RIP Christopher Hitchens

[envivision]

Shalom, Chaver!

[Dino Velvet]

Just saw a piece on him from 9/10. Very sad seeing him bald hunched over a table. RIP to a complicated man. Even in death he had no use for God.

[Odelay]

It would have been fascinating to see Hitches and William F. Buckley in a discussion.

They were contemporaries and I recall reading in one of the eulogy pieces of some social interaction between the two... some wedding or anniversary or something like that. I'd bet there's a video or audio recording of a conversation somewhere online.

I have a loaned kindle version of his memoirs from the library. 555 pages total, which tells me that whoever acted as his editor was grossly overpaid. I've started it, and will read the first few chapters and then skim over what looks interesting in the rest of it.

[BluegrassCat]

What a bunch of dribble Ben. Let's you and me do a Google search and see how concerned Greenwald was when the Kurds were getting gassed.

Greenwald was in college during the Kurdish gas attacks, what did you expect him to say about it? Let's do a google search and see what you were saying about the JFK assassination.

Anyway, if you think what he says is dribble [sic] you believe we shouldn't be able to discuss any negatives about political figures on their death? I doubt you'll live up to it when Jimmy Carter passes. That's an extreme stance against honesty and the truth.

Hitchens was a brilliant writer and speaker, who, unfortunately got the biggest issue of his life completely wrong. That wrongness does not diminish the brilliance of his other contributions but neither does his brilliance excuse his eventual barbarism.

He will be missed. He burned the candle at both ends, and gave a lovely light.

A great Hitchens quote:

"If (Jerry) Falwell had been given an enema, he could have been buried in a matchbox."

[loveboof]

let us just agree that he was a brilliant commentator, but that a lot of what he produced leaves me unimpressed.

Yes ok.

[onmyknees]

Greenwald was in college during the Kurdish gas attacks, what did you expect him to say about it? Let's do a google search and see what you were saying about the JFK assassination.

Anyway, if you think what he says is dribble [sic] you believe we shouldn't be able to discuss any negatives about political figures on their death? I doubt you'll live up to it when Jimmy Carter passes. That's an extreme stance against honesty and the truth.

Hitchens was a brilliant writer and speaker, who, unfortunately got the biggest issue of his life completely wrong. That wrongness does not diminish the brilliance of his other contributions but neither does his brilliance excuse his eventual barbarism.

He will be missed. He burned the candle at both ends, and gave a lovely light.

A great Hitchens quote:

"If (Jerry) Falwell had been given an enema, he could have been buried in a matchbox."

There you go again....succeeding in shitting up what was a relatively interesting thread with your 9th grade version of liberalism and politics. I like Ben...but I wish he would tell us what he thinks on issues and stop running to Glen Greenwald to see what he thinks. Greenwald is not what I would consider a gifter writer or thinker, but you and Ben appearently disagree, and I found his piece overly one sided. When writing about the death of all those liberal members of Congress who voted for the use of force, will he sing the same tune? Or will he take a different road...one you would take...."Bush Lied to them" lmao

My problem with Greenwald, and many that come from his perspective is
he is utterly predictable, ( as are you) and he condenses the life of a complicated man into one issue.
I could have written that piece for him, or better still Ben could have. Now for the benefit of others, here's a little different take on Hitchens by someone who knew him, and is a counter balance to the Greenwald slam job. The thread was about Hitches...not Greenwald or me. Get it?




I have several recollections of Hitchens, who died yesterday at the age of 62.
The first is when I served in the George W. Bush White House​ and, in the first term, invited Christopher to speak to the White House staff. He spoke very well, of course, but what I most recall are a couple of things that occurred before the speech. The first is standing with him outside of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. He had gone out to smoke, which wasn’t unusual — and he confided to me that he was nervous, which was. The words “Christopher Hitchens” and “nervous” don’t usually belong in the same sentence. He also wore a tie, which he indicated to me he hadn’t done in years — and, he told me, he had gotten his shoes shined before the speech, which he didn’t recall ever having had done.

It wasn’t hard for me to fit the pieces together. Christopher felt it was an honor for him, a British citizen, to speak at the White House. For all his reputation for being a bon vivant, an iconoclast, and a man not known for his devotion to protocol, he was in fact quite moved to be a guest at one of the great symbols of American democracy. It was, I thought, something of a touching moment.
Memory number two is meeting Christopher for drinks at a hotel late one afternoon several years ago. We were joined by Michael Cromartie, now my colleague at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. And among the topics (in this case a topic of my choice) was Malcolm Muggeridge​, who had a formative influence on my Christian pilgrimage. We discussed C.S. Lewis and related topics — and the conversation was fascinating, wide-ranging, and completely free of animus. What struck me was how Hitchens, for all his ferocious contempt for Christianity, was actually respectful in dealing with me and others of my faith.
My third memory is the last time I saw Hitchens, which was at a dinner with him, his brother Peter (they had spoken together at a forum earlier in the day), his wife Carol Blue (who joined us later in the dinner), and a few others. At that point, Christopher had been diagnosed with cancer and knew his days were numbered. The dinner itself was sheer delight. We spoke about American politics, the Scottish author John Buchan​, poetry and much else. Afterward I commented to a friend how impressive Hitchens was, in this sense: there was no sense of impending doom or self-pity. Life was good, he seemed to signal, and life went on. At the conclusion of the evening he did make a point to mention to me how much he appreciated a hand-written note President Bush had sent him after learning of Christopher’s illness. Then there was, at the end, a brief, and at least for me, a poignant farewell. I knew it was unlikely I would ever see him again. And I never did. (I did continue to communicate with him from time to time via e-mail.)
I disagreed with Christopher on many issues, from Henry Kissinger​ and Mother Teresa​ to the state of Israel and Christianity, and I never really understood his hatred for the Lord whom I had come to love. Still, I grew to admire him a great deal, not for his wit and brilliant writing, which are gifts but not virtues; but for his courage. He showed it in his solidarity with Salman Rushdie​, in breaking ranks with those on the Left over the Iraq war, and in how he dealt with his death sentence. In the end, pain which would have broken most of us didn’t break him. And he wrote — oh how he wrote — almost to his final hour.
Death, he said, was our common fate. True enough. But I wish it was a fate he could have avoided for much longer than he did.

