Conservative columnists (including Mark Steyn) have left Canada’s National Post. Liberal Post columnist Elizabeth Nickson is delighted:
I don't regret the defection of the conservative boy prose stylists.
”Prose stylist” is a curious choice of insult to direct at writers. Nickson continues, comparing her former column pals to conservative politicians:
Just like the prose stylists of the former Post, they're boys. Only boys would miss the opportunity to form an effective opposition to the Liberal juggernaut. Only boys would make that bone-headed compromise on free trade. Only boys would insist on ideological purity and sacrifice Canada to their ego. Boys are not men. And boys do not deserve to lead.
Where the hell did this come from? Steyn doesn’t know:
No vendetta at my end. I’m devastated to discover, at the end of said column, that I’m not man enough for her. Liz is one of my favourite gal prose stylists and I was honoured to share a page with her.
And presumably relieved that nowadays he doesn’t. By the way, I wonder how far you’d get as a lefty columnist in Canada if you wrote that “girls do not deserve to lead”?
Posted by Tim Blair at August 26, 2003 06:01 AM