Politics, personality and time would have prevented them from ever becoming chums.

Say “Bueller, Bueller” in a monotone and just about everybody in the free world knows you’re echoing Ben Stein as the drone of an economics teacher in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

But while Ferris gave himself a day off, it would seem that Stein just can’t stop doing something.

Lawyer, actor, author, economist, television performer, talk show guest, presidential adviser, Stein, 63, belongs in the multi-tasking hall of fame.

In the early 1970s you couldn’t have a better opponent than Richard Nixon.

Indeed, when the embattled president’s
Enemies List became public, there was no complaining from those who made the cut.

Newsman Daniel Schorr and actor/activist Paul Newman treated their inclusion like a badge of honor. To have Nixon against you was to have the world for you.

These days, the best possible seal of disapproval might come from Christopher Hitchens, the erudite, outrageous, provocative, witty and indefatigable contrarian.

The script has changed.

Pointing to Al Gore, parents throughout the country may be telling their children that if they study hard, lead good lives and not become president they could be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Gore is the co-winner of this year’s Peace Prize for sounding the alarm on global warming. He shares the prize with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

While Gore may have fashioned a grand comeback, a look at the post-defeat careers of other recent unsuccessful presidential wannabes shows that there can be life, a good life at that, after losing. All have found things to do, sometimes lucrative things, and many have held elective office, most often in the U.S. Senate.

All have continued in public life and some have remained in politics, most especially in the U.S. Senate.