald Trump does not strike me as a deeply religious man, end of story.
00:33:00.000Donald Trump was asked a few months ago about his favorite Bible verse, and his actual answer was he wouldn't say it because the real reason is because he can't cite a Bible verse.
00:33:07.000But he said, what was your favorite Bible verse?
00:33:48.000Uh, it's so cynical, and I guess that that's what we've come to.
00:33:51.000And again, I'm not somebody who's been bashing Trump this whole time, I'm really not, but I think that we've now reached the edge of the rational.
00:33:58.000Time for some things that I like and some things that I don't like.
00:34:01.000So, instead of doing something that I like today, I'm gonna do, just, I wanna tell you what's on my reading list right now, because that way maybe we can read these things together.
00:34:08.000So I just finished a book called The Wisdom of Crowds that's very good.
00:34:40.000He has sections that are wonderful, and then he has 200 pages of description of the chancellery, and I just... okay.
00:34:46.000So it's entertaining, it's fine, I'm not in love with it.
00:34:50.000I have a bunch of other Dickens books on my shelf, I'll have to maybe read through more of them, but this is legitimately the first book that I have spent the time bullying through, like, where I got halfway through and I was like, should I put this away?
00:35:01.000Like, normally when I ask that question, it immediately goes on the shelf, but this one I actually bulled my way through.
00:35:05.000And I have to say, like, it's good bedtime reading because it's not gonna keep you up at night, you're not gonna stay up all night reading David Copperfield.
00:35:11.000So, that's what's on my, that's what's on my shelf.
00:35:14.000And I'll tell you what's on my shelf tomorrow, hopefully I'll finish that book tonight, because if not, I don't know if I can, I don't know if I can handle it.
00:36:36.000Sometimes I wish I could walk in and just like be recognized as like a Mexican-American.
00:36:41.000Sometimes people will come up to me on the street and like start speaking Spanish frantically and I can't respond because I don't speak Spanish.
00:36:48.000I find that depending on where I am, people read me differently.
00:36:52.000They tend to think that I'm whatever they are.
00:36:54.000These are the saddest, most pathetic people in the world.
00:36:57.000I mean, this is like an emphysema commercial, right?
00:37:00.000You got the meaningful piano music in the background, and you think they're gonna tell you about how they lost their leg in Nam or something?
00:37:06.000Like, it's gonna be a real moving story?
00:37:08.000Or I have a child who died of bone marrow cancer or something?
00:38:00.000Why is it these kids, and they're kids, I mean, they're all young people.
00:38:03.000I mean, the guy who looks, for folks who can't see, the guy who's talking about being half Mexican definitely looks like a white guy, right?
00:38:09.000I mean, he looks fully like a white guy with the red, ruddy cheeks.
00:38:13.000I mean, he looks like he's just, he's 40 years early for Santa.
00:38:18.000But I guess he has a rough life because people don't identify him as Mexican.
00:38:22.000For most of human history, most of human history, people were upset that people could identify them ethnically.
00:38:29.000For most of human history, people were trying to pass as ethnicities that were not theirs if they were part of a minority.
00:38:35.000Now they're upset that you can't properly identify them as the ethnic minority from whence they sprang.
00:38:42.000A society in which we force people to pass for white, which used to happen in the country in order to be treated properly, is a nasty society.
00:38:50.000And now, we're saying to people that you can be whatever you want to be, and then they're upset about it.
00:38:56.000We're not going to identify you by race.
00:38:57.000They go, well, with the meaningful piano music underneath.
00:39:01.000Again, I mean, when you first hear this, this sounds like a 30 for 30 special on ESPN, and we're going to talk about their poor childhoods.
00:39:08.000They grew up in a closet somewhere, beaten by their parents, and... It's just... What a self-indulgent, ridiculous society we have become.
00:39:16.000When your biggest complaint against the freest society on the face of the planet and in human history is that people cannot properly identify you as half Danish and half Indian.
00:40:11.000They actually had, um, it was a ton of heesey coats, and there's a Muslim gal, I guess, who writes for DC Comics wearing the hijab now, and it was just a bunch of lefties figuring out how they could infuse the comics with leftism.
00:40:24.000And it makes me absolutely crazy, because I really enjoy the comic books, and they're getting worse and worse.
00:40:28.000Captain America is now cracking down on anti-illegal immigration groups, and you've got Superman fighting the cops in one of the latest Superman cartoons, in one of the latest Batman, in one of the latest Batman comic books by Brian Nazarello,
00:40:41.000There's a scene where a cop shoots young Trayvon Martin, basically.
00:40:45.000And it's getting worse and worse, because they've decided that they're now going to take over every element of our culture, and it really makes me upset.
00:40:51.000Now, there was always something, mildly, to the left about the comics.
00:42:43.000Captain America, there's nothing that needs answering.
00:42:45.000Captain America is just a guy who fights bad guys in an old-fashioned way.
00:42:49.000Iron Man is just a cynical libertarian who's super rich.
00:42:51.000So you actually don't need a backstory for those two.
00:42:54.000The reason that I'm anti-backstory as a general rule is because backstory is people's way of explaining why they do stupid crap in their lives.
00:43:01.000Backstory is what we do, if you're a defense lawyer in a criminal case, backstory is making of a murderer.
00:43:06.000Backstory is where we explain how you were beaten as a child, and that's why you torture kittens and rape people.
00:43:11.000In the comic books, comic books are different from the Bible.
00:43:14.000Actually, the comic books are much more like the pagan universe, which makes sense.
00:43:18.000I mean, they are pagan, which is not to say that they're bad.
00:43:21.000I mean, there's a lot of, I think that reading Greek myths is worthwhile.
00:43:24.000Greek myths are all about the backstory of the various gods, because the idea is the gods are supposed to be just like you and me, right?
00:43:31.000Gods are human beings, and they're supposed to be just like you and me.
00:44:00.000Wouldn't you think that, I mean, especially in the New Testament, if you're talking about God on earth, wouldn't you want to know what he was like as a teenager?
00:45:30.000That's who Superman is supposed to be, and everyone who reads Superman knows this, which is why in Superman Returns, there are half a dozen poses of him with his arms outstretched, floating above Earth, right?
00:45:51.000And Wonder Woman's conflict, she doesn't have any conflict.
00:45:53.000Wonder Woman is, I'm just gonna take over everything.
00:45:56.000And Batman's thing is, I'm, you know, trying to fight crime on a day-to-day level, but I'm doing so as somebody who is, you know, the most privileged class.
00:46:04.000Okay, all of this is interesting and you don't need a backstory for it.
00:46:07.000One of my great objections is that the comics have now become all about the backstory all the time.
00:46:11.000And I don't think the backstory is nearly as interesting as the conflicts that could be created between these various ideologies.
00:46:17.000I'd like to see more of that in the comic books, but I don't think we will.
00:46:20.000I think we'll instead get all this back- Black Panther, it will turn out,
00:46:24.000According to Ta-Nehisi Coates, was Trayvon Martin.
00:46:26.000He was shot and survived and became buff and decided that the cops were racist or some such nonsense.