The news that Christopher has been felled by cancer of the esophagus may have come as a bit of a shock to most of us who watch him. Although given what we know about his attitudes and habits vis a vis drinking, smoking, sleeping, exercising and the like, expressed in many a Nation, Slate and Vanity Fair column down the decades, it is hardly surprising that the unhealthy combination of lifestyle choices he at one time advertised as virtues has finally caught up with him big time. For all I know, one and a half billion Muslims may be dancing in the streets in celebration of a godless infidel being struck down by Allah, and many of Christopher's "political enemies" as his wife has described them, may be as desirous of witnessing his destruction as he is of seeing their defeat.
I doubt if Gore Vidal jumped up out of his wheelchair and danced a youthful measure upon being informed, but he can hardly be criticized if he felt a slight improvement in his blood circulation in anticipating that he might outlive his erstwhile dauphin.
For those of us on the Watch, though, this can only be a sombre moment. While it may be true that the enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, surely the opponents of the Manichaeistic doctrine of Hitchensism must resist the urge to kick dead dogs and dying men alike. Certainly we can continue to to disagree with Hitch's ideas and opinions and criticize the thinking behind them, but not for us the tasteless personal put downs about him being a Muslim-baiter, or not a good mother, or being able to bury him in a matchbox, at least not until a decent interval has passed after the funeral. The Buddhists, by the way, very sensibly wait 49 days in silent mourning before resuming any attempts at character assassination.
Why am I speaking about Hitch as if his death was immanent when all we've heard so far from the man is the following?
I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice.
When I think cancer of the esophagus, my first subsequent thought is of John Thaw, the chubby and, some would say, sexy British actor who played DI Jack Regan in The Sweeney and then went on to typecast himself as Inspector Morse. As Wikipedia puts it, "A heavy drinker and smoker for 40 years, Thaw was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in June 2001. He underwent chemotherapy in hope of overcoming the illness, but had a setback in early January 2002. He died on Thursday, 21 February 2002, seven weeks after his 60th birthday."
Essentially, chemotherapy implies cancer, chemotherapy on the esophagus implies cancer of the esophagus. Cancer of the esophagus is not normally detected until it is well advanced, with over 50% of the inside of the esophagus obstructed by the tumor. For this reason, the five-year survival rate for those diagnosed with esophageal cancer is improving but still abysmal. If (and I say IF) Hitch's case is average, then his cancer is already late-stage and he probably has less than two years to live. In such a case, there is no point in jogging, giving up fags and booze and switching to a high fruit-and-veg diet with plenty of berries now because the damage has already been done. His bucket will have been well and truly kicked and in a matter of months the celestial boat master will be calling "Come in No. Hitch 22, your time is up!"
As for chemotherapy and radiation, it isn't going to cure him of late-stage cancer of the gullet, but it may well make his last days so unbearably painful and tiring that he will not find his last days very much worth living. Realistically, he will be fortunate if he can avoid this fate and even more so if he can recover completely. I join with Philipa in wishing him all the best. I am going to go a bit further than than that and engage in some of what Hitch would call "magical thinking", and ask anyone who is up for it to join me in praying for his full recovery, or failing that, for a relatively painless illness and a comfortable acceptance of his fate. I'm not asking any of his detractors to start liking the guy — we have to draw the line somewhere — but please do spare him at least as much compassion as he showed Saddam at execution time.
On the other hand, it is possible that he is fortunate enough for the cancer to have been detected in its early stages, in which case there is some reason to hope for a full recovery. But from what snippets of info have been made public so far, we seem have a dead man walking here, and any expectations people may voice that he is going to survive the ordeal are the equivalent of grasping at straws. So at this point the best advice anyone can give him is to eat, drink and be merry.
Update by Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair, June 30, 2010, 4:00 PM
"I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice."
It's been nearly two weeks now since someone calling themselves blindelephant reported on reddit that Hitch had come a cropper;
A friend of mine leaving for a trip to Europe just wrote on his FB that Christopher Hitchens, also on the plane, was stretcher-ed off by EMT personnel.
Apparently he was having breathing issues. Has anyone else heard any details of this?
No further details have been forthcoming yet— where is the tabloid media when you really need 'em? — but confirmation that something was indeed up came from a succession of cancellation notices for his latest book tour appearances up and down the US. For instance:
June 23, Portland: Just found out that the Hitchens reading that was scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday the 23rd at Powells Books has been canceled.
