Monday, December 05, 2005

Losing Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens has always been one of my favorite crazy people. I like reading his stuff, even when he is obviously wrong because he makes some interesting observations. (Note: the Mother Theresa thing is not a joke.)

It seems that at long last Christopher Hitchens seems to have been shaken loose from the inexplicable Bush worship that he has been inflicted with (and inflicting) for the last few years. What has caused his vitriol to spew back on the noble warriors? The latest (Shocked! Shocked!) story on fake news to emerge from the Pentagon.

How bad is it?
This time, someone really does have to be fired.
That sounds pretty bad. Do you really mean it?
I remember reading, decades ago, of a moment when Richard Nixon had made some desperate speech from his bunker and had then arranged for telegrams of support to be sent to the White House. And I wondered—did he eagerly tear them open and turn moistly to his aides, saying, "See: You can always count on the horse sense of the American people"? Was he, in other words, utterly and happily insulated and yet alarmingly insane?
Wow. Comparing Bush to an "insane" Richard Nixon. There's more gold in thar hills.

2 comments:

Otto Man said...

Whenever I see Hitchens in print or on TV, all I can think of is the epithet used by George Galloway against him -- "gin-soaked popinjay."

Thrillhous said...

Just read the Mother Teresa article. Definitely food for thought, but I think I'm going to stick with "Mother Teresa = good" for now.