Mark Steyn Rides Again, 1/4/05

Mark is a very talented voice on the blogosphere who just happens to also write for the news media. Now, hold on folks...he's one of the good guys! He had done it again with this column. I have only copied a small part of it, so I don't get in trouble and you can go to actual site. I have also included his site. Enjoy! Have a great day.

The same old tune,
Surprise, surprise: Asian tsunami tragedy inspires anti-American sniping.
By MARK STEYN
Syndicated columnist

"In the heyday of musical comedy, they used to have what they called "catalogue songs" - great long laundry lists of examples that all go to prove the same point - that "You're the Top" or "These Foolish Things Remind Me of You." That's the way it is with the world's opinion formers these days. Whatever happens anywhere on the planet all goes to prove the same central point - the iniquity of America.

Even so, you'd think an unprecedented tsunami in a region that's never been a U.S. sphere of influence would be hard to pin on the Great Satan. And, to be fair to the global rent-a-quote crowd, for an hour or two they were stunned into silence. But it wasn't long before they were back singing the same old song: Disaffected young Muslim men in Saudi Arabia, devastated coastal villages in Sri Lanka... These Foolish Things Remind Me of U-S-A. You really need Cole Porter:

You're The Pits
With your massive armies
You're The Pits
And you cause tsunamis.

Jan Egeland, that Norwegian bloke who's the U.N. humanitarian honcho, got the ball rolling with general remarks about the big countries' "stinginess." In particular, he thinks U.S. taxes are too low.

Got that? Those tightwad Yanks aren't doing enough.

But whoa, hang on. It turns out those pushy Yanks are doing way too much, at least according to Clare Short..."

Mark Steyn can be read here and you can read the entire article here. Hat tip to my friend Dan Foty.