Hitchens on McCain: “Borderline Senile”
My old comrade Christopher Hitchens rips it up on MSNBC's Hardball calling out McCain as "weird" and "borderline senile." Hitch also issues some pungent words about Failin' Palin and notes how Obama has outflanked McCain on the right when it comes to Pakistan. You may not always agree, but what a razor sharp tongue -- and mind.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Hitchens also writes weekly commentary about 2008 presidential elections for the Mirror:
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/hitchens/
Very few people in America seems to be reading his “blog”, perhaps because it doesn’t show in news.google.com and because it’s sometimes rather aggressive.
October 25th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Nah…Mort Sahl’s depiction of McCain as Mr Magoo was a stroke of satiric genius.
October 25th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Hitchens is at his best when destroying an opponent but there were no hard balls in this interview.
Matthews did toss him a couple about the war in Iraq, but he let Hitchens get away with claiming “all the intelligence” showed “contacts” between Zarkawi of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Saddam.
That’s not even close to true. Not even plausible. A whopper.
Whatever bullseye remarks Hitchens had about Obama are unimportant relative to his spouting of such total war propaganda nonesense.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Wow…Hitchens has fallen so far that he’s now on Chris Matthews’ list of “the best thinkers around.” Watch out Thomas Friedman. ..
Hitchens’ sliming McCain with the senility charge and his utterly conventional wisdom about Palin’s incompetence (Kathleen Parker got this right) doesn’t compensate for the fact that damned near everyone who Hitchens has been hanging with for the past seven years regarding Middle East strategy is on McCain’s list of foreign policy advisors. He should stand with his comrades like a man. Palin’s “depth” on foreign policy squares perfectly with the credulousness that Hitchens has been relying on to insinuate his own ill-considered perspective. Without the Sarah Palins, Hitchen’s war agenda would never have gotten off the ground, so he’s an absolute hypocrite. Much like George Bush, she’s the eager, non-too-bright consumer that Cheney-cabalists like Doug Feith relied on to promote thier invade-Iraq agenda. Hitchens has been reliably parroting the same crap. Palin’s actually pretty good at striking a nerve identical to Hitchens’ recent obsessions – fearmongering and self-righteous American “exceptinalism.” Does he get a pass for dulcet tones and the ability to project nuance. Her characterizations of folks who have had it with the war are essentially the same as Hitchens have been – i.e. some degree of “anti-Americanism.” I’ll lay odds that if Lyin’ Joe Lieberman were McCain’s VP, Hitchens would be perfectly comfortable with the ticket.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:46 am
“Thank God she’s not going to have to be President from Day One” — Joe Lieberman
October 25th, 2008 at 8:14 am
To be qualified to make such a diagnoisis, what medical school did Hitchens attend and when did he personally have a patient session with Sen. McCain?
Have you guys ever considered that many journalists, including and especially Matthews and Olbermann, are the ones with real mental problems? It’s amazing that journalists claim to see everyone else’s problems but can’t see or admit to their own.
But, even assuming that they have some wits about them, doubtful, why can’t journalists abide by the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics,?
Maybe they don’t because the ethics code has the word “professional” in it.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:21 am
“It’s amazing that journalists claim to see everyone else’s problems but can’t see or admit to their own.”
Pot, meet kettle: Mr. intellectual dishonesty himself. Of course, you’re not a journalist–just a windbag.
You are a riot, dude.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Two related articles:
Hitchens: McCain ‘Borderline Senile’
You guys said the same thing about Pres. Reagan, who effectively ended the cold war.
ABC.com Writer ‘Deeply Ashamed to be Called a “Journalist”’
October 25th, 2008 at 9:48 am
>To be qualified to make such a diagnoisis, >what medical school did Hitchens attend and >when did he personally have a patient >session with Sen. McCain?
Woody, I don’t have a degree in animal husbandry, but I know who’s full of bullshit.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:56 am
This guy’s essay is so ridiculous it’s almost beyond comment – the central notion is that McCain gets to take some obscure guy off of a Youtube, blow him up – remarkably dishonestly and demagogically – into an example of something that it turns out he isn’t (not even close) and journalists – yeah, the press – are at fault for investigating the guy’s story, even as he turns out to be a stereotypical publicity seeker. Last I read, Laura Ingraham was vowing to help him run for Congress ! But let’s not check out his supposed story after Mccain broadcasts in a phony attack on Obama. That perspective is nuts. Special pleading by rightwing hacks to cover their tracks as they engage in deliberate deception while hiding behind the fictitious story of “average Joe.”
Shove that bit of rank hypocrisy up your utterly dishonest ass Woody. Why do I even check your links ? Please leave the scene of your accident here so we can quit craning our necks.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Stu – Woody doesn’t rise to the level of bullshit. Proverbial bullshit requires a bit of skill and self-awareness. Bullshit should require at least a few moments of thought to detect. Woody is peddling horseshit, which reveals itself as such at first glance.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Woody is setting up his victim story so he can explain the fact that he’s utterly marginal and ridiculous – a trip down Denial as the “real America” passes guys like him by as they yammer and whine at their self-imposed dinosaur status – by blaming blacks (who in his world don’t have the intelligence to vote), mainstream journalists (who were fine when they were lining up to praise Bush and lambast Iraq war critics), and an increasingly pro-Democratic citizenry at large (who he viscerally detests in his wacko anti-American bigotry.)
