Bagmen and Media Suck-Ups

by Mark Steyn
Steyn on Fox
November 8, 2017

https://www.steynonline.com/8241/bagmen-and-media-suck-ups

On Wednesday night I kept my midweek date with Fox News, responding to Tucker Carlson's interview with former DNC chair Donna Brazile. The Clintons looked on the State Department as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation, and on the DNC as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton campaign. After Donna Brazile's repeated wish to "go fishing" with Tucker, I made a fishing observation of my own. Media-ite did not care for it:

Canadian author Mark Steyn appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to react to the Fox News host's interview with former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile — and did so by suggesting that Hillary Clinton is a murderer.

Tucker Carlson asked Steyn — whose appearances on Fox News seem to be entirely composed of quips — what he thought of Brazile's remark that she leaked debate questions to Clinton in 2016 so that the candidate would not be "blindsided."

Steyn reacted by telling the Fox News host that he should take Brazile up on her offer to go fishing, as Carlson struggled to contain his laughter.

"I'd rather go fishing with Donna Brazile than go fishing with Hillary Clinton," Steyn continued, "because you get the feeling you'll be sleeping with the fishes by the end of the afternoon if you go fishing with Hillary."

A beaming Carlson let out a chuckle at that remark, and Steyn continued on his quip rampage.

To those of us raised on The Front Page, these new American media types are awfully sensitive, don't you find? Click below to watch:

If you're a Mark Steyn Club member, feel free to disagree in the comments below. I'll be back on Fox with Ainsley, Steve and Brian on the curvy couch this Friday morning.

~The Mark Steyn Club helps fund much of what we do here at SteynOnline and around the world. So, if you listen to me on Rush or watch me on Fox or read me around the planet, I'd like to invite you to become a member of our new club. You can sign up for a full year - or, if you think this is some dodgy malodorous scheme cooked up by a fly-by-night Canadian scamster, you can opt to be more lightly scammed and sign up for a mere quarter. Membership of The Mark Steyn Club isn't for everyone, but it does ensure that all our content will be for everyone, and out there in the world - from my essay on Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind to my interview with Christopher Caldwell on Europe's Islamization, from my columns on the latest terrorist attack to my SteynPost on America's white-male epidemic of "death by despair" to my Last Call on the malign House of Saud ...and, on a cheerier note, our celebrations of the late Christopher Lee, the story of "Blueberry Hill" and all our other cultural diversions. Members of The Mark Steyn Club help to support all this content.

Whether you've enjoyed me in Canadian newspapers, on American radio, on Australian stages, The Mark Steyn Club is a great way to tie it all together. And membership does come with benefits:

*Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, CDs and other products.

*The opportunity to engage in Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly, in print, audio and video.

*An exclusive new series of monthly audio adaptations: Tales for Our Time. We started with my serialization of Conan Doyle's timelier than ever Tragedy of the Korosko, continued with H G Wells' prescient view of a bifurcated humanity The Time Machine, moved on to Joseph Conrad's insights into the psychology of urban terrorists in The Secret Agent - and then Anthony Hope's Ruritanian derring-do in The Prisoner of Zenda. We've also got a short-story bonus Tale for Our Time for Halloween - and a new adventure starting next week.

*Transcript and audio versions of our video content: For those who find it less stressful not to have to look at me, we're making The Mark Steyn Show available in non-visual form. If you go here, you'll find that we've already posted audio episodes of every single SteynPost all the way back to the very first one, plus some of our long-form shows, which we're also working our way through.

*Comment Club membership: you get to frolic and gambol through our comments section and take issue with me and my columns and radio shows and TV appearances. I weigh in there myself from time to time, but it's essentially your turf where you get to take the rhetorical baseball bat to any cut of my jib that happens to rankle. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

*My new quarterly newsletter, The Clubbable Steyn: The first issue is full of fun, including climate-change "adjustments", the first "known wolf" with the "mysterious motive", the anniversaries of Benghazi and Diana, and my visit to Rotherham to talk to the victims of Britain's Muslim "grooming" gangs.

