When Paul Wolfowitz was appointed head of the World bank, Tariq Ali remarked
"he needs a PR officer who can write his speeches, justify the unjustifiable. And I would suggest strongly that he employs his close friend and comrade Christopher Hitchens to act as his public face. I think Christopher would be very good at that."May 2nd 2005, Seven Oaks
Well if Mr Wolfowitz ever needed a pr officer it is now, as allegations swirl around him and Our hero, true to his mandate rushes in to defend his comrade.
It takes only to the second paragraph of the piece that we get to the trademark Hitchens BFL (Big Fat Lie)
"I ought probably to say at once that I know both Wolfowitz and Riza slightly"
Slightly? that's an interesting word to use. Now I'm no Washington insider, with access to the Rich and powerful, but I do have access to google, so lets see what this definition of "Slightly" adds up to
". Wolfowitz respected Hitchens’s record as a writer on human rights. He called Hitchens in the fall of 2002, at the prompting of Kevin Kellems, then his special adviser, and now an adviser at the World Bank.”...Hitchens accepted an “invitation to lunch at the Pentagon,” one might say to make a pact with the devil. Kellems reminds us."
The balance of Parker’s sad tale on the mating of Hitchens and Wolfowitz is that the latter felt those of a like mind should be on “closer terms.” Hitchens responds that he had been trying to signal Wolfowitz in his writing and Wolfowitz said, “I Wondered"
Ahh isn't that sweet.
"Kellems describes the duo of Hitchens and Wolfowitz as “two giant minds unleashed in the room. They were finishing each other’s sentences."
I have this strange vision of the two of them on the phone "You hang up first", "No you hang up"
The next stage in bonding is of course a road trip;
"“In July 2003,” he [Hitchens] and a few other reporters flew to Baghdad with Wolfowitz.”
However my favourite "Hitch hearts Wolfie" story is this one. At a memorial service for long-term New York Review co-editor Barbara Epstein, an unamed person remarked to our Christopher, "So your glorious war has turned out to be a total disaster, hasn't it?"
His response
""It is glorious,and it is my war because it needed Paul Wolfowitz and myself to go and convince the President to go to war." (Hitchenswatch via Counterpunch, July 2006.)
There is a lot more to cover about this subject, and we will be doing so over the next few days. However lets nail lie one right now, there is no "slightly' about the relationship between Wolfowitz and Hitchens.
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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