The Big Bad Hitch on MSNBC. And when Hitchens is on Scarborough's show, we all know that makes that day's cup of Morning Joe Irish:

Like a good little Neocon, Hitchens takes exception with Obama's so-called withdrawal date, calling it "ridiculous" and a "psychological weapon" that the Taliban can use to intimidate Afghans by telling them that the Americans aren't going "to be there" for the long haul. But this, of course, is poppycock, and hypocritical poppycock at that. I don't recall Republicans and hard-Right reactionaries going ape in 2008 when the Bush Administration agreed, nominally at least, to a complete withdrawal of all US military troops in Iraq by the hard deadline of December 31st, 2011. Hitchens and asses of his ilk didn't bray over the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement for some strange reason. And Obama is not leaving Afghanistan, quite the opposite, he's rapidly escalating the war and maintaining a permanent military and political occupation of the country, while cleverly framing it in the rubric of a "withdrawal" that creates political space for the occupation to continue with the consent, or at least acquiescence, of the US population, the critical factor, as the US is militarily indefatigable, but politically vulnerable at home. Now all the Obama Administration needs to do is remove a brigade or two by 2012 and he can drag this redeployment out for years, as long as is necessary for either the insurgency to cool down or for the Afghan forces to "stand up." Removing a few brigades would still leave Obama with more than double or triple the 20-30000 troops that Bush had in Afghanistan for most of his Presidency. This on top of Obama's massive increase of private military contractors (that are not included in the "withdrawal"), the expansion of the Bagram Air Base, the construction throughout the country of seemingly permanent Forward Operating Bases, and the gigantic fortress in Kabul disguised as an "embassy" being erected (modeled on America's Tower Of Babel in Baghdad that is approximately the same size as Vatican City). Contra to Mr. Hitchens, the US is likely going to "be there" for quite some time.

Hitchens has also been demanding for Washington to move even closer to New Delhi of late, which he does again here on MSNBC. Admittedly this does make sense from the vantage point of playing armchair imperialist, as India might prove to be the United States' most important ally in the 21st century, but for the rest of us, what Hitchens is calling for here is insane. If there is going to be a devastating nuclear war somewhere in the world, the most likely scenario is between India and Pakistan, and the US, already having played an indispensable role in arming Pakistan, is now supporting India's brazen and ominous development of thermonuclear weapons. And Hitchens wants to increase tensions between these two countries even further by turning on Islamabad, and encouraging India to intervene on Pakistan's borders? A very dangerous and foolish prescription.

The Popinjay then ends by squawking and getting his feathers in a ruffle over one Ms. Sarah Louise Palin. And it's out of fashion and trite. Hysterical hatred of Sarah Palin is so 2008. All the cool kids now know that the hip thing to do this season is to defend Sarah from all the women-hating, sexist pigs out there, like Chris Hitchens. We should all be cheering for Sarah, as she would simply be a fabulous Presidential Candidate for the Republicans in 2012. Let's face it: she's probably more qualified and capable to be President than that vacuous automaton Ronald Reagan was, and she's about as qualified as Hillary Clinton to hold that most revered office, plus undoubtedly more worthy of being a feminist icon than her. Unlike the nepotistic Clinton, Palin's political rise wasn't due to her being married to the most powerful man in the world, she had to win on her own merits, with none of the advantages Hillary enjoyed, on top of having a very modest, small-town upbringing and background. Just compare the two of them as politicians when they both came to the national stage, Palin fares pretty well. Sure, Sarah never went to Yale Law School like Hillary, but that's more of reflection of privilege than anything else. Dubya of course famously went to Yale as well, proving nothing whatsoever.

So our Hitchens for some queer reason is aghast and outraged that Sarah has flip-flopped on a few things for political reasons. A politician being cynical? Impossible! But he does raise a good point, namely that Sarah shouldn't be blamed for the misstatements and untruths that she has uttered on occasion as she's only reading the lines written for her in the teleprompter. Indeed, her most scandalous comments during the 2008 campaign, the ones she was beat up for (i.e. "palling around with terrorists," Russia being next to Alaska counting as foreign policy experience, etc.. etc..), were obviously not written by her, but by the hacks in the McCain campaign like Steve Schmidt who completely bungled and mismanaged the campaign, simultaneously both under-preparing and over-preparing Palin for the national spotlight, destroying the credibility of the GOP ticket.

But Palin proves to be smarter than Hitchens here, as she lures him right into her trap, to be shot like so many wild beasts she has hunted from helicopters. Sarah's only chance to win the Republican nomination is to ride a wave of Tea Partiers, Birthers, and the alienated conservative base of the GOP to the convention, and by saying statements that in themselves are almost innocuous, i.e. that the Birthers do have a right to be lunatics, she reaches out to these groups. Even though she obviously doesn't believe Obama is Kenyan, the media, and pundits like Hitchens, go berserk and make a huge deal out of it, exactly what her handlers want, as this publicizes this orchestration and delivers the Birthers right into Mother Palin's loving arms, without her actually having done anything for them at all, while feeding her most shrill critics and stirring up even more hysterical, and often misogynist, paroxysms, that win her the sympathy of countless women disgusted by the rank sexism and personal attacks against the victimized Sarah, mother of 4, er 5, children.

If Sarah actually wants to win the nomination, what other choice does she have here but to do these kinds of things? Though if she was really serious about winning, she would come out against the bank bailout, mostly on how it was done, that would outflank Huckabee's economic populist message that is resonating with many Republicans, and undercut other contenders like Romney who were for the TARP. It would help her with moderates and even some liberals.

But undoubtedly, there's no better gift that Chris could have given Sarah this Christmas season than for a sneering, elitist immigrant like himself to go out on national television and deliver a mean-spirited harangue against her, in part for her table manners of all bloody things.