Stick a fork in him. Dead man walking…
October 25th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Dr. Doctor,
We’ve been down this road often. Woodrow has an issue with projection.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am
The beautiful thing about the McPalin campaign is that this wretched, dishonest woman is going to be the spearhead for total nutcases to attempt to reclaim the GOP from any inklings of sanity that John McCaiin might have once represented.
This coming humiliation of McCain is a joyous occasion. And his bringing an ambitious, clueless marginal figure front and center will make it worse – she’s gonna bite his ass after this is over, blaming the wreckage that she helped pile up on him. She’s a piece of work on the order of those insane GOP women like Ingraham you hear on talk radio. A Phyllis Schlafley for the 21st Century. Ultimately she’ll be an ace in the hole for Dems. I think Ropers Palin conversion is proof of the utterly marginal direction that she’s destined to take. Not that she won’t be an annoyance as an opportunistic half-wit demagogue…
October 25th, 2008 at 10:24 am
What right does Christopher Hitchens have to rob us of his alliance with the likes of Sarah Palin, which would have made “perfect sense” solely on the basis of his adherence to his big issues. Palin’s adopted Hitchens rhetoric of liberals allegedly wanting to wave the white flag in Iraq, as against his – and Sarah’s – will of steel in the face of fanatical Arab hordes our centurions are destined to wipe from the face of the earth.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
“Ha ha ha ha ha we were right!” (headline from his Uk Daily Mirror column after “liberation” of Baghdad) Hitchens ephemera:
Ny POST tid bit
September 23, 2008 –
GOD-dismissing writer Christopher Hitchens didn’t believe in horoscopes, either – until they told him he’d score with women. At a Templeton Foundation luncheon at the Pierre yesterday, Washington Post veteran Sally Quinn recalled how the booze-loving author of “God Is Not Great” once “attacked me” over the paper running an astrology column, insisting it was total nonsense. Until one day, Quinn said, when “Christopher had to admit that he’d read his horoscope and it said, ‘A member of the opposite sex is interested and will show it.’ Then he got interested.”
October 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
>Proverbial bullshit requires a bit of skill
>and self-awareness…which reveals itself
>as such at first glance.
Jesus, you’ve said worse that that about me
Actually, I was talking about McCain, not Woody. I try to stay out of the floating dozens game here, just couldn’t resist that oen wisecrack.
October 25th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Ah, yes, foolish me. Hitchens is the enemy. I forgot just who open minded and open to uncomfortable debate we were.
Sad.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Palin’s gone “rogue”.
Her defenders say she is not good at “process questions”.
Maybe she should hire Hitchens as her handler and she can sit on his lap with his hand up her…
October 25th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Marc -”in fairness”, Hitchens went off rather foolishly and harshly on folks who raised serious doubts about his beloved Iraq war. He deserves about the same level of respect he offered those who subjected his notions to “uncomfortable debate” at the time. I don’t think he’s the enemy – just an irrelevant old windbag.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
That’s lame Marc, particularly because Reg spent a fair bit of time making his case. You could take him on, instead of weirdly and melodramatically calling his argument “sad”. I think that Finkelstein has it right when he says the following
“No one really cares about the facts Hitchens brings to bear. He could be making one case today and the opposite case tomorrow. Would anybody notice? They’re just interested in the rococo tapestry he weaves around the facts. You don’t walk away saying, “I’ve learned X, Y or Z from Hitchens,” you walk away saying, “Wasn’t that a witty line? Wasn’t that a clever repartee?”
October 25th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Marc: “Ah, yes, foolish me. Hitchens is the enemy. I forgot just who open minded and open to uncomfortable debate we were.”
Debate? The majority of you folk here have NEVER been interested in Debate.
What a Joke!
October 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Completely apropos of exactly nothing, has anyone noticed that Hitchens and Van Morrison are starting to look weirdly alike?
(And I don’t mean this as a metaphor for anything. At all.)
Okay, that’s it. Carry on.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Poor Roper…his feelings are hurt because nobody buys his ridiculous arguments.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Roper – see Woody at 8:53 and me at 9:56, above, for some “debate.” You’re welcome to chime in on the side of disingenuous horseshit…
October 25th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I’m sorry, GM, but by posting stuff like this on your web site, you’ve chosen to voluntarily excluse yourself from anything remotely resembling an honest and frank exchange of ideas. Pathetic…
“We the People of the United States, who are also a loose confederation of bloggers, categorically reject Barack Obama for president. He is a radical socialist, he is a black separatist, a racist, he harbors pro-Muslim/Anti-Jewish sentiments and associates, he identifies with homophobes, convicted swindlers, known terrorists, creative financiers, and he has already signaled his willingness to sacrifice National Security for a dialogue with Muslim fanatics.
We cannot vote for this man. We urge you to join us in defeating Barack Obama. So say us one, so say us all.”
October 25th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
GM, I don’t think I’ll ever understand what constitutes “debate” to The Right.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
“GM, I don’t think I’ll ever understand what constitutes ‘debate’ to The Right.”
