(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
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[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Friday, September 27, 2002
Mark "The Roadie" Steyn: Doing the heavy lifting
Mark "Plagiarism" Steyn, leading ideologue of the warbloggers was recently fact-checked by Eric Tam. Like others of the same political ilk, Steyn has difficulty dealing with criticism and instead uses his column to deliver a spray against his critics. In this case, Steyn throws down the gauntlet and writes:
So I'm grateful to Mr. Tam. He specifically disputed one fact and he called me a hatemonger. That seems fair enough. Dispute two specific facts and you can take me to the Human Rights Commission. Dispute three specific facts and we'll play your karaoke recording on the National Post Web site:
"Hatemonger, hatemonger,
Mong me some hate..."
But just plain old unsupported cries of "hatemonger"? Save it for your next Concordia riot.
That shouldn't be too hard. But, before we deal with the Steyn's attention to detail, let's deal with Steyn's journalistic integrity. If he passes that test, then we can look at the specifics of his claims.
Steyn writes:
In June 2001, for example, the newspaper BT reported that every single gang rape that had taken place over the preceding 18 months had been committed by second-generation immigrants or refugees -- in one instance by a gang from Eastern Europe, in the rest by ... well, I don't want to be more hateful to a certain "vulnerable social group" than I have to, so you're welcome to take a stroll through the archives story by story, if you can stand the details.
If you had read Lars Hedegaard's annotations to the Daniel Pipes "Something rotten in Denmark" screed, these words would be familiar to you. Yes, once again, the increasingly dishonest Mark Steyn has stolen someone elses words. Hedegaard writes:
In June 2001, the Copenhagen daily newspaper B.T. reported that every single gang rape that had taken place over the preceding year and a half had been committed by second-generation immigrants or refugees - and in one instance by Eastern European gangsters.
Pathetic. Once again, Steyn the Roadie is doing the heavy lifting for the war party.
Of course, this leaves out the fact that the most serious gang rape perpetrated during 2001 was carried out in December 2001 by a gang of Danes - not "second-generation immigrants or refugees" at all.
For a more detailed discussion of the facts surrounding the Danish rape statistics, one should read Betramonline's inspired analysis of the Hedegaard response (from which Steyn seems to have based his rebuttal on anyway). posted by Anonymous11:36 PM
The Watchers
WBW: Keeping track of the war exhortations of the warbloggers.