Saturday, November 10, 2007
Mark Steyn made a local appearance on Wednesday night, and I was there taking audio and video. Several others were there as well, and have already written things up. Start with Miss Kelly here and here. Also see couchtiger, semper-fido, and Bloodthirsty Liberal. Good write-ups, all.
Steyn is a terrific speaker, sometimes a bit too glib, but always interesting. On the whole I share his views, though sometimes they come out a little oversimplified. For instance, he's certainly right, in principle, that we should have demanded Iraq discard its official war with Israel and Afghanistan stop trying to kill Muslims who convert to Christianity in the early weeks after the invasions. Practically speaking, though, we're not such a hyper-power that we can clean out the cess-pit of society across mass tracks of the Middle East (You're not going to change this by decree in a day). Nits aside, the evening was well worth it. If you have a chance to see Steyn speak, go! Understand that I complain because I think these issues are so important we don't have time for any frivolous talk.
Oh, and being in an audience in a Jewish venue applauding a conservative speaker is also an enjoyable occasion, even though the subject matter is so damn depressing. Steyn is charming enough that even those that may be to his left can enjoy it.
I won't bother with any more description as the others have done that just fine. Here is my video of his talk. I do have video of the Q&A and if, as with Wafa Sultan, there is enough interest I can post an edited version of that as well. As before, I had no tripod and was fairly seriously zoomed in, so the picture moves around a lot. You may need to close your eyes to avoid vertigo. There's also a missing few minutes from when I had to get up and go to the bathroom...ooops. An MP3 of the entire thing -- including the missing few minutes and the entire Q&A with the questions clipped out (they were mostly inaudible anyway) -- is also included. Toss it in your MP3 player.
Here's the audio alone (full event):
Update: Richard Landes has notes and analysis, here.
Martin,
Thanks for posting this. I've linked over at BTL. I can't state strongly enough how much I think Steyn needs to be heard. The 250-300 who were there need to spread the word of Steyn---by blogging, by giving America Alone as a gift, by any means necessary.
I appreciate your work on this, and on so much else, daily.
BTL
"..he's certainly right, in principle, that we should have demanded Iraq discard its official war with Israel.."
This point needs to be repeated to prick the willingly gullible and perpetually anti-Israel aggrieved into dealing with realities rather than succumb to wishful conspiracies on a grand scale. As when Mearsheimer and Walt make their very attractive proposition that it was the Israel Lobby that pushed Bush into the war in Iraq. Stephen Colbert asked Mearsheimer explicitly:
"You say that the Israel lobby was influential in helping push for war with Iraq. Is that because the Israeli lobby knew there were so many pro-Israeli forces ready to take over in Iraq once Saddam fell?"
Thank you, Solomon, for videotaping and posting this.
Mark Steyn is a treasure. His talk was brilliant as always. "America Alone" is one of the best books I've read over the past year.
Noga's comment is dead spot on too.
Great work, as always. Wish I could have been there.
CAMERA was the sponsor of the evening at Temple Emannuel. Don't know why you failed to mention it.
thanks