Here’s an example…
http://tinyurl.com/6rx7jz
October 25th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Ahmed and your point is… that wasn’t a debate, that was a post on my blog. I didn’t write it, but please tell me which parts are obviously false… Oh, and since this is debate, please provide proof, not just your opinion because your opinion and that of reg and quite a number of other folk on this comment thread is quite pathetic in and of itself.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
GM,
Here’s a little step-ladder so u can climb down from that high pony u’ve got there. One thing Ive never claimed anywhere is that one’s political views are somehow representative of one’s character or fairness (unless one holds truly brutal and extremist views). Hence, I dont believe for one moment that either liberals or conservatives or leftists or rightists are particularly more open or tolerant than each other. I think for anybody to claim otherwise is ipso facto ridiculous.
People on this blog beat u up pretty much the same way that liberals get verbally lynched on most conservative blogs.
Would u be kind enough to list a few URLS of right wing blogs in which there is any significant number of liberals who are treated respectfully and openly engaged in a non threatening debate? I’ve never seen one, to tell u the truth. Nor have I seen any liberal blogs that do the reverse.
The only moral credibility this blog can claim is that your genial host is willing to criticize (though not always in equal parts) Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives.
You can see posts here like this one about Hitchens that, apparently, pisses off more of the liberal regulars than it pleases them.
So if you dont want to dismount from that high horse, it least stop whipping it so hard because the blood splatter is blurring my screen.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
There’s no debate with liberals, who lie and run away.
Only puff questions allowed…. Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden
October 25th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Ahmed,
With all due respect, if I took the time to write back a full answer to most of Reg’s prolific (and much appreciated) posts, I would have to first acquire three more jobs in order to quit them so Id have enuf time. If u dont like what Hitchens says, cool. Dont click on the link. I doubt much if anything I write is gonna change ur mind or Reg’s.
In the end, Hitchens is a friend of mine and I like him very much. His views on some subjects are appaling. Others are quite wonderful. Sort of like, um, Noam Chomsky. Or for that matter, Norman Finkelstein!
October 25th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Marc: GM…Would u be kind enough to list a few URLS of right wing blogs in which there is any significant number of liberals who are treated respectfully and openly engaged in a non threatening debate?
Answer: G.M.’s site. Liberals only get blocked for inappropriate language, but that ends up being most of them. Those who can discuss issues without vile language get to stay and debate.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Hahaha If u think that’s the case, great. Then you guys have NO problem. You have a site of your own where everything is kumbaya cozy so u needn’t search for others. Lucky you!
October 25th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
So wait a minute. Conservatives get to use the most scurrilous, vile rhetoric to bait liberals, and then when liberals bite the conservatives can claim moral superiority? I think I might convert just for that privilege.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
By the way Woody, I’m planning to show that video of that airhead twinkie “interviewing” Biden to my class next week. It will have 60 journalism grad students rolling in the aisles. But then again, Im sure you think that the home of the USC Trojans is an incubator of pinko commies. LOL!
That interview was one of the most painful, amateurish 5 mins I can recall seeing on TV. Not sure what station it was on, but in any major market a “journalist” like that would be laughed off the air. Biden didnt get angry by the way. He did what anybody with a pulse would have.. he laughed at her.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Marc,
It was Orlando, Cox-owned WFTV, an ABC affiliate. I see a future for her with Fox.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Completely apropos of exactly nothing, has anyone noticed that Hitchens and Van Morrison are starting to look weirdly alike?
Only to the extent that they’ve both probably had a few Wild Night[s] . . .
October 25th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
To anyone who values their time: don’t go to Woody’s/GM’s site. It’s embarrassingly partisan and lightweight.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Gm, I’ll be absolutely honest with you, I’m unwilling to enter into a debate with you about whether or not Obama is a “radical socialist”, pro Muslim, a black seperatist or whatever other names you’ve called him in your increasinly unhinged blog posts. That you didn’t write that stuff but decided to post it doesnt make it any less despicable. To even “counter” these claims is IMHO to give legitamacy to a discourse seething in racism, paranoia, McCarthyism, xenophobia and bigotry. What seems clear to me is that the stronger Obama gets, the more unhinged your attacks have become. If I were to debate you on your posts I’d be somewhat interested in what your working defintion of “pro muslim” is, or how you deciphered that Obama who is shamefully feted by the Israel lobby is nonetheless “anti jewish”. Or the bizarre idea that he is not only a socialist, but a “radical” one to boot! But, as I said, I’m not interested in this debate. You and Woody are simply tapping into deep racial fears in this country, paranoai about others, Islamophobia, nativism and bigotry. I have little doubt that the same type of people cross posting your crap are also attending Palin rallies, yelling “terrorist” when they hear Obama’s name at the top of their lungs. Chris Matthews, to his credit, didn’t enter into a “debate” with that idiot Michele Bachmann , no, he allowed her to expose her utterly bizarre world views and assumed that the viewing public would come see her as a fraud.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
If only…this is what real change is:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081110/greider
Beautiful write up on Nader. He is the only want who tells it like it is.