June 27, Menlo Park: Unfortunately, Mr. Hitchens has had a personal matter arise that will keep him from coming to the Bay Area at this time. Hopefully, we will be able to reschedule this event soon.
June 27, San Jose: CANCELLED: Christopher Hitchens, Author of "Hitch 22 - A Memoir" Sunday, June 27 5:30 pm at Historic Hoover Theater, San Jose, CA
June 28, LA: For personal reasons, Christopher Hitchens has been forced to cancel his trip to LA. Please accept our apologies and Christopher’s regrets for the inconvenience. He was very much looking forward to this engagement.
July 8, Houston: Brazos Bookstore and Hachette Book Group regret to announce that Christopher Hitchens has cancelled his July 8 appearance due to personal reasons.
July 8 seems far enough down the road to suggest that whatever is this personal reason is, it must be serious if it is keeping him away from the podium for the best part of a month. What could have happened and where could he have been taken off to? Of course, he may be in an ICU somewhere hooked up to breathing equipment, or he may have been parachuted into Iran with the SAS ahead of the impending surgical strikes planned for that nation, or he may be laying on a beach anonymously sipping tequila sunrises and reading a stack of novels. But my two best guesses are the Betty Ford Clinic, where they attempt to detoxify the hopelessly dipsomaniacal, and the Mayo Clinic, where the focus is on taking some of the babble out of the psyche. According to the Mayo:
Narcissistic personality disorder is a serious emotional disturbance characterized by a grandiose, or extremely exaggerated, sense of self-importance. Individuals with this disorder lack empathy for other people but need constant admiration from them.
Narcissistic personality disorder is one of several types of personality disorders, all of which reflect an inability in the affected person to accept the demands and limitations of the world. These disorders may regularly interfere with a person's behavior and interactions with family, friends or co-workers. Among the other personality disorders are paranoid personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
Although people with narcissistic personality disorder have an exaggerated image of their own importance, they have vulnerable self-esteems and often don't like themselves. Therefore, they seek attention that confirms their grandiosity. When feedback doesn't validate their exaggerated image, they tend to lash out or withdraw.
Narcissistic personality disorder, which is less common than other personality disorders, is estimated to affect less than 1 percent of the general population. Some studies indicate that it's more common among men. The primary treatment is psychotherapy.
And there's more:
Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder may include: Grandiose sense of one's own abilities or achievements
Fantasies about having exceptional power, attractiveness or success
Sense of belonging to an exclusive group of people who truly understand each other
Need for constant praise
Expectations of special treatment
Exploitation of other people
Lack of empathy for other people
Envy of other people or a belief that you are the subject of other people's envy
Haughty or arrogant behaviors
Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder may come across as conceited or snobbish. They often monopolize conversation. They may belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior. When they don't receive the special treatment to which they feel entitled, they may become very impatient or angry.
"Is it moral to believe that your sins can be forgiven by punishment of another person?", posits the Preening Popinjay of the Potomac. And he answers, "I would submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly immoral."
Well, that submission is certainly a point of view. But on what basis can it be shown to be valid? Surely it all depends on the type of moral framework within which the submitter lives his or her life. And I would have thought that for a a man like Hitch, whose moral framework is quite capable of stretching to accommodate millions of dead or devastated innocent Iraqis, Afghans and, hopefully soon some Iranians too, not merely with equanimity but with relish, that a little scapegoating, human sacrifice, or whipping boy justice is a small price to pay for all the moral efficacy it is capable of achieving. After all, as our old friend Montag used to say, "they're only Sand Niggers."
A serious objection to the Contrarian's argument is that he is talking about sin in the Christian or Biblical sense of the word, and yet he doesn't regard this concept of sin as being valid in the first place. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is infallible on this issue;
Sin is nothing else than a morally bad act, an act not in accord with reason informed by the Divine law. God has endowed us with reason and free-will, and a sense of responsibility; He has made us subject to His law, which is known to us by the dictates of conscience, and our acts must conform with these dictates, otherwise we sin.
As Hitchens, miserable sinner that he is, does not acknowledge the authority of the Divine law, he can have no opinion on the matter of Biblical sin any more than he can on the number of angels that can dance simultaneously on the end of a pin. The only sin he can reasonably opine about is Hitchensian sin, which is as different from the Biblical kind as Johnny Walker Black Label is from Wild Turkey.
An even more serious objection to Hitch's diction concerns his pronunciation of the adjective "vicarious" as vye-care-ious when any Oxonian worth his mortarboard would say vick-air-ious. Is our carpetbagging flag-of-convenience naturalized American finally going native or what?
