THE WORST GUEST-HOST OF ALL TIME
Mark, I had to delete your guest appearance of Rush's show on my iTunes and I will be emailing Rush to ask him to never have you host his show again, for you have done the worst fill-in I have ever heard. I'm from Detroit and I'm currently unemployed after working 19 years as a color matcher. I have been looking for a job in MICHIGAN for two years and I don't want to leave this place for I love living here.
Sorry, I'm getting off topic. You did a terrible show yesterday, and while I agree with what you said about Detroit as a whole, I'm getting sick and tired of people taking every opportunity to knock Detroit down every chance they get. The commercial didn't knock any others down. All it was trying to say is, "While we might be down, we are not out." However, you took this opportunity to politicize this to the so-called "conservative" agenda. This is what is wrong with politics in my opinion. You say you are going Detroit, but you are only going to Hillsdale, and I'm sure you won't even go to downtown Detroit, for even there you would probably get your ass kicked. You're nothing to a chicken behind a microphone.
Sorry, I am attacking you, but your show made me sick yesterday and it is the first time that I have had to delete Rush's podcast. I consider myself a conservative, for I don't want government to dictate what businesses should do or if we shouldn't be forced to take health care. What I don't like is someone from a foreign county taking every opportunity to politicize their agenda at someone's expense.
Well I could go on and on, but you'll probably just delete this anyways. I hope Rush's people don't do the same and listen to me that you'll never host again.
PS— Just to let you know not everyone from Detroit is illiterate like you stated yesterday and yes I am from Detroit for I was born in Detroit.
John Pepp
MARK SAYS: Actually, I said that the illiteracy rate within the city limits is about 50 per cent. That being the case, I'm impressed to see that so many of the correspondents below are able to spell correctly the two-syllable word "asshole". Great start! You can be anything you want to be! Dream your dream!
SUCCINCT AND TO THE POINT
You've become a ratings-chasing cliché. What a disappointment. Oh, and an asshole as well!!
Dennis Seville
Detroit, Michigan
EVEN MORE SUCCINCT AND TO THE POINT
Go Fuck Yourself.
From Detroit
GO FUNK YOURSELF
Hey Mark, after reading an account on your roasting of the city of my birth, I just wanted to say… Sir, you are an asshole of the highest caliber. Maybe next time you can flex that "super intellect" of yours and pick a not so obvious a target.
GO CANUCK YOURSELF
Have you ever even been to Detroit? The Fox Theater is one of MANY theaters still standing in Detroit. Go back to Canada asshole.
Shannon T
CUTE AND ADORABLE
I would make an attempt at refuting your uneducated comments about Detroit, but I then realized I had no clue who you were, nor had I ever heard you speak in any forum. After reading about your comments regarding Detroit and Chrysler I was extremely pissed off… then I found out you are from Canada.
I can only describe that my mood had changed drastically. I found your comments to then become funny, if not cute! Seriously, you're from Canada? I thought we had problems in Detroit. You're from Canada, awwww, how cute… and you can read too? How adorable. Good luck with everything. Really. Enjoy the delights of our fair country and feel free to continue whatever it is you. You are about as harmless and useless as the country which spawned you. Thanks for dumbing down the right a bit more. Any more Canucks you can send our way? We are running out of crash test dummies. Inquire within.
Mike Shea
STEYN: THE POLLUTION, NOT THE SOLUTION
So you blasted Detroit and Chrysler on the radio. Good job. Maybe we should just close the city down and send all the jobs we have left to Japan or China. Or better yet, don't listen to you, and send you on your way. I LOVE that option. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I will change my radio station.
Rick Hamilton
GREAT PEOPLE THAT WORK HARD
I wanted to write this to call you a piece of Shit but that would be wrong. I just have to say I disagree with your stance on Detroit and what this city is .this could go on forever but ill cut it short.its a proud city with great people that work hard for a living .is it the best on the planet .no , far from it , but its not nearly as bad as you want it to be.
Scott Donner
ABOUT THAT LITERACY RATE…
I HEARD U WERE A CHILD MALESTER
Mike Senopole
EFFEMINATE LEECH
Your comments on Detroit reveal a shallow person who is unable to grasp the basic purpose of advertising. It was not a political statement, it was a car commercial. You need to get some TV skills, or maybe it's just part of your stick to be outrageous. Judging by the crap (and that is being kind) on your website, you are just an elitist, effeminate snob who has never done an honest day's work in your life. The only callous you have is in your attitude toward the downtrodden on whose backs you step to enrich yourself. Please never come to Detroit. You have nothing we need, nor want. We already have too many leeches.
