Repeat Offender

Conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt had a scoop of sorts yesterday when interviewee Mark Steyn revealed to him that he'd been canned by The Atlantic Monthly as their obituary writer --

MS: Well, the Atlantic and I have had a falling out ... So I probably shouldn’t be talking about this on air, but you know, I, as the Australian foreign minister said to me in another context, there’s no really off the record conversation with me, and so I’m happy to tell your guys, if you ask me a straight question, we’ve had a falling out ...I don’t know what they’re running instead. Maybe they’ll run an obituary of me, and that will nicely round out the whole business. But that’s ...Well, we had a bit of a clenched teeth showdown, and that’s the way it goes.

Steyn thus only mentions that there was a row, and hints that it was not with owner David Bradley, so one can only wonder there was some repeat of events that led to his exit from the Daily Telegraph that began with the spiked column about Liverpool and Ken Bigley.

Anyway, Steyn's fans seem to think that there was some particular virtue in the way he wrote the obits, when all he was doing was applying the more English style, where colourful anecdotes and a bit of speculation are allowed. In fact, the anedcote cited by National Review's Peter Robinson from the Atlantic's obit for John Profumo as an example of classic Steyn is little different than the one that appears in the Times (UK) obit. So maybe the Atlantic figured that they could get someone else to rework the Times and Telegraph obits. Or maybe, as Hugh Hewitt slyly implies, there was some link between Steyn's departure and the arrival of Andrew Sullivan --

HH: That’s the worst trade, that’s Steyn for Andrew Sullivan, since the Indians sent Chris Chambliss and Greg Nettles to the Yankees for people you’ve never heard of. I can’t believe that, but I’ll leave it at that.