Mark Steyn's position on commissions.
Hugh Hewitt talk show
HH: I begin this Thursday as I do most with Mark Steyn, columnist to the world. Mr. Steyn, we begin a story that centers on you. What has happened to the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator? The Hugh Hewitt listeners want to know where the Mark Steyn material is.
MS: My relationship with the Telegraph group, which the Spectator also belongs to, deteriorated over the last year, and became adversarial, which I don't think is particularly healthy. And I don't mind...I've been the token conservative on liberal newspapers. I don't mind an adversarial relationship in terms of your position on the Gulf War, or Afghanistan, or the European Union or whatever. I don't mind having differences with editors and so forth on that. But when it gets into, when the whole relationship just becomes generally toxic, then I think it's best to hang out your shingle somewhere else, which I will do in the United Kingdom at some point.
HH: That's the important part. You will be back writing in the UK. Any time frame set for that, Mark Steyn?
MS: Well, I would hope sooner rather than later. One of the things, if you're a controversial writer, when I parted company with the National Post up in Canada, I thought well, every newspaper's going to start calling me, because I was the hottest columnist there, according to some of their reader surveys and things. And of course, instead, these editors think oh, well, good riddance to that right-wing wacko. We don't need a crazy guy like him. And after a couple of years of the phone not ringing, they all came kind of slinking back and made me derisory offers of one kind or another. And I would bet on the same thing happening over in London.
HH: Now isn't this sort of suicidal behavior on the part of newspapers, Mark Steyn? And we'll take you out of it. But we just had a Pew report showing they're in terrible condition. Nobody cares about their in-house tubas that go on, boom, boom, boom on the old, same notes. They're killing themselves if they deny their readers what their readers want.
MS: Well you know, one of the things I find, and I'm sure you do, too, you travel a lot around the country. And the thing about American newspapers in particular, but it's also true of Canada and certain others, is that if you get off the plane at almost any airport on the continent, and you'll pick up the local paper which will be a monopoly daily, published by Gannett or some other similar company, and it will just have like the world's dullest comment page, the world's dullest op-ed page. This is a great riveting time of war, and say what you like about crazy folks on left or right, but there's a lot to say about it. And in fact, the newspapers, and their monopolies, have made them dull, and that's the danger, I think, in much of the United States, that you want someone, whether you agree with him or not, that you want something that will be riveting and thought-provoking. And some of these guys have been just holding down prime op-ed real estate for decades. It's amazing to me.
HH: Mark Steyn, last question on this. One of the Telegraph suits sent out an e-mail to someone questioning, saying we hope to have Mark Steyn back within the Telegraph family soon. Is that just shining on their distraught readers?
MS: Yeah, I don't quite know why they're saying that, because (laughing)
HH: You're not coming back soon. All right.
MS: I'm not...that's certainly something that...there's no reason for them to be sending that out to readers.
HH: Oh, except to get the readers to go away for a while. Let's turn to international affairs, but beginning in the domestic side. Yesterday, there came word, Mark Steyn, that the Iraq Study Group had been formed. Now I cannot find the statute that authorized this, and I suspect it's a John Warner/Frank Wolfe gambit. But it's got James Baker and Lee Hamilton, and a bunch of the usual suspects to study the war. I can't believe we're going to do the 9/11 Commission again. What's your reaction to the formation of this group?
MS: Well, the 9/11 Commission is the...I mean, you know me. I'm a foreigner, but I'm pro-American. And yet I must say, the 9/11 Commission is everything I loathe about the United States, in that its legalistic, retrospective, showboating blowhards, pompous people going on TV round the clock. And in effect, it becomes something in and of itself. It's not just commenting on something like a play by play guy is, but it actually changes the course of the something its commenting on. And that's what's bad about this. You know, Iraq isn't a Broadway play in previews. The show has opened, and it's on now. So it's too late to have arguments about this little weak spot in the first act, and we should get it re-written. The show has opened, and the responsibility of these people involved in this, James Baker, Lee Hamilton, Rudy Giuliani, all these people, is that they should now be saying let's win it, and then have the arguments.
