Both Tim Blair and Professor Bunyip complain that Mark Steyn,columnist for the Spectator and Telegraph, doesn’t get enough of a run in the Australian media. One possible explanation is that Steyn’s columns rely heavily on gross distortions of the truth or outright factual errors.
For example, Tim cites a column, published inter alia in the Chicago Sun-Times under the headline Beware multicultural madness, in which Steyn writes of the 55-year jail sentence imposed on gang rapist X (now named as Bilal Skaf):
“But inevitably, it’s the heavy sentence that’s ”controversial.” ‘
In support of this claim he quotes a single letter to the SMH. As we know, he could also have cited a handful of lawyers and legal academics. A reader in Chicago would have no way of knowing that this sentence attracted the uniform support of politicians, the media and the vast majority of legal commentators (and bloggers), or that the handful of critics Steyn mentioned were more than outweighed by those calling for a stiffer sentence.

But this kind of distortion is par for the course in the commentariat. What really struck me was this schoolboy howler, cited with approval by Tim and also, as I recall, by Miranda Devine.

“Of the 20th century’s three global conflicts – the First, Second and Cold Wars – who was on the right side each time? Germany: one out of three. Italy: two out of three. For a perfect triple, there’s only Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. ”

When writing or quoting this, Steyn, Blair and Devine didn’t manage to recall the phrase “in Flanders fields”. For others who don’t recall, Flanders is in Belgium, a country which bore the brunt of both World Wars and hosted the headquarters of NATO during the Cold War. It’s not a very big country, and easy to overlook. But there’s a bigger reason why Steyn and friends forgot about Belgium.
Its southern neighbour was also on the Allied frontline in both World Wars, and on the Western side in the Cold War. Steyn’s whole ideological position would collapse if he had to admit that France was on the side of the good guys. (I await lame quibbles about Petain and de Gaulle with weary expectation).