As Hitchens is telling his Slate readers that it's his role to help them "not ignore the obvious," we should take the solemn anniversary of 9-11 to remind him of a few things which the rest of the media, in self charity, are sure not to mention.
In the summer of 2001 a small skirmish on ethics was taking place in the Press over the coverage of the murder of Chandra Levy. The mild mannered, tit-for-tat Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen had rightfully dubbed the coverage "pornographic." Levy was a young woman who had worked in the office of and perhaps had intimate relations with Congressman Gary Condit. No connection to her killing (later proved a random act of violence by a chronic sex offender) and the Congressman ever existed or was presented. He later went back and won judgements of defamation from major news outlets, settled quietly out of court.
The Press had good reason to be leaning this way. After holding their thumb down on the scale for Bush in the 2000 election and it's shameful aftermath, they were stuck with an unelected President with unpopular polices. They had all the reason in the world to obsess on a non scandal with Monicagate overtones. Many progressives, stupidly, played along.
Which brings us to Hitchens. He reveled in Levygate, and used it as shamelessly as any right wing radio hate jock to continue his endless assault on Bill Clinton's filthy penis. This cause was his life, his love, his obsession in those days, and his last two Nation pieces before 9-11 were on what he called "Clindut", perhaps the ultimate example of Hitch's titanically overrated "wit." Hitch's has often told readers back in those days one could afford to be more footloose and fancy free (meaning, I guess, he could go on chat shows and endlessly present "truths" about the political scene that were true because he believed them) because I guess, 9-11 hadn't happened yet.
Consider: what would have happened in that summer before 9-11 had Hitch and the footloose press devoted half of the ink they spilled on the Levy case to matters of potential terrorism? Clinton certainly had tried to raise these issues, and was met jeering about his sex life, based on matters real and imagined, for his trouble. It should also not be ignored that these were the days that made Hitchens a very wealthy man.
So, when you read Hitchens in his new Slate piece defending poor George Bush (the tactic here, as it's always been, is to build straw men of the worst conspiracy stuff to distract us from W's actual performance) remember that Hitchens and HIS side, had no problem sticking Bill Clinton, eight months out of office, with the blame for the catastrophe. They did this for years, until emerging facts made it a non-starter. Remember also that Hitch's Man for most of campaign 2008 was Rudy Giuliani, whose political exploitation of 9-11 went so far over the top it finally wrecked his ambition.
Finally, as Hitch desperately tries to salvage his reputation on the matter of torture, recall that he crudely endorsed the torture of John Walker Lindh, and dismisses any call for accountability for the Bush Crowd as "politics."
“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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