NICE DRIVE-BY SMEAR:

National Review Crackup! (Timothy Noah, Oct. 14, 2008, Slate)

[Rich Lowry] on NRO, says there was nothing to resign from because it was a temporary gig and the guy he was subbing for was now back in the saddle. The writer, Steyn, had been otherwise engaged on account of being prosecuted for hate speech in Canada over a McLean's article that predicted dire consequences from Muslim immigration throughout Europe. On Oct. 10, Steyn beat the rap (his article was found not to "rise … to the level of hatred and contempt," which sounds to me like a backhanded insult; click here for the decision) and was therefore once again available to write for NR's back page.

We're big fans of Mr. Steyn, so it's possible you may read that differently, but Mr. Noah seems to imply that the only reason a rather straightforward assessment of demographic trends wasn't hate speech is because it wasn't written well enough. Being accused of a "hate crime" by PC nitwits is one thing, but saying Mr. Steyn wrote badly is an unsupportable slur.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 14, 2008 7:46 PM