*My new video series of pertinent verse.

*Advance booking for my live appearances around the world - such as next week's appearance in Washington with Kellyanne Conway and Diane Hendricks at the Independent Women's Forum annual awards gala. (If you're in the vicinity of the DC Swamp and would like to attend, please click here and enjoy a special discount on the ticket price by entering the promo code STEYN at the bottom of the ticket information box.)

*Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest (arts, politics, culture, or the whole shebang).

*and, most importantly, the opportunity to support all our content, from the Big Picture stuff on Islam and climate change and civilizational collapse to the small pleasures of good conversation, great movies and live music.

For more on The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - or treat a pal to a Gift Membership here.

© 2018 Mark Steyn Enterprises (US) Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of Mark Steyn Enterprises.

If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club and you take issue with this article, then have at it in our comments section.

receive the latest by email: subscribe to steynonline's free weekly mailing list

Comment on this item

Submission of reader comments is restricted to Mark Steyn Club members only. If you are not yet a member, please click here to join. If you are already a member, please log in here:

Member Login

41 Reader Comments

Nicholas Strathy • Nov 9, 2017 at 12:57

"[Steyn's] appearances on Fox News seem to be entirely composed of quips". Who appointed him to the office of Court Jester? He forgets himself and presumes to make light of issues and persons held sacred!

That office is reserved for the cast of SNL, John Oliver, Alec Baldwin, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert, Kathy Griffin, etc. Honorable mentions go to the joke writers at CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc, etc, etc ...

Susanna

Nicholas Strathy • Nov 9, 2017 at 14:39

So true. And those people's quips are generally un-funny and full of lies.

Sol Cranfill

Susanna • Nov 9, 2017 at 17:19

I spent a weekend at the lake last month with a couple anti-Trumpers and had the misfortune of having to watch an episode of SNL. There was a sketch with the woman who played Hillary last year that was so foul that I still feel like a steam-cleaning. In the news segment the black anchor called Trump a "cracker" and so exaggerated Trump's intentions toward Puerto Rico after the hurricane that it lost connection to reality and failed to be funny to any of us. There was one funny sketch about ridiculously baggy and shapeless jeans that appeal to safe spacers because they have no defining characteristics whatsoever. For most of the show, two in its core audience sat next to me stone-faced.

It's odd, because Trump so naturally provides actual humorous material, but like Jimmy Kimmel, they prefer politics over laughter.

Matthew McWilliams

Sol Cranfill • Nov 13, 2017 at 20:04

Interesting point Sol. Not to be derogatory, but Trump provides more comedic material in an average day than most Presidents do in two terms. To me that is a positive part of his persona. In many cases he is the one making the quip. A good comedian could riff off Trump for hours. But that wouldn't serve their purpose because riffing on Trump would have the unwanted effect of humanizing the man and, heaven forbid, actually getting the audience to listen to his positions on the issues. For the Left the point is not the joke, but the dehumanization of the enemy.

Sol Cranfill

Matthew McWilliams • Nov 14, 2017 at 00:42

That's it, and it's easy to do with the audience mal-educated and unmoored. It's basically just hatred. I have difficulty right now talking to anyone on the left about Trump without anger flashing in their eyes, and it usually tends to be a blind rage in which they are unable to make an independent, rational judgment about Trump or evaluate his policies. Why evaluate the policies of a rat?

Fran Lavery • Nov 9, 2017 at 11:08

After Donna commented about not wanting to blindside anyone, I thought Tucker might have come back with his great laugh and a quick "ah, out of the mouth of babes"! Maybe Rush will use it today. Yes, Tucker is too respectful. Sounds more like Maharushi.

I don't really trust Brazille but at least now she has exposed a chink in the Dems' armor. They can eat their own, we now see. Now I can finally exhale. And if another liberal woman ever asks me again if don't I want to live to see a woman POTUS, I might scream: Yes, of course, but the right one! Someone like Tammy Bruce would do just great.

