CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS? How did he get to be the bad guy?

[kansasblue]

ok.. I thought his name sounded familiar..

he wrote a election fraud article for Vanity Fair:

"No conspiracy theorist, and no fan of John Kerry’s, the author nevertheless found the Ohio polling results impossible to swallow: Given what happened in that key state on Election Day 2004, both democracy and common sense cry out for a court-ordered inspection of its new voting machines

http://makethemaccountable.com/articles/Ohio_s_Odd_Numbers.htm


So why did we want Jon to kick his ass?



CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

[w13rd0]

1. Well, his name often sparks flame wars...

...but my take, he's an intelligent, drunken sot. He likes being a "wild card", and depending on his mood on any given day, can appear to sit on either side of a fence, and act as if he's been sitting there all along. Some of his points are well-reasoned to the average person, but that's just because he crafts his words to feel superior to the average joe.

I enjoyed seeing him and Stewart "debate"...

[wtmusic]

2. He's an excellent writer

liberal on most issues, but on the war he has his head up his ass (so apparently he can't see what he's writing)

[AtomicKitten]

23. His article on Mother Theresa for Vanity Fair

had me doubled over laughing, being the recovering Catholic that I am.
Since then he's come off as a supporter of imperialist aggression, an ideology I so vehemently disagree with I could just slap him. At least Jon Stewart bitch-slapped him pretty good tonight.

[jonnyblitz]

29. he wrote a whole book slamming mother theresa called

"missionary position". I have it. It's quite good and believable actually. :shrug:

[caligirl]

3. replay in16 minutes

[ClusterFreak]

4. Hitchens hasn't totally deep sixed reasoned argument, just because...

....he went over to the dark side a few years ago. He still likes to hedge his bets once in a while, which is what I believe his election fraud piece was about. But basically he's a contrarian of the worst order: a smug one. But Jonny took him out to the woodshed tonight...and did it with a smile and a wink. It was sweet...so sweet, Hitch had no real opening to lash out at Jon...Jon was just too nice to him, that is to say: respectful of his side of the argument.

[ButterflyBlood]

5. Because he's a fucking douchebag

Used to be a leftist, but was a bit of an egomaniac and had a tendency to hate anyone not like him. He hated Clinton so much he decided the right wing wackos out to get him were the lesser of two evils and actually sided with them over the impeachment. Then came the war and he became a full blow neocon. Used to be an embarassment to the left, now just a jerk.

[Telly Savalas]

15. I'm an egomaniacal embarassment to the left...

but you don't see me running around encouraging us to invade of other countries. :shrug:

[Left coast liberal]

6. He was a regular columnist for the nation for a long time...

...during the run up to war, he was one of those that thought it was a good idea to take out Saddam. You know, swallowed the Chalabi kool-aid. There was a big brew-ha-ha literally on the pages of the Nation for many weeks then he stormed off in a huff and dropped his column. I am sure you can still access his rather testy diatribes on their archive.

I think he is feeling a little remorse, perhaps.

[Melodybe]

7. Tell him to stop peddling kool-aid about Iraq

and then I'll listen.

I was glad Jon ripped into him.

[Reciprocity]

8. Replay at the top of the hour.

[LoKnLoD]

9. I never heard of him before I saw a post on him here yesterday

Here is a good Wikipedia explanation that I found when I googled him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens

[applegrove]

10. He drank the kool-aid all of a sudden in 1993. I think it was simply

that neocons alloud him to keep drinking while his democratic friends were trying to get him into rehab. And you know with long-term addicts they loose all sense of their ties to humanity.

[Kenroy]

25. kool-aid?

He hasn't drank anything weaker than gin in 20 years.

[applegrove]

26. Sorry - should have been 2003 that he switched to Kool-aid. My bad!

[NoPasaran]

28. I don't think that was kool-aid he was drinking last night!

Although he actually seemed less drunk than the last time he was on the Daily Show.

