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National Review steps in it, big time
By Chris CovertRantburg.com A young editor at one of the oldest and most respected conservative publications takes to task conservative writer Mark Steyn for the insulting tone of his last article concerning the Phil Robertson affair. Mark Steyn replies and the invective from the editor who started the fight begins. Where matters stand is anyone's guess at the moment. Readers at the National Review want him gone. Writers and readers at other conservative publications are laughing their asses off at National Review. There is a hint from Steyn himself that the editor in question is already gone. It is unclear what the National Review management response will be in time. Mr. Steyn's article last week was his usual work: direct, passionate and merciless against liberals. Steyn does this sort of thing week in and week out. He doesn't get a pass if he turns in shoddy work, but he has never needed one that I have seen. If you follow Mark Steyn, you will know that the man has been a staunch advocate of free speech for a long, long time, even placing himself in legal jeopardy in Canada and Great Britain, winning in all cases against those who would prefer some things not get talked about. The article in question makes fun of the pro gay group and the larger pro gay political lobby that wound up getting Phil Robertson suspended, but does so by addressing their totalitarian tendencies such as the suppression of free speech, not the act that defines their very lives. The tone of the article was erudite, direct, classy and smooth: everything every writer would want to be even if you disagreed with Steyn. The response of the editor, identified as Jason Lee Steorts, was to complain about a "slur" against gay folks, as he put it, in the original article Steyn wrote. In his response, he made a cleverly disguised threat that he has say so on whether Steyn continues to write for the National Review, because in his response he separates criticizing speech from state coercion and cultural coercion, what A&E did. To wit: By way of criticizing speech, I'll say that I found the derogatory language in this column, and especially the slur in its borrowed concluding joke, both puerile in its own right and disappointing coming from a writer of such talent. I have seen this sort of thing before. A non conservative based on his talents gets a gig at a conservative publication and dutifully does his work until one day he comes "out", and his real agenda is revealed to all. David Horowitz had a similar problem with a young gay writer about four years ago. The man was brilliant, fresh out of school, gay, and a good writer. The man had insinuated himself in a number of online publications, Breitbart et seq, and was writing at a furious rate. The problem that arose was because the writer had a thing for illegal male flesh, my words. So when the man was relieved of his duties not only did Horowitz's editor write about it, he conducted an online campaign against the kid that stretched on for weeks. Other publications quietly removed him, or quietly let him go, but not Horowitz. The problem for Horowitz was that they obviously wanted to burnish their pro-gay bonifides and press the laughable case that he and his editor were traditional conservatives, except when to comes to gay marriage. I wrote at the time that Horowitz had a personnel problem that if allowed to fester could destroy the whole organization. Personnel problems are not dealt with by publicly dressing down offenders, but by introducing the problem to the door with good wishes for the future. The problem with removing Jason Lee Steorts is that Steorts has been walking down this road for a long, long time, and the management at NRO has not even blinked at his views. One writer characterized liberals as making a mess of things, and conservatives refusing to fix them because now those mistakes are part of the past. Cute, but wrong. What does the National Review do at this point? Do you allow a loose cannon on your deck on the fear that releasing him will make you look less than enlightened, or do you do to him what A&E did to Phil Robertson: chuck him out the window. Admittedly, I am not enlightened, nor as smart as the folks at National Review. But I do know that as a writer, I would not want to be associated with National Review by having this liberal at the controls of my organization. Call it a firing, or a drumhead, or even call it cultural coercion, as Steorts so famously put it. Call me a bigot, or call me a redneck. I'll take the hit. I'm brave that way. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and Borderlandbeat.com He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com Posted by: badanov 2013-12-24 |
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