Steyn loses his column in Spectator and Telegraph

A reader writes:

You wrote 5 March: “In a well-ordered society, a pathologically dishonest pundit such as Steyn would have long since been relegated to oblivion. Instead, the Global Con Artistry Provider continues to enjoy his perch in the major media, and the awestruck admiration of ‘conservatives.’”

Well, Steyn does not command the awestruck admiration of the Barclay brothers, who now own the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. Steyn has been banished from all three, which must mean a catastrophic loss of income for him.

See this and this and this.

The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.

But the stories don’t explain why Steyn lost his column at those publications. Many of the British people commenting on the story assume it’s because Steyn is too right-wing and anti-Muslim, which would make his firing bad news from our point of view, though most of the commenters cheer the firings on that basis. Certainly no one is suggesting (or remotely imagining, outside of VFR) that Steyn may have been fired because he is a con artist who cons conservatives.

Meanwhile, Steyn’s setback in Britain hasn’t lessened the lockstep adoration of his American conservative fans. An interview of Steyn by Jed Babbin is posted Friday at Lucianne.com with this subtitle:

Posted as just one more manifestation of our
intellectual crush on Steyn

And Babbin introduces Steyn like this:

“Right now, let’s go to the main man, columnist to the world, Mark Steyn joins us.”

Among other of his many offenses, let us remember that Steyn, while beating his chest about the fact that we’re in a “war” which the cowardly left ignores, himself has called for America pre-emptively to surrender to Islam so that when Muslims take over the world, as, in his view, they inevitably will, Islam will be our “friend.” Yet flagwaving conservatives regard this traitorous trickster as their number one man, their hero. Such is the triumph of the faux conservatism that has persuaded legions of patriotic conservatives that it’s the real thing.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 10, 2006 05:27 AM | Send