HH: But do you suspect the White House attempted to stop this? Or are they at this point reeling on so many fronts, they didn't think they had the ability to say no?
MS: Well, I think there is a danger in the last couple of weeks that they have lost control of they...not what's going on in Iraq, but in a sense, the rationale behind it. Now I would imagine that James Baker, who's very close to the Bush family, I can't imagine him taking this, if he didn't at least have a tacit approval from the Bush family. But at the same time, I think this is an example of just what we don't need with Iraq. We do need a refreshing renewal of war rhetoric, but we don't need to argue, you know, have a big commission on where the WMD are and all the rest of it, and all that hooey.
HH: Now speaking about the renewal of war rhetoric, yesterday, General John Abizaid, commander of United States Central Command, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. It's available on the web. It is hard-hitting. It is actually fierce, and quite unsparing in the protrait that he paints of al Qaeda, and what they will do. And then today, the National Security strategy comes out, which is equally unsparing about Iran and the necessity of defensive action against them, if they refuse to abandon this. Is this what you're talking about, Mark Steyn? Getting back to basics on the stakes?
MS: Absolutely. I think we have to take these guys at their word. You know, the fact of the matter is that Saddam behaved as if he had weapons of mass destruction. And the basis of American policy in this world should be that if you go around claiming to have weapons of mass destruction, and threatening to use them as the Iranians are currently doing, then it shouldn't be a matter whether you're just bluffing or not. We have a responsibility to take you at your word and do something about it. And that's really the issue in Iran. Iran, actually, does generally walk the walk as well as talk the talk. They are people who have blown up Jewish community centers in Buenos Aires. And it's hard to, even by the biggest stretch, it's hard to say that's a legitimate grievance because of Israeli occupation of Palestine. I mean, they are people with a long reach, and a 25 year history of extra-territoriality. Why would they have nuclear weapons if they didn't, at the very minimum, intend them for serious nuclear blackmail?
HH: Let's turn to the domestic side of the attack on national security. Russ Feingold wants to censure the President. How should the GOP in the Senate respond, Mark Steyn?
MS: Well, I would very much hope that the only reason he's doing this is because Karl Rove has opened up a big bank account in the Cayman Islands for him, because it's hard to see how this can be of any advantage to the Democrats. It's amazing to me. Just as they've found this sort of rather shrill opportunist bit of good news for them on the Dubai ports deal, where they found a national security angle that somehow in crude political terms worked for them, then they go and blow it all back to...Russ Feingold, basically demanding that we censure the President for eavesdropping on al Qaeda phone calls. There is no good that can come for the Democratic Party out of that, and if Russ Feingold wants to pursue it, to shore himself up with the party base, good luck to him, because it's only going to make things worse for Hillary Clinton. Hillary will have to run to the left to avoid him peeling off significant support for her.
HH: But do you think Bill Frist will be successful in pushing this through the Judiciary Committee, onto the floor for a debate, and should he?
MS: Yes, I think he should, because I think every time the Democrats come up with this joke...these joke talking points, censure, impeachment, withdrawal from Iraq, timetable for withdrawal now, we need to set a timetable for withdrawal on April 17th, I think you should call them on it, and say fine, let's get it to a vote, and let's see how many of you, how many of you trinners and weather vane politicians, the John Kerry's and all the rest of them, how many of you are actually prepared to put your vote where your party's big mouths are.
HH: Well put. Now I want to close with a cultural question. The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame had its induction this week. James Lileks has been on this program defending, and will be later again, Black Sabbath and Sex Pistols, as pretty much the summit of American culture. Your reaction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a general proposition, Mark Steyn, and if you have any thoughts on this year's inductees?
MS: One of the most disgusting examples of the bloated federal budget is that federal money goes to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
HH: Oh, I didn't know that.
MS: And if rock and roll is not even self-supporting, nothing in America is.
HH: Mark Steyn, always a pleasure. I will put my note to the Sunday Telegraph's editor, and call him a man of not great precision or truth when he's communicating with his e-mailers. Talk to you again next week, Mark Steyn.
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