If Nader’s speech on Wall Street last week had had prime time airing he would have won the election.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Like many others, Hitchens burned his credibility for me on Iraq, and then on doubling down on Iraq. The benefit of paying attention to the political commentariat is that presumably they are more hooked in than I am to the history and subtext of people and events. I follow these things, but not as closely as others can. But when they distort the truth so badly, I typically have to move on. Once they’ve deceived me, why read more opinions?
His literary reviews and to some extent historical commentary is another matter. But there’s less of that now, and what appears is way too unsubtle for me. Book-length polemics on athiesm? Been that way since I was a teenager, pass.
And I agree with Finkelstein that Hitch is too skilled with the Oxford-honed rhetorical rapier for his own ultimate good. It’s a loss for me. The essays in “For the sake of argument” (1994) were my first serious introduction to the historical perspectives and preoccupations of the postwar left. And I would never have read the early works of Evelyn Waugh without his recommendation.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Hitchens can be wonderful, outrageous, and at times, obnoxious. But he is never, ever boring.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Some words to think about:
“No. I don’t have any party allegiances. Before I could vote, I wrote in a column that I was for the re-election of George Bush, Sr. That was the first time I ever wrote or said in public who I was for. If George Bush, Sr., had that second term, I think we would be living in a better world in lots of ways. One of which would have been, we never would have elected George Bush, Jr. People forget that. People who always vote Democratic don’t realize that if they didn’t want this George Bush they should have voted for the last. They think of it as zero-sum: You’re either an elephant or a donkey. I hate the whole mentality. It produces boring parties and bad politicians. I’ve never been a supporter of either party in America. My line is that I dislike the Republicans, but I despise the Democrats.”
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/04/christopher_hitchens_god_is_not_great_1.php
October 26th, 2008 at 3:02 am
I don’t follow that line of reasoning. It’s like that story about the zen master and the boy from Charlie Wilson’s War, wherein seemingly good events turn out bad for the boy while seemingly bad events end up good for him. The moral of the story is that you can’t know how things will play out. So it could be true that we would be in a better world by electing a bad president at any time in our history when we foolishly chose the better one, but who the hell could tell? I’ll ask this: what if the Obama Years turn out to be some of the best damn years in our history? Would we have had Obama at all if Bush Sr. had been reelected or if W. hadn’t been elected in the first place — either because Sr. was reelected or because events caused Gore’s win to count — or if W. would have lost to Kerry the second time? What if after Sr.’s reelection, W. still became president in either 1996 or 2000? What if 9/11 was prevented?
October 26th, 2008 at 4:01 am
Also, Hitchens just likes any president with a fetish for invading Iraq. And he hates Clinton for not being further to the left. So, the logical conclusion is “if the guy on the left isn’t far left enough, vote for the guy on the right”? What kind of logic is that? How were people supposed to know that if they voted Clinton they would eventually get W.? That does it, I’m voting McCain because I don’t want to get Jeb in 2016.
October 26th, 2008 at 4:39 am
It may be a bit of a smear to call Hitchens a drunk, but I do wonder how seriously alcohol affects his habits.
Many journalists and commentators on the left have good reason to envy his superb media access.
Back when he was a Trotskyist at The Nation, he was never on TV. Now he’s in American newspapers, bigtime Web sites, TV, radio interviews, talk shows, you name it.
He must be making 10 times the money now that he was back in his Nation days.
And there is reason to envy his undeniable erudition.
His judgment, however, is in serious decay and I have to think alcohol plays a roll.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Whenever Marc puts up a post about Hitchens you can almost set your watch by the booze remarks. Took a little longer this time, but it showed up, sure as the sun rose this morning.
October 26th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Ahmed, you absolutely prove my point.
Marc, I call’s em like I see’s em. Now that I’m down off of my tall pony, let me help you down from yours.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Whenever GM puts up a post about Obama, you can almost set your watch by the racist remarks. Took a little longer this time, but it showed up, sure as the sun rose this morning.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Actually GM, against my better judgement I let me engage you on a single point, as it might prove interesting. You’ve posted an unhinged attack piece on your blog saying that Obama is a “racist” and “black seperatist”, which frankly I’ve never heard before. Isn’t it up to you to provide some substance to these claims, beyond a six degree style association with Farrakhan? This woudn’t work anyways since you’re not saying that Obama is linked to black seperatism, you’re saying that he espouses it. Let’s focus please on this claim. If I’ve truly “proved your point” and I’m wrong to sugest that your “argument” is grounded on deranged and xenophobic worldview than surely you’d be able to back up this point. I’m all ears. The same is true for the “anti jewish” claim, a particularly odd one since jews now favour Obama 3 to 1. Speak, Roper
October 26th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Bunkerbuster
You’re not fit to wash Hitchens’ whiskey glasses. After a half bottle of whiskey Ive heard him recite poetry that you couldnt read sober if a gun was put to your head.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:20 am
“You can see posts here like this one about Hitchens that, apparently, pisses off more of the liberal regulars than it pleases them.”
