Today's Lesson From The Koran: How To Turn Your Worst Enemy Into A Folk Hero

Mark Steyn is a belligerently right-wing essayist and author whose great gift is his ability to make you laugh your head off even while he's explaining to you that the world is going straight to the dogs and it's all because of liberals and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it and we're all screwed.

He's just now found himself at the vortex of a freak show that promises to keep us all amused for quite some time to come, and that's what I'm on about in my Tyee column today.

No Canadian embassies have been burned down yet, but everything's up for grabs: Islamophobia, hate speech, political correctness, multiculturalism, big government, and the freedom of the press. Everybody's invited, so put on your shiniest iron breastplate, bring along your greasiest trebuchet, and choose sides.

You can team up with the neoconservative, waterboarding, immigrant-loathing Islamophobes over on one side, or with those moonbats who don't understand that here in the West, free speech is a bedrock, absolute right, over there.

Or you could could just calm the hell down, because if you do, you just might notice that the game is rigged. That's the way it looks to me anyway, and I try to explain why in my column.

It's already too weird for words.

Here we have Canadian Islamic Congress bigshot Mohamed Elmasry dragging Steyn and Maclean's magazine, in three separate proceedings, before three separate human rights tribunals, when it wasn't so long ago that Elmasry was singing a different song: "In a democratic society, all voices should be heard - even ones whose viewpoint some of us might oppose."

Of course back then, he was arguing for a Canadian broadcasting licence for Al-Jazeera.

Meanwhile, who was the federal politician that came rushing to defend Steyn, whose career includes a bulging portfolio of columns and essays slagging off multiculturalism? Why, none other than Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism.

As for Steyn's demography-is-destiny theory, it's all well and good, except when he's trying to make it fit, in practice. Steyn gets a bit of a thumping about that here. Christopher Hitchens is skeptical, but admiring. When Johann Hari crunches Steyn's numbers, they don't add up.

So sit back, watch the show, and enjoy it while you can, but be warned. I have a nagging feeling that no good will come of any of this.

UPDATE: I blew a gasket here this morning.