Matthew McWilliams

Fran Lavery • Nov 13, 2017 at 20:06

I would have liked to see Tucker respond with something like this; "Well, you didn't want Hillary blindsided, but what about the other candidates? Did you want them blindsided?"

Fran Lavery

Matthew McWilliams • Nov 13, 2017 at 21:00

I thought Brazille did say something to Tucker to the effect of: you ought to see what questions I gave the others. It's hard for me to take anything Brazille says seriously. If someone lies once, and even put it in black and white print, then deny it, the seed of doubt is forever there that they can tell the truth. That's why I find these people fair game to mock, and smart to mistrust. I did think it interesting her book was dedicated to Seth Rich. Mark was right to note though on Tucker and again on Gutfeld that you would take fishing with her over Hillary because you at least wouldn't be worried about becoming a fish's meal. There's some truth to be found in that characterization.

Matthew McWilliams

Fran Lavery • Nov 14, 2017 at 14:51

Well, if you go fishing with Hillary just make sure you don't say a Hail Mary. Remember what happened to Fredo.

fran lavery

Matthew McWilliams • Nov 14, 2017 at 17:01

Well, Fredo probably forgot that you only get to say ten Hail Mary's in a decade! (Sorry, couldn't resist).

Jake Little • Nov 9, 2017 at 10:52

Please approve me!!!! I need validation that I'm worthy of publishing my thoughts.....I am somebody, don't you see that?? Huge LOL

Jake Little • Nov 9, 2017 at 10:50

I echo the sentiments expressed earlier in the posts, but what I would like to comment on is the absolutely beautiful welcome card I received in the mail!!! Hand written, sealed by tongue, and personally stamped by Mark himself (maybe). What a first class presentation. I feel so....good. And what can I say about the newsletter!! Again, I haven't seen this type of quality in 20 years. Not bad for an undocumented day labourer.

Kate Smyth

Jake Little • Nov 9, 2017 at 21:03

The card made my day... completely personalised!

Fran Lavery

Jake Little • Nov 12, 2017 at 14:09

You're very lucky. It must be a new thing. I never received one. Anyway, not one for whining, and it's about what you put into something; there's the secret. You get out what you put in. This is the club that keeps on giving, and frankly, it's getting hard to keep up. I'm still waiting on LA Confidential from Netflix. So far behind on the Steyn line, they can call me the moose hanging on the back of the caboose!

James Morphew • Nov 9, 2017 at 10:42

Being sensitive in the media is their method of turning a nothing quip (or tweet or off-mic comment) into a story to support their world view of good guys & bad guys. The Right plays the game, too, by the way -- how many articles and interviews express "outrage" rather than a good sarcastic, witty comment? The Right, and those "conservatives" seem to miss the fact that a large success of the Left has been to own the smile, the chuckle, while the Right was seen as the school principle frowning at the prankster. America loves a smile, and a prankster, and the sooner the Right puts smiles on their message, the sooner America will listen.

Sol Cranfill

James Morphew • Nov 9, 2017 at 15:09

That's a great point. Mark and Tucker have a lot of fun while also making sense. I ventured into a mainstream news site and scrolled through some of the comments, and then slowly backed out. There was no smiling in there. Nancy Pelosi's smile is terrifying. Obama's dentist-friendly smile is unsettling.

I thought I'd give the left a tumble a couple days ago to see if there was any wit to be found by reading a a light-hearted Washington Post piece, an alternative history of news items that might have appeared over the past year or so, had Hillary won the election. It was so dull and unfunny that I stopped before I finished reading it and felt sorry for the author for putting so much time into it.

siberianmo • Nov 9, 2017 at 09:23

And who really gives a rat's patoot about some nondescript obscure "journalist" commenting from an equally obscure and credential-less web site?

Another entertaining segment with Tucker!

