Christopher Hitchens quote on people against the Iraq War,

[Eric J in MN]

...which he said around the time the statue of Saddam fell:

http://thismodernworld.com/3632

“Their prediction and deepest hope was that the black shirts of the fedayeen were going to win and force a stalemate. Just like they predicted, the Arab street did explode, but with the joy of freedom, which is not the one that they meant, so they are furious and depressed.”

[saltpoint]

1. At that hour things looked differently than they do now, since right now

they look like sheer hell.

Mr. Hitchens evidently overestimated Don Rumsfeld's management of the war and occupation.

[Faygo Kid]

2. Christopher Hitchens: Just this side of William Kristol in accuracy

Why are these idiots even paid for other than their toilet cleaning abilities, at this point?

[WCGreen]

3. Cause he is well spoken....

Even after a whole bottle of Chivas....

[baldguy]

4. And the Iraqis greeted their liberators with flowers.

Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, Chris.

[MrSlayer]

5. Yes, in an entirely staged event, they exploded in the "joy of freedom".

And then went back to making IEDs after the cameras stopped rolling.

[WinkyDink]

6. I despise CH as much as I used to admire him, which was immensely.

Maybe I was "taken" by the studied disheveledness, the accent, the then-iconoclastic opinions.

[UTUSN]

7. I like when he (used to?) take on our enemies:

*********QUOTE********

http://www.salon.com/media/1998/05/28media.html

The Rise and Fall of Paul "Spanker" Johnson

THE RIGHT-WING HISTORIAN'S LONGTIME MISTRESS DEALS HIM THE UNKINDEST WHACK OF ALL.

.... So it was decidedly invigorating to learn, in the dog days of mid-May, that he had been exposed by his mistress of 11 years, the writer Gloria Stewart, as a spankee:

"Paul loved to be spanked and it was a big part of our relationship. I had to tell him he was a very naughty boy." ....

Stewart unmasked Spanker Johnson to the tabloids because she could not bear to read another word of his "family values" tripe in the press. As recently as March, interviewed by Jacob Weisberg for the New York Times Magazine, he had claimed to be an advisor to the late Princess Diana. "Don't commit adultery," he said, was his "chief advice" to the divine one. When various Tory MPs were found in a trouser-free condition not long ago, Johnson predicted the ruin of the state and said that adultery, especially when committed by those who opposed it in public, should be severely punished.

But here's the bizarre thing. Johnson is not just a cult figure wherever two or three spankers are gathered together. He is an adored object of the American Right. Norman Podhoretz loved "Intellectuals." Nixon used to send out Johnson volumes for Christmas. Oliver North was once overcome with admiration at seeing William Casey read a whole Johnson on a plane flight. Dan Quayle kept a copy of Johnson's awful "Modern Times" by him, and employed it as a prop against those who accused him of being no great reader. (When pressed for an exegesis of its content, he announced contentedly that it was "a very good historical book about history.")... ....

*********UNQUOTE*******

[libnnc]

8. Happy Hour's that-a-way, Chris...

You don't want to loose your barstool :eyes:

[Swede]

9. Hitchins is just another gin-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay who Badly Needs a Drink. ...

To quote Mr. Galloway.