No,no, no, no, no, no, no, no No NO! it's not my latest book on how to combine Zen with the art of karaoke crooning. It's the verdict of a member of the Richard Dawkins Supreme Truth cult on one of Hitch's vanity publications, The Pocket Atheist:
I am an avowed fan of Hitchens and couldn't agree more with the suggestion to mine the writings of the great thinkers on this topic. His book "God is not Great" is sprinkled with little gems through it's pages, from many intellectual luminaries of the past. I have been encouraged to peruse further the writings of Lucretius, Sam Harris, and Bertrand Russel among many others and found them to be immensely rewarding. He has another book which I downloaded recently called "The Pocket Atheist" which is a gold mine of sage writings which I'd recommend to anyone.
Today I'd like to introduce our readers to a recent article from Alternet that shows up Christopher as creepiest former Trotskyist since Dick "Permanent Revolution" Cheney. And since I can, I will.
5 Million Iraqis Killed, Maimed, Tortured, Displaced -- Think That Bothers War Boosters Like Christopher Hitchens?
The immensity of Iraqi civilian suffering is incomprehensible. How can war's cheerleaders claim to fight on behalf of the people whose lives they helped destroy?
By Fred Branfman
In 1970 a Lao villager who had survived five years of U.S. bombing wrote: "In reality, whatever happens, it is only the innocent who suffer. And as for the others, do they know all the unimaginable things happening in this war? Do they?"
Do we? And if we did know about the innocent men, women and children our leaders kill, would it matter? Does it matter that those who justified the Iraqi invasion in the name of the people of Iraq have largely ignored their unimaginable suffering under U.S. occupation, as more than 5 million civilians have been murdered, maimed, made homeless, unjustly imprisoned and tortured -- and millions more impoverished? Would war supporters serve themselves and their nation if they wrote about both the humanity and suffering of, say, just 10 Iraqi victims -- and sought to convey how each represents at least 500,000 more? Is the suffering our leaders inflict on innocent civilians relevant to deciding whether to support our present war-making in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Would it matter if the N.Y. Times had run daily profiles and photos of Iraqi civilian victims since 2003, as it did of U.S. victims after 9/11?
Such questions are raised by Christopher Hitchens' recently published best-selling memoir, Hitch-22, in which he proudly claims to have helped cause the invasion of Iraq as the most prominent of a group of war hawks ("by which political Washington was eventually persuaded that Iraq should be helped into a post-Saddam era, if necessary by force”), but entirely ignores the human cost that followed. No one spoke more eloquently of the Iraqi people’s suffering before the invasion. Thus his indifference to it since has been striking.
The key issue is not what this reveals about Hitchens' soul but about America's. His memoir epitomizes one of the most chilling phenomena of our time: a growing “nonhumanity” in which our leaders and their supporters claim to wage war on behalf of a foreign people but are largely indifferent to their suffering. Link to source
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Like an infant rubbing shit all over his face to try to get attention from his parents
That's a description of Peter Hitchens's style of journalism from this guy, and who are we to disagree. Before you decide whether to click the link, here are the first two paragraphs. Entertaining stuff.
I know Peter Hitchens is a proll - a professional troll. His entire reason for existing is to try and say something sufficiently outrageous or unjustifiable that it gets him some attention. He has no logic to his arguments - it's just a series of random thoughts, which if they came from anyone else would be instantly ignored as the slightly twatty ramblings of an idiot. But because it's the Hitch, someone who's mysteriously regarded as being intelligent, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he is elevated to a level beyond the average pub bore - or the average crap blogger - to someone who gets a column in a national newspaper.
He's written two pieces today, and while one of them is entitled "Israel wasn't tough enough", it's not that piece of flame-bait that I want to concentrate on. However, it does give an indication as to the kind of schtick these people have - think about an issue, think about the most contrarian and least plausible position that a human being could possibly hold, then go for it and take it to the nth degree. If you were to indulge in the kind of 'psychobabble' that Hitch rips into in the piece I'm about to look at, you might say he is like an infant rubbing shit over his face to try and get attention from his parents. But that might be unkind. To shit-covered infants.
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Hanging out with Wolfie, Willy and the Prince of Darkness
In 2003, Ron Paul called out Christopher Hitchens as a neoconservative. Hitchy"s modus operandi wasn't pretty then and millions of ruined lives down the road doesn't look pretty now. For those who are worried that he isn't feeling too well these days and who wish him well, please remember he's been a seriously sick man for many years and that the part of him most riddled with disease is not his lungs, brain, heart or circulatory system. It's his soul. And until and unless that's been saved, he'll never be a well man.