Actually, Marc, I’d be pissed off if you quit ever having posts that “piss me off” – what a bore that would be. And I don’t think Mr. Hitchens needs any defense from meanies disparaging him. He’s quite capable of defending himself and giving offense with some of his wackier claims delivered in high-handed, self-righteous tones. I think he’s a first-rate intellectual when it comes to English literature, and decidedly second or third tier when it comes to matters of politics. He’s never been a consequential political thinker EXCEPT when he’s tagged along on rightwing crusades. Not that everyone has to be a consequential political thinker – entertaining gadfly and writer is quite enough. But I don’t ever remember him making a mark in media with a wider audience than the Nation before he (1) joined the angry chorus of Ann Coulter and the rest in a moral crusade against that guy who threatened the fabric of our republic in the terrible ’90s or (2) joined the crackpot crusade to invade and occupy Iraq engineered by the likes of Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, et al.
If Hitchens isn’t a fair target for brickbats, nobody is. He craves whatever attention he can get…and sometimes he is outrageous enough to deserve it. Generally the really good stuff he writes goes unremarked except by we tiny few who subscribe to the Atlantic. (His Vanity Fair stuff is mostly ephemeral crap.)
October 26th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Reg
Anybody who writes in the public sphere and certainly those who go out of their way to provoke are legit targets of brickbats. Equally true is that the BB isnt fit to hold Hitchens’ wine corks. So, there. we’re even.
Hitchens btw already had a quite a rep long long before Monicagate. VF was paying him more than 250k a year in the mid 90′s He had published a number of best sellers including his rip on Mother Theresa and has always been considered a prime literary critic above and beyind his political punditry.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Incidentally, given Hitchens’ undoubtedly heartfelt obsession with the notion of liberating Iraq “by any means necessary”, I find it remarkably disingenuous that he would have supported George Bush Sr. for re-election, given what he did to the Shiites in the wake of the first Gulf war. He made a calculated “realist” decision to allow Saddam to take them out – more than likely because he recognized that Shiite dominance in Iraq was more likely to benefit Iran than the U.S. over the long term. He needn’t have “gone to Bahgdad” – just kept Saddam’s aircraft and tanks out of it and the Shiite rebellion would have had an excellent chance. And of course, such a popular rebellion would have led to a far more “organic” solution to the problem of Saddam’s oppression than our heading straight to Baghdad and toppling him to create a power vaccuum with no thought of what comes next. I find Hitchens very confused and confusing when he makes these “political” pronouncements. Not really a very sharp mind when he tosses this stuff out – although obviously a sharp wit.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:41 am
MC – I’ll acknowledge his literary talents – i think I did – which are awesome. The book of his I’ve enjoyed the most was a bunch of “book reviews”…uh…I mean literary criticism – can’t remember the name right now but it was a great read, even though I don’t care much or know much about the end of the literary spectrum he was sifting through. So he’s earned his rep in those circles and I’m sure it sticks with folks far more learned than myself. But I’m no fan of Vanity Fair – not at all – and I think that his sojourn there speaks for itself. I’m sure he earned his salary and he’s good at churning out stuff for that audience but I’ll take the kind of stuff he’s written for the Atlantic over any of the rest – VF, Nation, or whatever. He’s brilliant in many ways – but I don’t respect his political acuity and never much have, even when he was overtly “leftist.”
October 26th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I’m glad that Chris Hitchens has finally figured out the frakking obvious, but, you know …
October 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
[...] HITCHING IT. Old NWN friend Marc Cooper notes lefty-turned-neocon-turned Obama backer pundit Christopher Hitchens…recent media appearances slagging Sarah Palin, John McCain, the troubled Republicans, and his [...]
October 26th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
This is the only relevant post on the topic. Hitchens rivals white cornerboy and Woody with his rabbit hole rationales. The man has mad cow. Just because he went to Oxford; is facile–doesn’t mean he can overcome his essentially Tory mindset and say anything coherent about politics. His obsesions with MT; Clinton’s Dick; “God”. The man is a raving bullshit artist. Thats his only accomplishment. And you all fall for it.
# hester Says:
October 25th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Some words to think about:
“No. I don’t have any party allegiances. Before I could vote, I wrote in a column that I was for the re-election of George Bush, Sr. That was the first time I ever wrote or said in public who I was for. If George Bush, Sr., had that second term, I think we would be living in a better world in lots of ways. One of which would have been, we never would have elected George Bush, Jr. People forget that. People who always vote Democratic don’t realize that if they didn’t want this George Bush they should have voted for the last. They think of it as zero-sum: You’re either an elephant or a donkey. I hate the whole mentality. It produces boring parties and bad politicians. I’ve never been a supporter of either party in America. My line is that I dislike the Republicans, but I despise the Democrats.”
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/04/christopher_hitchens_god_is_not_great_1.php
October 26th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Let me put it more bluntly: Hitchens plays to the “base”…the American base. No one gives a shit about him in the UK. I lived there for years. He plays to the US. Again note the crackpot subjects of his ha ha books: MT/Clinton is a serial rapist/ God is useless as are all non rational considerations. He just is having a wank with provocative rubbish only an American would get exercised about.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
From an education forum:
QUOTE(Pat Speer @ Sep 10 2006, 12:23 PM) [snapback]74534[/snapback]
On the other hand, what do you make of Christopher Hitchens? I’ve seen him on TV a number of times. I used to like him. Now I’m beginning to wonder if he’s not connected to the CIA or MI6 in some way. He was on American TV the other night going on about Saddam Hussein’s ties to Al Qaeda, and flipping off the audience whenever they booed him for reciting his “facts”. He came across like a British Dick Cheney on a cocaine binge.
