Christopher "Whore" Hitchens on Daily Show right now.

[Guaranteed]

And he's wasted.

[Bozita]

1. Looks like he started a bit too early tonight

Wasted?

You bet.

[PurityOfEssence]

2. Not just wasted, drinking from a big paper cup AND a coffee cup chaser

He's ripped and slurring his arrogant backhanding of everything you might know. Pomposity writ large, he careens and frets his moment on the stage, reminding you of your quaint inferiority as he advances the standard of your betters.

He ambled from the wings with his paper cup of ambrosia clenched in his hand, and sipped and swilled his way through a pontification of voluble silliness, occasionally chasing his spirits with whatever was in the coffee mug. Up is down, and "in" is "outre" as he nobly clarifies all of your misconceptions: Iranians LOVE us, and real Iraqis salaam to us for our intervention.

His apologies for the monarchists will be amusing after the fall, but somehow I don't think many will be laughing.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. I know I am exposing my ignorance and I could just google, but...

Who the hell is this guy!? I really did not like him at all! He was creepy and sounded like a loon! When he came out, I thought he was drunk, but then again, maybe he had an inner ear problem. ;)

[imenja]

4. Academic and columnist

He writes for Vanity Fair. He used to have a column in The Nation called "The Contrarian" or some such thing. He left the nation during the lead up to the Iraq war because he resented their opposition to the war. I heard him speak last year. He made me furious. He's been a long time critic of Saddam's, which I can certainly respect, but he completely attacked the motivations of the opponents to the war--called us Stalinists, inhumane etc... I walked out.
He teaches somewhere on the East Coast. The New School maybe? I'm not sure.
I have to say he looks perpetually unhealthy.

[tuvor]

6. Vanity Fair? Isn't the editor fond of writing anti-bush editorials?

They must have some interesting conversations.

[imenja]

9. the Nation is a strongly leftist magazine

and has always been so since it began publication 100 years ago. They include contrary opinions though.
I don't read Vanity Fair regularly, but I imagine they present different points of view as well.

[Khephra]

5. He has one redeeming quality

He hates Kissinger with a passion and wrote a major book on him that's still being read. It was also made into a documentary.

But that's from back when he was much younger, much more liberal, and less wasted.

[Melodybe]

8. I just got a hardback copy of 1984 and Animal Farm for myself

as one of the few Christmas presents I got for myself.

The only thing that is not awesome about the book is that it has an intro by Christopher hitchens.

His "crtique" of F/911 is vomit inducing.

[Khephra]

11. He's been doing some seriously weird revisionistic

takes on Orwell since at least 9/11. I think he's written a book on Orwell's philosophies. I don't know if studying Orwell has been a life long thing for Chris, but I heard him once saying on CSPAN how Orwell would be supporting Bush's War on Terror if he were alive today.

That's when I knew he had lost it.

[imenja]

12. Yes, it's called Why Orwell Matters . . .

or something like that. He loves him. I think Orwell may be the only person I've ever heard him say anything positive about.
The anti-Mother Theresa / Ghandi stuff is awfully strange, though I haven't read the details of his distaste for them. I've only heard him discuss it.

[imenja]

10. he also hates Ghandi and Mother Theresa

he's difficult to pigeon hole politically. He seems opposed to virtually everything.

[Swamp Rat]

13. Yep, but he sucks now.

[tuvor]

7. My wife thought he looked a bit wasted, too.

I'd heard of him, but just, er...assumed at first that he was a liberal-leaning guest.

As soon as I realized that Stewart was interrupting more than he usually does with his liberal guests, I realized Hitchens probably wasn't.

Yes, he was rather a creepy know-it-all namedropper.

("I had dinner with Khomeni's grandson!":eyes:)

Quite.

[UTUSN]

14. Kick for Morning-after Re-run n/t

[UTUSN]

15. "Problems with religion didn't start with (Shrub)"

I dislike him as much as anybody, but he scored a point or two. He said that ANYBODY could write a book saying "Falwell or Robertson SUCKS"---that "everybody knows that".

[UTUSN]

16. Jon said, "You could get even GHANDI to hit you"

Histofer Chickens said, "Well, Mother Teresa scratched me, THATCHER spanked me, I could tell you stories..."

[UTUSN]

17. The Kurds Are Sunnis?

He says the Muslims like us more than we know. "It's a civil war within the Muslim world that they've tried to spread to our country. We have allies in all of these places, that DON'T want to go back to the 7th Century Ottoman empire."