It appears Hitchens is ill. Several stops on his book tour have recently been canceled, and he was reportedly seen in an airport experiencing breathing problems. As much as we've come to loathe the man over the last several years, I think we'd still prefer a relatively healthy Hitch lest we be accused of kicking a man when he's down or tits up. After all, that's what Hitchens himself specializes in: attacking the aged, the sick and the dead.
None of this is surprising, of course. And he may have been right to get his memoirs out before it was too late. Well-timed, bro. Unless this is some sort of publicity stunt to help the book sales - nah, Hitch wouldn't stoop that low. I guess he'll have to modify that recent boast about how he's never missed any appointments in his life.
A young scribe named Nigel Something-or-other from the Telegraph has done his obsequious best to help keep the Hitch 22 gravy train chugging along by meeting up with this visibly putrefying bag of partially pickled rancid meat at Paddington and accompanying it on the 10:50 to Oxford in an attempt to pick up enough quotes to pad out what has proved to be one of the stodgiest puff pieces I've seen on Hitchy in ages.
Before we even get into the body copy, the sub-head has already given the game away, declaring; "Christopher Hitchens, 'right wing Leftie' and raconteur, hates God and bores. But most of all, he hates losing an argument..." Yes, we all know he's an incorrigible bag of contradictions, that he gets away with telling the most frightful anecdotes without being interrupted except by the occasional sommelier, that he is filled with self-loathing that he vents by raging against the Creator, that he could and does bore for England, and that doesn't so much lose arguments as get hopelessly and irretrievably lost in them.
But between acting as flatterer and flunky to the old tossbag, Nigel does manage to cram in some useful observations on the state of the Hitch, to wit to woo;
As he’s checking in, he rather deftly dispatches me to the bar, a suggestion rather than an order, one made almost under his breath, as if he is talking to the concierge: ‘I imagine there’s time for a Johnnie Walker Black Label, no ice, Perrier on the side.’ We sit outside so as he can light up a Rothmans and, for the next 45 minutes or so, unless you hear otherwise, you must assume he is always lighting one up (that’s a line from a Martin Amis novel, by the way).....
He draws on his cigarette. ‘I don’t have any terrific self-esteem issues but I do sometimes realise I’ve been too lucky and that I’m over praised. It makes me nervous. I have this sense of being overrated.’ A sip of Scotch. ‘Another insecurity is that I never like to lose an argument, even a domestic one. Even when it might not matter.’
All this and it"s barely midday and with lunch with Richard Dawkins to look forward to. Whatever happened to the new improved Healthy Hitch we saw on the pages of Vanity Fair not too long ago.
It's a dark day here at Hitchens Watch. Some wicked fiends out there (curse these thieving dogs!) have done the unthinkable and stolen from our beloved Hitch, right from his purse. Poor Chris. Here is a man who clearly must be living from hand to mouth given how he requires people to present receipts to him at book signings.
This shall not stand. We consider this act of larceny an affront not only against Hitchens Watch, but against the very institution of private property, which we deeply respect.
So we're obliged to alert all and sundry out there about this unforgivable crime against Mr. Hitchens, and warn others not to visit blogs like these where you can illegally download a pirated version of Hitchens' 400-page marathon of masturbation. Whatever you do, do not, I repeat do not, go to blogs like these. I mean, this is no different than going into your local bookstore, blowing the head off of the twentysomething year old girl behind the till with a sawed-off shotgun, and robbing the place blind. And if we don't pay to read Hitch-22, Chris will have no incentive whatsoever to constantly talk about himself ad nauseam in the future. And we just can't risk that now can we? As for the larger point, just imagine if instead of paying for books, people could simply go into some building and sit around and read them for free. Why, it would obviously be the end of writing itself, because no one has an incentive to do anything if they aren't getting paid for it, of course.
Now, a clever Hitchophile might object and say "Foolish Hitchhunters, the proliferation of pirated media actually increases the audience size and popularity of the very author and may even lead to more sales for that individual down the road." Which to that we would say nice try, Decent. Now that may very well be true, but Chris H. doesn't know that, and likely goes berserk about this sort of thing, like the grasping, little money-grubber he is.
I went to the 92nd street Y to watch Hitchens interviewed by Salman Rushdie. First thing that needs to be said about this debacle is that it was boring. The whole thing lasted about an hour, and it’s a shame the place charged most of those suckers 30 bucks for the trip.