>>>>Response:
Peter and Christopher Hitchens are two public school educated characters who rebelled against their class background and were members of Socialist Worker Party (followers of Leon Trotsky) in their youth.
They both became journalists. Peter joined the tabloid press and soon became extremely right wing. For many years he was a supporter of Margaret Thatcher, now he is a neo-fascist, who claims that the Conservative Party is too left-wing.
Christopher remained a socialist and worked for liberal and left-wing journals and newspapers. He then moved to the United States. To everyone’s surprise, he became a strong supporter of George Bush. He has clearly been turned. Others say that it is a result of his drink problem. Whatever the truth, he has no credibility in the UK as even those on the right are no longer willing to defend George Bush in the press. Even his brother Peter Hitchens considers Bush to be an idiot.
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October 26th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Ahmed, here is Obama’s racism in his own words. If you want more.. google it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI77cU3jsFs
October 26th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
That just about sums up Roper’s contribution here. He posts all sorts of hysterical and specific allegations against Obama, that he’s a “black seperatist”, a “racist”, “anti jewish” and when asked to provide some sort of substanciation or proof, he refers me to google and posts a totally irrelevant and useless youtube link. He simply makes no arguments of his own of any validicy yet asks to be taken seriously. The greatest chunk of the youtube link contains passages–(decontextualised, of course) of Obama’s book talking about race as a lived experiece–passages which are both meditative and profound. Roper, you’re making your dwelling in the gutter these days and your politics look like nothing more than a vesel for fear, hatred and shallowness.
October 26th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Anna,
Christopher Hitchens support for the liberal social engineering project known as Operation Iraqi Freedom seems to be very compatible with his militant anti-religious and anti-nationalist viewpoints. As is his support for Obama, which seems to be based most of all on the nausea he feels contemplating a Christian woman with five children being sworn in as Vice President.
Re Nader, I share your respect for him, as apparently Pat Buchanan does as well. He gave Nader a very respectable interview in 2004:
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2004/jun/21/00006/
I remember being at a Taylor Branch book reading, also in 2004, and a black woman questioned him about supporting Nader. Branch said “Nader and I came to Washington together in the mid-sixties. He’s always had a very mediocre record on racial issues.”
October 26th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Hitchens lost it for me with this column:
Not a name, not a number, not a bit of substance; just a baseless McCarthyite smear.
October 26th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Whitey’s out of context smear on Nader: “Branch said…Nader and I came to Washington together in the mid sixties. He’s always had a very mediocre record on radical issues.”
From a 2000 Mother Jones profile on Nader—that was trying to marginalize him, but when he was directly quoted the journalist’s points were evaporated.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/07/nader.html
“Every major movement for social justice in this country started with a handful of people, and we are more than a handful,” he says at one campaign stop. “The modern civil rights movement began when Rosa Parks refused to sit down in the back of the bus. It makes us look like jerks for saying there’s nothing we can do.”
In the 60′s Nader was focused on battling the corporate monster–which in fact pretty much drove and drives the engine of racism along with just about every other evil.
Sliming by omission, whitey, doesn’t work.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
whiteboyinacorner: I didn’t think you had a sense of humor OR irony. Within this quote you demonstrate both. Bravo.
“.[Hitchens']..support for Obama, which seems to be based most of all on the nausea he feels contemplating a Christian woman with five children being sworn in as Vice President.”
October 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Marc: But then again, Im sure you think that the home of the USC Trojans is an incubator of pinko commies. LOL!
Marc, not the students of the university as a whole. Rather, specifically, most who major in journalism and all who haven’t walked out of your classes in disgust.
October 26th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Here’s a link to the same reporter interviewing John McCain.
Damn that liberal media.
October 26th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Anna reads Mother Jones. I knew there was something basically wrong.
WC, are you a masochist? If so, you’ve found someone willing to cooperate.
October 26th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
“…hysterical and specific allegations against Obama, that he’s a “black separatist”, a “racist”, “anti jewish” and when asked to provide some sort of substantiation or proof, he refers me to google”
Did you try searching using “Jeremiah Wright Obama’s Black Nationalist racist anti-jewish minister and mentor for 20 years”? Try it Ahmed.
The logical assumption is ‘birds of a feather’, but Obama is too politically ambitious and smart to be as radical as the nuts he hung out with in his past. Did they have a negative influence on his basic idealogy? Of course.
October 26th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
That negative influence is a belief the USA is more of a force for bad than good in the world.
If he is elected President, you these negative influences surface when the going gets tough in our presenses in the world.
He will bail out of Iraq, regardless of conditions and consequences. If the going gets tougher in Afganistan, he will bail here too. There are more important social spending(justice) needed at home, and besides, who to hell do we think we are trying to make other countries like us. They are not free and democratic, and will never be.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I don’t give a damn how well Hitchens recites poetry. His role as a particularly obnoxious cheerleader for the Iraq war defines what he’s all about. Just another puffed up armchair warrior.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Hey Woody… that’s getting kind of personal isn’t it? Did I read you right? You think my students should walk out of my class in disgust?
