Glasnost, Steyn-style

Like a Communist apparatchnik suddenly discovering a belief in free enterprise, Mark Steyn is now admitting that President Bush’s basic narrative about the war is not true:

For five years, beginning with the designation of “war on terror,” the president’s public presentation has been consistent: Islam is a great religion, religion of peace, marvelous stuff, White House Ramadan Banquet the highlight of the calendar, but, sadly, every barrel has one or two bad apples, even Islam believe it or not, and once we’ve hunted those down we’ll join the newly liberated peace-loving Muslim democracies in a global alliance of peace-loving peaceful persons. Most sentient beings have been aware that there is, to put it mildly, a large element of evasion about this basic narrative, but only now is it being explicitly rejected by all sides.

Uh, excuse me, but was Steyn among that majority of sentient beings who realized that the president’s narrative was false? If he was, he sure never indicated as such. Instead, he’s been perhaps the single most enthusiastic and assured voice speaking in favor of Bush’s democratization policy in Iraq and the Mideast generally. Now he acts as if he’s been a skeptic all along. Words like “dishonest” and “liar” are insufficient to describe such behavior. When Boris Yeltsin ceased being a Communist, he didn’t act as though he had always been an anti-Communist.

But it gets better, or, rather, worse. Steyn continues:

William F. Buckley and George Will have more or less respectfully detached themselves from the insane idealism of shoving liberty and democracy down people’s throats whether they want it or not.

For Steyn, acting as though he himself has always had this critical view, to attack as “insane idealism” the very policy of which he has been the most confident proponent for the last several years, indicates an absence of conscience that can be fairly described as sociopathic.

In a well-ordered society, an extravagantly dishonest pundit such as Steyn would have been relegated to oblivion. In our society, the Global Con Artistry Provider continues to enjoy his perch in the major media, and the awestruck admiration of “conservatives.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 05, 2006 07:05 PM | Send