However, before rehearsing his pretarded word change games ("Good Expectations") and limericks, Hitchens blurted out something rather astonishing: he supports the Arizona immigration law. Turns out, Hitch is a big fan of racial profiling. Since he earned his citizenship the old-fashioned way, he said, why shouldn’t others? They’re all just as white, Oxford educated and British as he is, after all.
He even suggested - strangely, though, that's Hitch - that “Bosnians” should be brought over in order to counter the “Anglo-Hispanic” aspect of America. I’m not making this up. Hitchens is not a fan of Mexican immigration. As if we needed more reasons for the man to be waterboarded beyond 11 seconds...
Aside from his racist ignorance and a stream of unfunny limericks, Hitchens also had a lot to say about Iran. He thinks the US should invade Iran and knock off the regime there. Make no mistake about it: Hitchens is for an invasion, assuming, of course, he doesn’t have to be a part of it. That’s key. Maybe Hitch and his neocon buddies want to re-install a family member of the guy the CIA knocked off in the first place: Mohammed Mosaddeq? Or maybe not.
HW resident scholar Stabler continues his totally fair and unbiased review of the Hitch person's autohagiography and name-drop-fest.
"Or to make certain concessions to overliteral fact checking" "Hitch-22", Hitchens describing his fears (which would be unfounded) in taking on his Vanity Fair" gig.
Since Hitchens slinks away from his historically significant and ethically debauched participation in the Impeachment of Clinton, the only matter of lasting significance in "Hitch-22" would be Hitchens hands on cheer leading for Bush/Cheney's catastrophic march to Bagdad. Here the book becomes, if one opens oneself to it, a chilling study in the banality of evil
It might have been, we must note, theoretically possible to mount an honorable argument for this most ignoble catastrophe; to say that Saddam was so awful that "any means necessary" should or must be applied. There is a faint echo of this in Hitchen's balderdash. Mostly, however, there are lies and damn lies, crass smears of those who turned out to be fully correct, all bathed in the ugly McCarthite swill he applied in the service of the corrupt Ken Starr. Once and for all: this is less a man who became a U.S. Citizen than a card carrying Republican, at best a dupe in the imaginary republic of Cheneyland.
In his excellent demolition of the stupid "No One Left To Lie To" (one of the very few truly effective take downs of Hitchens to appear anywhere) Charles Taylor started with a review of items that did not appear in the book's index, all pointing to exculpatory evidence against the hard right case Hitchens was making.
I will crib from Taylor to point out two terms that do not appear in the index. "Shock and Awe" and "Embedded." As to the first, well, Hitchens had spent a considerable amount of time misrepresenting the nature of the American Invasion and smearing those that tried to address it at all. In "Hitch-22" he solves the problem by avoiding the subject. It becomes oppressive to even address Hitchens's stupidity here: yes, we KNOW some americans were greeting with sweets and flowers. We also know many were greeted by bombs and bitter hatred, those are the ones still emptying the U.S. Treasury.
By the book's end Htichens has once again fallen in love with a young man; a doomed soldier who displayed evidence of thoughtfulness but sadly bought the Hitchens line and was killed in Iraq. As to the millions of refuges, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis maimed or killed, there is not a word. Early on, Hitchens had taken the tack that all victims of the invasion could be attributed to Saddam. In Hitch 22 he has put that one to bed. The victims of his crusade are simply not mentioned.
Obviously, there is much more one could disparage here. Yet "Embedded", which pops up only once (in reference to the horrible right wing hack Michael Kelly who also, hot dogging at the very start of the invasion, got himself killed) may be even more ominous in it's near absence. Here our great civil libertarian truth teller, a man who has berated Germans for silencing Neo-Nazis, went ahead with a powerful state's journalism class agreeing to work in cooperation with its Military!
Granted, the embarrassing results of this fiasco have been an official non-subject; but this is the legacy of Orwell we are talking about! I guess we can only note the facts the American Corporate Press fed the public were not overly literal.
This is the arch of little Christopher's life. The boy who thought the Cuban Missile Crisis was all about him would grow to be a stooge for the White House ( "I know MORE about Impeachable incompetence") where the Press Secretary had never heard of The Cuban Missile Crisis. His affinity with Eugene McCarthy was a cover that got him laid; his heart and life would be in service of the McCarthy called Joe.