[HKTech]

11. Well, the Iraq war was something he advocated long before *

came into office. Hitchens is pro-military intervention to get rid of Dictators. He wants us to go to North Korea, Zimbabwe, where-ever evil is entrenched, he wants to send soldiers to kick their a$$.

He's not a partisan, so he'll side with anybody who'll advance his agenda. That's the real reason for the venom, the "Left" thinks they've been betrayed by him.

[swag]

12. Pro-War Fool

[WildEyedLiberal]

13. Because he's an apologist for neocon policy?

He wholeheartedly continues to support the war, pooh-poohed the Abu Ghraib torture as "the work of a few bad apples," and has scoffed at the Plame scandal. He's an asshole.

[Prism]

14. He's always been a Leftist

The difference, I think, is that he's a non-partisan one. The thing about American politics, is I often see liberals and conservatives shift gears, based entirely on who is in office. Sometimes, I have to give a great deal of thought to the issues of the day to see who's really being liberal and who's really being conservative. Lately, I see a massive swelling of government under Bush, with Democrats pushing for smaller government. Naturally, I have to wonder if I'm high or not. But, no, it seems there was a doce-doe (sp) in all of this.

Hitchens is consistent. He's for military intervention to get rid of oppressive regimes. He supported Clinton's intervention in Serbia, and he supports Bush's intervention in Iraq. Republican or Democrat makes absolutely zero difference to him.

I think people are jarred by him, because his mindset is very much old-school, and doesn't really fit well with the current streams of American thought and how we currently interpret liberal and conservative in this country.

[Left coast liberal]

16. His "mindset" is a bit alcohol pickled and egotistically shrill... NT

[Prism]

18. Of course it is

He's an infamous, unapologetic drunk who thinks rather highly of himself. That's never been any secret.

But his strain of Leftism is an older form, nearly unrecognizable to the sensibilities of today. He hasn't "sold out" or "gone to the dark side," or anything of the like. He's being pretty ideologically consistent.

Remember, this is the guy who's sworn a blood oath against Kissinger for what went on in Cambodia.

[tomg]

19. Prism, a good and honest

assessment of Hitchens. I obviously disagree with his position on the war (and a number of other points), but much of the vindictiveness and bitterness surrounding Hitchens (both that which one finds coming from Hitchens and one finds going towards him) is sad, as when close friends suddenly find themselves unalterably opposed on matters of importance, and the only way they can react is by claiming betrayal or dishonesty. But these kinds of splits and the personal acrimony involved is something that has gone on with the left since the 1930s ( and probably earlier). It is easy to forget that most of the older neo-cons - Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, - started out as anti-Communist socialists. In some ways, it is interesting that many of the older neo-cons were even at once time Trotskyites, as was Hitchens. (wouldn't it be weird if, on some level, Bush was really the dupe of the Fourth International - sorry)
I think Stewart was very well prepared tonight because he knew he was dealing with someone who is, when he wants to be, pretty damn brilliant. Tonight, though, Hitchens did not wish to be, and in a longer interview, Stewart would had the time to have easily dismantled the four seemingly-substantive points Hitchens raised on why the Iraqi invasion was legitimate.

[Prism]

21. Putting the neo in neo-con

You bring up a point I wanted to expound on in my original post, but didn't because it's late, and my recollection of political history is a little hazy at the moment.

But it's always been my understanding neo-cons tend to be former Leftists, and part of that ideology was intervention in oppressive states by states and movements united under an international socialist banner.

Now, the neo-cons obviously went free market and embraced Republican corporatism, but that interventionist instinct still remains solidly in place. It makes for funny allies, especially given today's geo-political state.

I think, in general, Hitchens is a brilliant thinker. He's consistent within his ideology, politics be damned. That's a very rare stripe in today's polarized political climate. Unfortunately, his penchant for supreme pettiness and stolid inability to admit when he's wrong are his greatest flaws. When he's on form, I find myself punching the air and whooping while reading his columns. When he's abysmal, as he was tonight, I find myself looking down and shaking my head. You can see the gifts being wasted in real time.

