Friday, March 31, 2006

Mark Steyn, True Hero in the War on Terror


Marty, this one's for you. (Marty was saying nice things about Canadian warmonger Mark Steyn in the comments to another post, and I cannot let that stand.)

The self-regard exhibited by certain right-wing journalists/bloggers never ceases to amaze, but they have reached new heights recently on the topic of their own alleged contributions to the GWOT--or Global War on Terror, for the uninitiated. This story is a little convoluted, but stay with me.

Exhibit A: Uber-pinhead Hugh Hewitt--who's apparently a radio host and blogger of some repute--got into it with Michael Ware, a Time magazine reporter on the phone from Baghdad. Here's part of their exchange via Blogoland:

MW: Let's look at it this way. I mean, you're sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.

HH: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.

MW: If anyone has a right...

HH: Michael, one second.

MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that's what...

HH: I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.


The guy from Blogoland is very amusing in response:

I am in awe of Mr. Hewitt's bravery. And just a few days ago, we hear, Hugh actually got on a PATH train that went RIGHT THROUGH Ground Zero. Somehow, some way, he survived.

As funny as the above exchange is ("I'm on the front lines, too!") it opens a useful window onto the soul of the Keyboard Kommandos. See, when Hugh Hewitt is ensconced in a cushy office in the Empire State building, he actually imagines himself as a brave soldier on the front lines in the Universal Conflict Against the Evildoers. When he is on the airplane, he is an intelligence officer against fanatical Islamofascists. When he is on the shitter, he is a grunt in a conflagration against the fanatical jihadis who want to subjugate us all under their Islamic caliphate.

God bless the terror hero, Hugh Hewitt. You, sir, are a great American.


"Keyboard Kommandos" is left-wing agitprop for right-wing journalists-bloggers who are extravagantly pro-war from the safety of their salons.

Which brings us to Exhibit B, Mark Steyn, who is (along with David Frum) every right-wing Canadians favorite journalist. (For some background on Mr. Steyn's wide-ranging and subtle opinions, this is kind of interesting.) So Mr. Steyn is on Mr. Hewitt's radio show the other day. The windows must have fogged up from all the frothing going on in the room. Via Sadly No!, here's Mr. Steyn on the trials and tribulations of being a pro-war, pro-Bush newspaper columnist:

. . .But I felt gradually exhausted since September 11th, 2001, [because] it's very dispiriting trying to keep going in this phase of what is a very long conflict. And the reason I do it is because I want us to win. I don't particularly like journalism. I don't particularly like writing newspaper columns. I'm sick of having to make what I think should be an obvious case again and again and again. And I'd much rather pack it in and sit on my porch in New Hampshire and enjoy the view of the mountains. But I do it because I want us to win.


Hewitt uses Steyn's comments as an opportunity to whine about his treatment over the exchange with Ware, to which Steyn responds:

[W]e're all, in a sense, we're all conscripted in this war. Those 3,000 people who died on September 11th, they weren't serving forces, they were just fellows who got up in the morning and went to work, or went to Logan Airport and got on a plane. And that's the thing. We're all conscripted in this war, whether we know it or not.


The utter vanity and pomposity of Steyn's claims are staggering. Let's be clear. Writing a newspaper column is easy--which is why so many people with absolutely nothing to say apparently get paid to write newspaper columns. (Witness Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post, who's been phoning it in for decades now.) Sending soldiers over to Iraq to do your bidding is easy. Actually fighting the war is hard, and it would have been nice, even desirable, if the idiots who have gotten us into the War in Iraq--which is sometimes confused with the aforementioned GWOT--had given even the barest minimum of critical thought to what they were getting us into. At this point, that story is quite familiar. (George Packer's The Assassin's Gate brilliantly retells it.) That Steyn seems to have learned very little from our adventure in Mesopotamia is not surprising, though slightly disappointing.

In other Steyn news, in a tight race with (among others) Conrad Black, Jim Carrey, Cirque du Soleil, Alanis Morisette, and Celine Dion, Steyn was recently named Canada's Leading Asshole. Congratulations, Mark. Well deserved.

Posted by jwb at 6:59 AM   

2 Comments:

Blogger jwb said:

I should add, Marty, that I am not unaware that bloggers are a vain bunch too. But anyway ....
at 7:08 AM     

Anonymous Anonymous said:

MARTY'S APOLOGIA OF STEYN

For Steyn to have been named one of Canada's greatest assholes is, truly, a mark of high distinction. Given the excessive politeness and deference that plagues Canadian society, though, this appraisal would make Steyn only average, relative to personalities in the American main stream media. What Canada could really use right now is a few more good assholes.

Another point concerns the relative status of conservatism between Canada and America. In the U.S. the conservative movement is on the decline, having exhausted itself over the course of its years in power, and locked itself into a set of rigid ideologies and personalities. The Canadian conservative movement, by contrast, is still in the nascent stages of its ascendancy to power, with the election of Stephen Harper this past February. I think a Canadian conservative can be a little more swaggering and provocative under these kinds of conditions.
at 10:40 AM     

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