Ed Sharkey
AND ANOTHER THING
Hello, Mr Steyn. I've been listening to your anti-Chrysler/anti-Detroit diatribe on WJR the last couple of days, and would like to suggest you at least present some accuracy in your opinion.
The most egregious spin you present is the term "taxpayer bailout" when referring to the moneys spent on the Eminem commercial. It is a loan. Bailouts are what banks get, at zero percent— and handed to them without them having to ask.
A loan is what Chrysler has, at 11.8% interest! Plus the Feds will not allow Chrysler to refinance with a third party to obtain a lower rate (hence the "shyster" comment Sergio Marchionne made). In 1980, Chrysler went through a similar loan, and the government made out very well on the deal. I'm optimistic this time will show a similar result.
Another point of fact is the commercial was not a "30 second spot" as you say, but two minutes. Sorry you stepped out for the other 90 seconds.
And to continue... you said Detroit loses money on every car it builds. This could very well be, as people don't have much interest in cars, but they sure do like their trucks, and that is where a mother-load of money is made— more than enough to cover their losses on those government-mandated mileage-regulated loss leaders. Please spare us such bait and switch, we are fully on to that.
And you said the Big Three were saddled with egregious health care costs. Where have you been? The health care obligations were assumed by the UAW over two years ago. You want to attack pensions too? You mean the pensions that are over 85% funded and not only self-sustaining, but for years have added to the companies' bottom line with profit from investment income? I didn't hear you take any shots at the state of Michigan and its $51 billion underfunded pension and health care obligations for public service employees.
There's more. You attacked the union wage scale as well. Let me tell you how well the new two-tier pay scale is working out at Chrysler Engineering. Chrysler is trying to hire-state certified mechanics to fill technician positions at the Auburn Hills headquarters. They cannot find anyone willing to leave the dealership and take a 50% pay cut and no pension, and they cannot pay a prevailing wage because the "bailout agreement" will not allow it. So the jobs are not being filled. Fourteen dollars an hour might work for unskilled labor in Alabama, but it doesn't work for skilled labor in Detroit.
I could go on, but I'll just add one more. You went through the blame game pointing the finger at the voters for electing Democrats to state positions, yet you skimmed over two-term Republican governor John Engler, who was at least the equal of Jennifer Granholm as an abysmal failure.
The Detroit public school system is a failure; nobody is arguing that. That is not the point of the commercial, why did you keep avoiding Frank Beckmann's questions and keep going back to beating the dead horse of Detroit public schools? And your focus is on Detroit proper… yet there are 3 million people living in the suburban surroundings— are all of us uneducated hip-hop hoodlums as you seem to insinuate?
I'm disappointed that you would play to your select audience and attack what I thought was a well-produced advertisement for an area that, for the first half of the 20th century, was arguably the most dynamic city in the Midwest. You mock the fact that without Detroit's industrial might we would have never won WWII. I thought you were an intellectual, but you have reduced yourself in this attack on the city and its people. Maybe you are auditioning for Olbermann's time slot on MSNBC, who can tell. But I won't be listening anymore, and my annual gift to Hillsdale College will come with a caveat that if you speak there, I will no longer attend nor donate.
I hope you do come back to Beckmann's show; I'd love to call and get my two cents in. I don't need to toss f-bombs to take you on. I'll just hand you some more rope.
Keith Hassan (Retired, Chrysler Engineering)
Rochester Hills, Michigan
HAS ANYONE SEEN THEM AT THE SAME TIME?
I'm just concerned for you that Brian Huck and Michael Macauley might be the same person.
Ezra Marsh
Baltimore, Maryland
Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from America, Canada, Britain, Australia and around the world. Mark reads all mail, but especially enjoys the vicious ones. Each day Monday to Friday we pick six of the best for our Daily Delivery. So drop a line to Mark's Mailbox, and on Friday if you're chosen to be the one and only Letter of the Week you'll join our roll of winners from four Continents and receive a copy of Mark Steyn From Head To Toe. It would help if you could indicate your city or town, or, at any rate, your state, province or country. If not, at least let us know what planet you're on.