It just bugs me a bit when he's called a neo-con, since those assertions are usually ignorant of how the neo-cons grew out of the older Leftist movement and moved forward to form the division we have today.

Or something. I'm sleepy. I dunno if I'm making any sense =)

[tomg]

22. That is pretty much my take on him.

He is brillant and wasting his gifts. And, yes, the condescencion and pettiness is crazy-making, but he is not a neo-con by a long shot, particularly along the lines of the younger ones. He does ( or did) have a drinking problem, but the reduction of him to a "drunk" is close to an ad hominem.
And, yes, most of the older neo-cons like Irving Kristol and Podhoretz and a whole host of others came out of the battles of the thirties and forties, and many originally had Trotskyite leanings. In fact, David Horowitz when he was with Ramparts back in the 60s was, I believe, a Trotskyite ( his folks were Stalinists but he was Trotskyite - I think).
The history is pretty interesting, and a lot of it happened in the early 70s when the Socialist Party of America split into two groups. One became the Social Democrats, and they came out of the Schachmanite Trotskyites. Many became the neo-cons. Actually, check out the Social Democrat website at http://www.socialdemocrats.org/ If you can get your head around this, Paul Wolfowitz was, I believe, a Social Democrat and Jeanne Kirkpatrick had connections to them.
The other group formed out of Michael Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and became the Democratic Socialists of America. I used to be a member in the mid-70s. It just lapsed. Should rejoin. they were (and are) the good guys. Their website is ttp://www.dsausa.org
Sorry to go on. It's late, but I think the general outline is pretty close.

[Prism]

24. Thanks for the links

I'll definitely check them out.

Jonah Goldberg, of all people, did a series of articles about the roots of neo-conservatism in National Review Online (I read everything). He does a pretty accurate job of tracing the roots of the modern movement. It's a pretty interesting read, his politics aside.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

17. Should I Really Really Like His Election Fraud Stance?

Am I missing something about his supposed anger at what happened last year? Is he saying that he thinks Kerry might have won the election?

[fujiyama]

20. Hitchens has a strange history

He's always been a contrarian. He hated Clinton (and Hillary as well for that matter) and it seemed almost like a personal deep seeded pathalogical hatred, similar in its virulancy to Scaife or one of the other many RW groups after Clinton. Hitchens has engaged in numerous bizarre conspiracy theories of how Clinton "raped Cathleen Wiley" (and yes he used the word rape).

In '00 he was a die hard Nader supporter, and his strained relationship with the left was already begining to show. At that point it could still be argued that he was a leftist though.

He's loved going after figures that have idolized by the media (he wrote a book attacking Mother Teresa) but has gone after Henry Kissinger as well.

Finally 9/11 happened and he seemed to slip farther. Actually immediately after 9/11 I thought he had some interesting critiques of Islamist extremism though he became extremely critical of the left and started supporting the build up in the war against Iraq. He was also a strong supporter of the Kosova war (there were some interesting debates on "The Nation" between him and Chomsky at that time period).

Hitchens is a very complex character which is why I find him fascinating. At times he makes valid points, but on this war he has completely lost all rational thought. Understandably he sympathizes greatly with the Kurds (so his motives are more sincere than the neo cons), but even then he has joined them at the hip on this one and has defended them on almost evey point (while attacking the left).

Oh and on edit: I have to agree with the others. The alcohol really has effected his brain. He seems like he's in worse shape than he was years ago. In some ways, he reminds me of Dennis Miller, who also certainly has a way with words, and who also completely drank the kool aid after 9/11.

[in_cog_ni_to]

27. He's a Clinton HATER. He turned on Clinton

during the Monica 8 year RW wacko nut job witch hunt. He's ONE of the assholes who became 'famous' because he constantly spewed his crap on Clinton, on a daily basis, like Coulter, Jonah Goldberg, Kellyanne Conrad (Fitzpatrick), Lucianne Goldberg, Laura Ingraham, Victoria Toesing and her husband, Barbara Olsen, ect...ect...ect... He's also a neo-con warmongering drunk who likes to beat up on his girlfriends. Besides that, he's a bastard.