He has stood in common cause with worst American Fascists, mounted a dissent with the torture of human beings by the worlds most powerful state so limp that it can only be seen in terms of empowering what it pays lip service to opposing. He admits to knowing of Impeachable offensives but betrays the true spirit of his new country by remaining silent about them. Again, it is not that Country he means to serve, but it's grotesque hard right wing. Our shame: he has somehow done his job well.
That bitch the Old Gray Lady has truly disgraced herself with a despicable and scandalous review of Hitchens' horrible autohagiography. This, the same paper that had once amusingly christened Chris as "Snitchens" in its pages after Hitch snitched on Sidney Blumenthal. What liars, bullies, cowards, and thieves they be.
Jesus, I'm just livid over this! What an egregiously brazen and irresponsible act. Mark my words, friends: The New York Times has made some powerful enemies today with this article. Does Sulzbergerhonestly expect us to start paying to read trash like this review when their doomed TimesSelect 2.0 starts up next year? Let me just say for the record that I for one am not going to suffer the slightest compunction when I start illicitly reading the Times without paying for it by changing my IP constantly. In fact, this is precisely why there's no need for us to call an International Boycott quite yet Comrades, even though the HW Shura convened and recommended a fatwa against these infidels, for we merely need to sit back and await their TimesSelect 2.0 to begin. It will probably be as disastrous as Version 1.0.
As for this worthless review in itself, a few choice cuts:
Here was a Harry Potter moment — cue cello and then full orchestra — in which Mr. Hitchens, a presumed Muggle, the product of a staid middle-class British family, was revealed instead to be a kind of wizard...
Good, the feathers on the Preening Psittacine will bristle when he sees himself compared to contemptible tripe like the Harry Potter books, which our Popinjay rightly despises.
While studying at Oxford in the late 1960s (he was in the room on the famous night thatBill Clinton didn’t inhale)...
He was in the very room now, eh? I love how until recently Hitchens conceded that he didn't remember meeting or hanging out with Clinton at Oxford whatsoever, and now suddenly he's this big expert on Clinton's personal drug habits and being quoted all over the place (and was even in the room on that famous night that might not have actually occurred!), when in reality it sounds like he's just plagiarizing Martin Walker's conjecture and speculations. To quote the autohagiography: "I remember the address--46 Leckford Road--where many of the Americans shared a house. Among them was Bill Clinton. I don't recollect him so well, but my friend Martin Walker swears he remembers us being in the same room. It was the very time when Clinton later claimed he 'didn't inhale'. There's no mystery about this. He is allergic to smoke and preferred to take his dope in large handfuls of cookies and brownies."
And Clinton is allergic to smoke, huh? Very sloppy of the Times to be taking this kind of self-aggrandizing gossip at face value.
Anyone who’s closely read Mr. Hitchens’s work — including his best-selling manifesto “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” (2007) — or seen him do battle on cable news programs, knows that he has a mind like a Swiss Army knife, ready to carve up or unbolt an opponent’s arguments with a flick of the wrist. He holds dear the serious things, the things that matter: social justice, learning, direct language, the free play of the mind, loyalty, holding public figures to high standards...
Get me a bucket, because I think I'm going to ralph. Unless if by social justice they mean massive human rights abuses like the Iraq War, by learning they mean willful ignorance, direct language obfuscation and spin, free play of mind rigid doctrine, loyalty betrayal, and holding public figures to high standards smarmy, boot-licking apologism and worship of the powerful.
He is also devoted to friendship. “Hitch-22” is among the loveliest paeans to the dearness of one’s friends — Mr. Hitchens’s close ones include Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and the poet James Fenton — I’ve ever read.
Yeah, the same guy who constantly and nonchalantly throws his friends and Comrades under the bus, often on their death beds, i.e. Said, Blumenthal, etc.. .etc.. Garner should try reviewing the fine mocking of the Hitch during the Blumenthal affair by NY Times' GILF Maureen Dowd.
The business and pleasure sides of Mr. Hitchens’s personality can make him seem, whether you agree with him or not, among the most purely alive people on the planet...
Whatever that is supposed to mean.
“An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful,” George Orwell, one of Mr. Hitchens’s literary touchstones, wrote. “A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.” Mr. Hitchens passes this test, if only by a nose. “Hitch-22” has its share of words like “embarrassing” and “shame” and “misgiving.”
Well, I guess those words means Hitch is therefore completely exonerated!
He is bitter about the way the Iraq war was actually conducted. And he ruefully admits he has been a less than stellar father to his own children.
Truly pathetic Garner. By that logic Rove's memoir is highly forthcoming for admitting that they made some mistakes vis-a-vis Iraq.
“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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