Tom in Missouri

Dennis2 • Nov 9, 2017 at 05:48

Mark was as keen as usual in zeroing in on Hillary's Blindside Protector Donna Brazille's most glaring self incrimination regarding her unethical passing on of pre-debate questions to Clinton.
"You haven't got a chance (sic) to see the things I gave Hillary and Martin O'Malley." That is an evasive or defensive tactic that I wouldn't advise anyone to duplicate.

Note; I hope Mark will comment on Trump's trip to China. I watched several recorded videos and it looked like a truly historic visit to me and a possible major shift in economic and political relations with China. Even though it was for show, the mutual signing of $250 billion of new mutually beneficial trade deals during the visit is not peanuts. There were many positives from this trip IMO, but the coverage in the evening was next to zero on FNC. I didn't waste time checking out CNN etc. and when I did a cursory check of Breitbart's sensationalist headlines, it was the usual orchestrated anger inducing subjects that are already forgotten by their readers and not one story about the China visit.

No wonder Trump's poll numbers are down when many of his own so-called cheerleaders sit quietly on the sidelines whenever he does something positive on the world stage or anywhere else. It's not surprising that Trump often brags about many of his accomplishments. It's the only way some of the positive Trump news is ever heard by some over the cacophony of steady Dem boos and never ending fake negative news.

Stowe-man

Dennis2 • Nov 9, 2017 at 08:22

Well, let's hope he gets as much done as possible, between now and Nov 2018 (even though the tax plan really does stink). Because there's a good chance American demographics, the piss poor performance of the Republicans as a party, and the steady drumbeat of negative media will reassert themselves. At the end of the day, what will we have gained? Fewer deductions, higher taxes, and yet higher taxes and more governmental intervention on the horizon.

Sol Cranfill

Stowe-man • Nov 9, 2017 at 09:20

All I could do was laugh when I saw one of the Republicans in Congress reflecting on the outcome of the Tuesday election and say it would make passing legislation harder. The Republicans' only hope is to lose power, which causes their voices to grow strong, confident and clear about what they will deliver when they regain power.

Fran Lavery

Sol Cranfill • Nov 9, 2017 at 10:46

You have it summarized perfectly!

It is grim looking out here in New Mexico. Nobody really pays much attention to the states at the bottom of the barrel. I figured the country is only as strong as her weakest links. The only ones seeing to it that business is going on as usual here are Democrats. The only ones winning are Democrats. Wake up Republicans, there is a connection. Win and conduct business. Lose and whine.

We have our version of the swamp here: a dry swamp! Harder to scrape the muck off the ground when it's embedded and desiccated.

Fran Lavery

Dennis2 • Nov 9, 2017 at 10:54

I know how that goes. When I feel taken for granted I have two choices: go around glumlike waiting interminably for a word of appreciation, or take the bull by the horns and toot my own horn. There's something in the way it feels, a little hollow, yes, but, correct, like one is being proactive and not succumbing to a depression. The only downside is that I may have pulled one of those things in my rotator cuff from all the backpatting I do!

Fran Lavery • Nov 9, 2017 at 11:26

More like the dry stable.

Debra Milligan

Fran Lavery • Nov 9, 2017 at 15:04

Fran, I believe it looks better in New Mexico than it does here in California. The ####s of companies that have left this state since the start of the recession (2006) are in the 10,000s. And over the past 25 years, the anti-business climate here has shrunk the business sector to such a small piece of the Golden State pie that the GOP packed up and left the state -- probably after the businesses left (no funding base).

The attitude of the Dems is: You won't leave.

The response of Business -- corporate and small -- is : Watch me!

So Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas all have become homes to California companies, many of them FOUNDED in this state. There is the rip-off aspect of having a "San Francisco presence" whereby a company like Williams-Sonoma pays for the privilege of being headquartered in that pit, but that retailer in on life-support too.

