Stein Strikes Again

The L.A. Times' columnist Joel Stein proves once again that, at best, he's immature and at worst...well, you fill in the adjective.

Today Stein "celebrates" Independence Day with a diatribe about a flag left on his lawn by a well-intentioned realtor:

"I walked out Saturday afternoon to discover an American flag planted outside my house, like the work of some incredibly stupid explorer...

"So the reason I didn't want to put a flag outside...was because I didn't want to associate myself with the other people who put them up, and with their unquestioning, tribal, us-versus-them, arrogant mentality."

The entire column is cringe-worthy, written with a smirking frat boy "attitude." (On second thought, that might be unfairly dissing frat boys.)

Stein isn't amusing, and he certainly doesn't have any interesting insights to share with the rest of us. How does someone like this rate a job at a major newspaper?

Then again, this is the paper that finds it "patriotic" to publish details about classified programs which protect our country, so perhaps the paper's choice of inspirational op-ed reading for our country's 230th birthday isn't surprising.