Because it sells to those 25% who are avid TV watchers ...
Ben Stein comes from a different time, a different era. An era where you could be a conservative -- in the traditional sense of "freedom of both money and liberty" -- and intellectually beat down a "bleeding heart liberal" (e.g., Al Franken) who wants to take your money to spend it (without spending their own I might add) -- without pulling a sweat.
But that doesn't fly today, especially not on US TV. Because US TV caters to advertisers, who target that 25% of the US populous that watches 8+ hours a day. It caters to the extremes of left and right -- those who want to either take your money and enforce their charitable values (which vary widely and are very subjective) or enforce their spiritual values on you (which also vary widely and are very subjective).
It caters to not only liberals, but conservatives alike -- because sensationalism transgresses political agendas. In fact, it's clear to me that you need a 2nd conservative channel than just Fox News, which is the most watched news channel now. Even Fox News follows the Paris Hilton as if it's important. The US news media caters to those who want to continually judge others, typically those Americans who should look at careful look at themselves first.
Fox News doesn't even remotely represent the hard-core American Libertarian-Capitalist like Ben Stein or myself. It's why you'll find Ben Stein not aligned with any news outlet, and only a consultant tapped for various segments -- but even not that much anymore. Same goes for John Stossel and others who are quite "in-touch" with the realities and facts of the world, and not the political rhetoric and who can we blame / who is at fault today.
People who actually want to provide solutions. People who actually care about what happens in the world, not who is wrong for (allegedly) screwing up the world. People who try to proliferate facts and actual, real solutions against the constantly proliferated, "you're wrong, we know better" Churches of Popular Environmentalism, Popularist Socialism and countless other things, where engineers, economists and other minority, expert groups are not considered because they are not in-line with the "unquestionable majority."
I don't like W., but people who think Al Quieda was invented by W. are just naive. People who think if the US didn't intervene after Iraq invaded Kuwait and Iraq would just stop don't think about all the trust its various allies (including Saudia Arabia) put in the US and their defense agreements. While I'll agree we do act like the arrogant "World Police" too much, a lot of that has to do with the arrogance the US media portrays and hardly the thought of the common American Libertarian-Capitalist.
In fact, I get tired of being called "a Republican without the Christian aspect" as an American Libertarian-Capitalist. Especially when I utterly disagree with the microcosms that the Democrat v. Republican viewpoint has utterly invented -- like the health care non-sense (e.g., we do not have privatized health care, and haven't for a long time!). Same deal with the current immigration spats, H1B Visas, etc... The discussions and political rhetoric tit-for-tat that is solving nothing, much less are the solutions even addressing the real issues long forgotten by the Democrat v. Republican rhetoric-counter rhetoric.
Ben Stein wants to cut through the BS, cut through the blame, entertainment and countless other non-sense and start talking solutions. He did it for Nixon, and quite well I might add. But most people don't see that because he was just merely associated with Nixon. Just like most people discredit people for merely being associated with Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, utterly missing the things these individuals have actually accomplished -- serving the interests of the public -- as their servants.