We've got a swamp here with ossified (petrified) Redwoods!! Now that the drought is over, no more hardpan. But the collapse of a spillway this past winter at Oroville Dam revealed that concrete wasn't poured where it was supposed to have poured -- way back in the 1960s when Geezer Moonbeam's dad was governor. Jerry ordered those records sealed. Lawsuits are quickly underway. Shining the light on corruption takes time!

Dennis2

Fran Lavery • Nov 9, 2017 at 18:47

Hi Fran:
"Toot your own horn" here anytime.
Most of us are emboldened by a compliment or a few words of praise. It is a validation that whatever we were doing had value to someone else. Praise that comes years after the praiseworthy event is often the most compelling. A few examples are when a child becomes an adult and a parent and finally realizes how much their parents did for them or when colleagues you haven't seen in many years tell you how they wished they had been given the opportunity to thank you for helping them during tough times and so on.

Fran Lavery

Debra Milligan • Nov 9, 2017 at 20:43

I remember the Oroville Dam issues well, because it was a topic of conversation at my local atmospheric group meeting last spring before we got into the main topic about how ranges of temp variations around the country don't change that much over years and decades and also that many of the temp data collecting sites around the country are not functioning or simply don't exist any longer. We have dams issues here in NM so yes, we covered that Oroville Dam event, but I did not know Jerry sealed records. Since you're from there, I should mention that we also talked about the recent fires. Those winds coming down from the mountains there happen around the same time every year, if I was paying attention. They are called the Diablo Winds, that I do remember. They are fierce and they knew they were coming. There was someone who mentioned Jerry Brown, and it was in reference to some bill he vetoed about upgrading power lines that were due. Any info on that you could share that would set me straight?

Debra Milligan

Fran Lavery • Nov 9, 2017 at 21:17

The spillway at Oroville was a 2-week disaster-in-the-making that the Brown mis-administration ignored and botched. I worked almost a decade with dams, O&M = operation & maintenance, & inspection and I was amaaazed to learn this past winter about the type of corruption that the Brown "Dynasty" will work hard to suppress.

It's a great irony that the do-nothing Son-Governor is having to cover up for the Father-Governor that Reagan schlonged. It was always the other way around. Oh, well, Jerry is "giving back"!

Re-electing a re-tread has its consequences. But Jerry ran on a Nativist sentiment!! Meg Whitman, the only CEO to run 3 businesses into the ground, lost to a guy who claimed, "I'm a Native!" Really inclusive, huh?

The Sonoma fires were likely caused by a downed PG&E power line. The winds then created the firestorm. The area is typical California coast: trailer parks and mansions. The sort of place where Nancy Pelosi reigns supreme as long as she doesn't have to look at the ghastly sight of the low-lifes downslope. Oh, I sound cynical!

The enviros prevent upgrading of just about anything except the windmills in the Pacheco Pass that eat up the birds flying into them. The legitimate, traditional energy companies (gas, oil) subsidize the Green Ones. It's the law now.

The energy situation in California is one of potentially freezing in the dark. My candle supply is always at the ready. While I sit by a portable radiator and wait for the heater guy to arrive on the 16th to fix the gas stove! Advice: check the thermo-couple in August, not November!

Fran Lavery

Dennis2 • Nov 10, 2017 at 03:09

Dennis, did you happen to catch the piece tonight about someone from FB saying they knew they were harming people on social media because of this human need for praise and rewards? Something about causing addiction with little affirming messages of Likes and comments. I know you meant needing validation in real life. Oh, this should be good though. I just touched on this idea of addiction to social media with another club member.

Fran Lavery

Debra Milligan • Nov 10, 2017 at 03:13

That's depressing to read. Thanks for completing the picture, though.

Debra Milligan

Fran Lavery • Nov 10, 2017 at 13:04

Yes, Fran, it's depressing to read. And for many here it's depressing to live. But I won't abandon my adopted state, even though many Californians never did cotton to me.

I'm more a Westerner than a Californian. Despite the sunny open-border image that California likes to project to the world, the native-Californian really doesn't like outsiders. He wants the door slammed shut just after he gets here. The hypocrisy is rank. Everyone is from somewhere else! The natives were Californios centuries ago!