I’m a bit stunned. I thought we just went through a whole Kabuki about open dialog and debate and now, without having a clue how and what I teach, nor who my students are and what they think, you impugn them and my class room work? That’s pretty far out.
I dont know what else to say, except I think you need a better sense of humor and a slightly more open mind. You really don’t have a clue what you are saying.
Trojans, fight on!
October 27th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Norman Finkelstein’s devastating critique of Hitchens, as well as the broader political culture in the US, still holds up quite well
http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein09102003.html
October 27th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Marc: now, without having a clue how and what I teach
Yes, I do. You told me. You show clips to your class of someone asking tough questions of a Democrat to make people laugh (and, they better if they want a good grade), but you fail to show interviews by the liberal press asking softball questions to Democrats that are pathetic and avoid revealing important information.
In your position, I would show both–(a) how asking tough questions could be handled better rather than laughing at them and (b) how not asking tough questions at all makes a journalist look biased and incompetent.
As a parent, I would be more than a little concerned if I was paying out the big bucks for college tuition and found that my kid was being taught by someone who was kicked out of college and seems to be trying to indoctrinate them.
From the student perspective, it’s too bad that so many of them are intimidated by left-wing professors that conservative students “play the game” just to get their diplomas while being denied the opportunity for “open dialog and debate.”
Invite me to your class for a day, don’t prep the students for laughter, and I’ll read them the riot act and show them that being a journalist means more than making fun of conservatives and playing up to Democrats–something apparently left out of studies for journalists out there today.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:20 am
You show clips to your class of someone asking tough questions of a Democrat to make people laugh (and, they better if they want a good grade), but you fail to show interviews by the liberal press asking softball questions to Democrats that are pathetic and avoid revealing important information.
Someone whose husband happens to be a GOP media consultant.
Invite me to your class for a day, don’t prep the students for laughter
Somehow I think once you open your mouth there won’t be any need for laughter prepping.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Then that says very little for Marc’s students, who would prove to be already indoctrinated. However they may act, they would leave with a real education that day.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:51 am
A bit grandiose there, Woodrow.
I notice you ignored the fact that Wade West, Barbara West’s husband, is a GOP media consultant.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Randy, please try to reflect on how many liberal mainstream media journalists are married to Democratic Party operatives and who worked for the Democrats in the past. Your “gotcha” puts you in pretty bad light when applied to your position.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Your “gotcha” puts you in pretty bad light when applied to your position.
Proof?
Which news reporter asked John McCain questions along the lines of the questions asked of Biden and is married to a Democratic media consultant? How about some names for a change. Surprise evveryone here with some substance.
October 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Randy, if you can’t tell the difference between the attitude and questions of the liberal Democratic media to the Obama campaign versus to the Republicans, then you are as stupid as I always thought. I’m not here to educate people who come up with such stupid responses as yours and are unable to learn or see the truth.
Just say that I’m running, which you will, but the truth is that you’re too dumb to think rationally and I’m too smart to waste more time with you.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
In other words, as usual, you have absolutely nothing to back up your claim. N-O-T-H-I-N-G
October 27th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Just for the record, Woody, Sarah Palin is a chickenshit coward and so are you.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
“Invite me to your class for a day, don’t prep the students for laughter, and I’ll read them the riot act and show them that being a journalist means more than making fun of conservatives and playing up to Democrats–something apparently left out of studies for journalists out there today.”
And for what reason would Marc invite you to be a guest speaker in his jounalism class. Why woulod kids parents dole out big bucks to hear someone who, for all we know, has no experience, no expertise and littel qualification or backround in journalism. I dont mean to insult you as there would be no reason for me to speak in front of the class either. I thought that you guys believe in merit. Explain your propensity towards pompousness please!
October 28th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I believe in a balanced education.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:46 am
And you believe that statement entitles you to a guest speakers spot in a journalism class…Lame
October 28th, 2008 at 11:54 am
[...] Hitchens on McCain: “Borderline Senile” [...]
October 28th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
reg Says: “damned near everyone who Hitchens has been hanging with for the past seven years regarding Middle East strategy is on McCain’s list of foreign policy advisors”
He’s admittedly a neo-con, but an apologist for McCain’s foreign policy advisers? Check out the article he wrote, The Case against Henry Kissinger. Written as to form the “basis of a legal prosecution for war crimes”
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/CaseAgainst1_Hitchens.html
October 29th, 2008 at 1:19 am
If in any argument between people of which you do not know all the facts and you want to have some idea of who might be telling the truth you need only note the group resorting to ad hominem attacks usually has a dearth of evidence with which to make a rational argument.
Woody argues with reason, and the rest of you attack. The irony in your use of products of free markets and free minds (namely the internet, computer, electricity, etc.) to attack the proponents of free markets, capitalism, reason… in support of a racist demagogic terrorist sypathizing communist that is Obama. Enjoy your new Thugocracy. Atlas Shruggs and walks away.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I smell a sock puppet.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Yesterday Hitchens was paling around with the neocons today he’s cozying back up to the left. The only real continuum that I can identify is a contempt for religion and religious people (christian, muslim, jew-what you got?), which is probably why he has jettisoned McCain. A McCain election would raise the religious Palin’s profile to a point he would consider dangerous.