Americans from other states are viewed as "free-loading" on all this wealth! This "sanctuary" state will take in immigrants though for the slave-labor aspect, but Easterners, especially from the Northeast, are viewed with much hostility. The Pacific Northwest is also seen as "inferior." The brain drain here is almost complete, with the talented and truly tolerant leaving by the hour.

The snobbery is really something. Google is now fund-raising for the Sonoma fires but I didn't see anything done for the recent hurricanes. I saw an article the other day bemoaning that you can "no longer trust Google."

Huh??!!

It's a lot like the Grace Kelly line in "To Catch a Thief" -- "That's warm sunny France for you." The French are notorious for not liking the Outsider -- l'étranger -- but they seem to welcome ("embrace") the barbarians from across the Méditerranée because their government tells them the really good jobs will still belong to them.

Merde de bœuf.

End of rant. I keep my Rand-McNally atlas under the parlor sofa for occasional therapy. But I've set down roots here, pine tree roots! It's that Scot-Irish in me acting up again -- wanderlust!

Fran Lavery

Debra Milligan • Nov 10, 2017 at 15:28

Good to hear you're still staying and fighting. I hear every word you speak, too. We will probably end up there to be close to the two grandkiddoes. Their parents will never leave SoCal. But we're here until my husband throws in the towel. Then, who knows? I heard Apple Valley is nice. Heard Roy Rogers lived there and drove into the studios every day for his work. One of my walking partners told me one of their adopted daughters married her best friend's son. That's how Apple Valley seeped into my consciousness.

Steven Payne • Nov 8, 2017 at 23:55

You know what the Mark Steyn Club is missing? Membership cards! Lacking those makes me think this really is a scam.

Laurence Jarvik

Steven Payne • Nov 9, 2017 at 06:56

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Mark Steyn Club?

William Picou

Steven Payne • Nov 9, 2017 at 10:38

Membership cards?

Pfui.

I want decoder rings.

Debra Milligan

William Picou • Nov 9, 2017 at 14:23

Oh, no -- the better business model would be for Mark to sell his own breakfast cereal. We have to collect 3 boxtops and mail them in to him, and then we get the Marvin Cat Ears, or any of a number of fancy feline "freebies".

At least Mr. Steyn is not Kellogg!! There's an opening for really good Raisin Bran to be made. The Whole Foods stuff is recycled post-consumer cardboard and Post is not what it used to be. Mark-Brand Bran! I'd buy a box or 3!

Chatch-kee possibilities are endless here!

Laura Rosen Cohen

William Picou • Nov 9, 2017 at 16:01

There is a secret handshake, but if I tells ya about it, I gotsta kills ya.

Kate Smyth

Laura Rosen Cohen • Nov 9, 2017 at 21:02

What about a logo (that doesn't give too much away- so "secret", but still recognisable to other members- eg "MS Club", with logo) that can be downloaded only by club members, then used for smart phone case of choice? https://www.decalgirl.com/make/skins/custom-iphone-skins

Sol Cranfill • Nov 8, 2017 at 23:54

It wouldn't fit into Hillary's schedule anyway. In her spare time she's going fishing with Robert Mueller.

Susanna

Sol Cranfill • Nov 9, 2017 at 14:38

Ha ha! Nice.

Elizabeth Dixon

Sol Cranfill • Nov 9, 2017 at 15:32

Hillary really is a nasty piece of work.

Gerry Kirkham

Elizabeth Dixon • Nov 9, 2017 at 19:32

Hi Elizebeth, From my perspective, Nasty, ain't the half of it. I think she is evil and corrupt, as is her hubby. I would pay good money to see them both locked up for many years! I've been around for almost seventy years, and I have never seen such an evil wicked mean and nasty person as HRC. If I said how I really feel, I would be banned from this site, even if I knew the secret handshake.