I like Chris, I have always have whether I agreed with him or not. But I have had the sense for the last year or two, that he is a stray dog. Not really loyal to anyone or any institution. With his endorsement of Obama, he’s feeding again from the left’s dish, but he won’t stay long and he’ll be back to bite you guys in the ass.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
George Galloway said Hitchens was a fraud. I never believed Galloway until now. Borderline senile? Obama can’t remember 2 years of weekly hate sermons ..
October 31st, 2008 at 4:49 am
[...] Hitchens über McCain [...]
October 31st, 2008 at 10:53 am
Hitchens tells us that, to his mind, it is morally and intellectually impossible to vote for the Republic ticket in 2008.
Why? According to Hitchens, it’s because “John McCain is a lot older than he was in January. He sounds querulous,” and because “he looks weird.”
But wasn’t John McCain fit for office a year ago? To this, Hitchens responds: “Just about.”
What changed? Well, explains Hitchens, to listen to McCain, “it’s worrying to hear the sort of whistling note in McCain’s voice.” And “If you watch [him] there’s something weird about the way he reacts [in debates]” and “[McCain’s] behavior [in the run-up to the debates] “was weird.”
By contrast with the “weird” McCain, Obama, Hitchens tells us, “is not demagogic.” In other words, Obama has not come to political power “by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people”. Certainly not in Chicago (where, instead, he made artful use of Chicago Machine nepotism and corruption). Obama has not in his speeches deployed hypnotic rhythms (“We will be strong, we will unite, we will not fail….”) intended to lull the attention of listeners into trancelike suggestibility. Nor has he summoned forth sweeping generalizations and oversimplifications. Moreover, Obama has made scant use of emotionalism and evocative imagery to play on people’s fears and concerns. For example, there was none, or very little, of what George Bernard Shaw referred to as demagogic “melodrama” in Obama’s thirty-minute campaign commercial. LOL!!!! There has been hardly a trace of sanctimonious moralizing (about, say, the injustices of the capitalist system). There has been minimal replacement of concrete details with vague and compelling slogans (like, for instance, “Change We Can Believe In” or “We are the change we’ve been waiting for”). There has been no appeal to entitlement, no tangential casting of Obama has somehow omnipotent, somehow the savior, the Messiah, Obama the Majestic…. Greek columns, anyone?
Vote for Obama, Hitchens tells us, because McCain looks old and acts weird, and because Obama is not demagogic.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how one gets to be proclaimed one of the world’s top intellectuals! LOL!!!! (Hannah Arendt must be rolling in her grave!!!) And he has the temerity to charge Palin with being vapid???? LOL!!!!!
October 31st, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Thanks, Al. I love your work. And the lack of substance – uncharacteristic, to be sure – of Hitchen’s rather juvenile attempt to take down McCain is yet another sign of the hypnosis that Obama has been able to cast – and I’m a Democrat, chief.
I think the vapid charge would apply to many – the most important of which would be the media – but it doesn’t seem to matter to anyone. Wouldn’t Chris Hitchens normally find THAT “weird”?
Along the same lines, I listened when a coworker commented about how during one of the town-hall style debates that McCain appeared unintentionally “threatening” physically – the way his movement-impaired arms occasionally would gesture awkardly – as he made a point to a questioner in the audience.
I was in the process of saying “But you do know, that’s because both arms were broken when he went down on a bombing mission and they healed badly during a 5+ year stay in a North Vietnamese prison camp” but I relented because he had already placed the earplugs in his ears from his Ipod Shuffle and had turned back to his desk.
So it goes; one guy is pilloried because of juvenilia like this – “looked weird”, or “vaguely threatening arm movements” while Mr. O coasts on a suspect, yet thoroughly uninspected record, feelgood platitudes, and the ability to whip up a crowd.
Let’s hope Mr. O has included actual “competence and leadership” somewhere in the mix – (the Joe Biden choice does not quell my fears in this regard) – or my friends, we will have been charmed right into a worse toilet than one we are already in.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:42 pm
If in any argument between people of which you do not know all the facts and you want to have some idea of who might be telling the truth you need only note the group resorting to ad hominem attacks usually has a dearth of evidence with which to make a rational argument.
That is, in fact, an ad hominem fallacy.
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
[...] the chamber like a roulette wheel, betting everything on red. After a quick prayer to Lady Luck he fired blindly into the crowd hoping to hit the Rifleman but, instead, the bullet came screaming toward the man [...]
November 8th, 2008 at 8:28 am
up yours fruitcake
February 28th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Peter and Christopher Hitchens are two public school educated characters who rebelled against their class background and were members of Socialist Worker Party (followers of Leon Trotsky) in their youth.
They both became journalists. Peter joined the tabloid press and soon became extremely right wing. For many years he was a supporter of Margaret Thatcher, now he is a neo-fascist, who claims that the Conservative Party is too left-wing.
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