[Stavros]

Curious about your notion of scholarship on a different level, Stavros. Would you consider a journalist who has lived and worked in the Middle east for many decades (say Robert Fisk) as less well informed than a professor of Middle eastern studies at a UK university who occasionally visits the region?

I don't think its about being less or more informed, but what is done with the material. It is the difference between being a journalist and an academic, which suggests one is short-term and the other long-term, but there are plenty of academics whose work is shall we say, 'disappointing'.

Fisk is a rare example, I think you will agree, but that is because The Independent allows him to be biased where, for example, the BBC tries to ensure that Jeremy Bowen and Jim Muir are 'objective', and both are outstanding journalists who understand the region. Journalists do a different job from historians and the academics who specialise in the region, so in a way its not a fair comparison, and often scholarship is not part of their brief, unless they write a book and do some reading. But if pressed, yes, I think the study of Amal and the Shi'a by Richard Augustus Norton is superior to what Fisk writes about that community, that Malcolm Yapp's narrative history is superior to Fisk, same with the Americans like William Quandt and Philip Khoury, even Eugene Rogan whose book on the Arabs is pretty good if repetitive in some places. There is a depth of analysis, a range of intellectual tools that journalists don't have and maybe are not expected to use.

We also suffer from the lack of translation of what Arabs think of their own history -I don't believe there has ever been a translation of Sadiq al-Azm's scorching denunciation of Nasser's hubris; there is plenty of interesting material in Hebrew too that hasn't been translated.

A more chilling fact is that when Blair was developing his argument to justify the invasion of Iraq, neither journalists nor academics 'informed' his policy. A small group (Charles Tripp, Toby Dodge and others) went to Downing St to brief Jack Straw for no practical reason. The briefing was sent to the PM's office and either buried under a pile of other unread papers or just tossed in the wastepaper basket. Straw then had the cheek to say some years later that 'we were surprised at the scale of the insurgency in Iraq'; which suggests he listened to the briefings from experts with his ears closed; or the words 'Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs' is just a name on a badge.

[Ben]

Greenwald was in college during the Kurdish gas attacks, what did you expect him to say about it? Let's do a google search and see what you were saying about the JFK assassination.

Anyway, if you think what he says is dribble [sic] you believe we shouldn't be able to discuss any negatives about political figures on their death? I doubt you'll live up to it when Jimmy Carter passes. That's an extreme stance against honesty and the truth.

Hitchens was a brilliant writer and speaker, who, unfortunately got the biggest issue of his life completely wrong. That wrongness does not diminish the brilliance of his other contributions but neither does his brilliance excuse his eventual barbarism.

He will be missed. He burned the candle at both ends, and gave a lovely light.

A great Hitchens quote:

"If (Jerry) Falwell had been given an enema, he could have been buried in a matchbox."

"What a bunch of dribble Ben. Let's you and me do a Google search and see how concerned Greenwald was when the Kurds were getting gassed."

Exactly when the Kurds were getting gassed was March of '88. Greenwald was 21 years of age. (He only started writing and blogging in 2005.)
That's more a question for Reagan (albeit now deceased) and Vice President Bush and George Shultz and Reagan's inner cabinet, as it were. Who supported Hussein after he committed his worst atrocities. (And, too, President Carter. Who gave Hussein the green light to invade Iran and backed him all the way. But we shouldn't focus on our crimes. We should focus on the crimes of others. The thing is: it's very difficult to look in the mirror. Ya know, other countries and leaders commit crimes. But golly gee we don't commit any crimes.
Well, Hitchens pointed that out with respect to our criminal act when we took out the elected President of Chile Salvador Allende. We bombed the presidential palace. Killed the President. Slaughtered upwards of 3,000 people in the process. And installed a military dictatorship. And Hitchens rightly said that Kissinger was and is a war criminal. As was President Nixon. He also called President Clinton a serial rapist. (Greenwald, rightly, said we have been inculcated to think that politicians ARE above the law. I think that's true.)

[BluegrassCat]

There you go again....succeeding in shitting up what was a relatively interesting thread with your 9th grade version of liberalism and politics. I like Ben...but I wish he would tell us what he thinks on issues and stop running to Glen Greenwald to see what he thinks. Greenwald is not what I would consider a gifter writer or thinker, but you and Ben appearently disagree, and I found his piece overly one sided. When writing about the death of all those liberal members of Congress who voted for the use of force, will he sing the same tune? Or will he take a different road...one you would take...."Bush Lied to them" lmao

My problem with Greenwald, and many that come from his perspective is
he is utterly predictable, ( as are you) and he condenses the life of a complicated man into one issue.
I could have written that piece for him, or better still Ben could have. Now for the benefit of others, here's a little different take on Hitchens by someone who knew him, and is a counter balance to the Greenwald slam job. The thread was about Hitches...not Greenwald or me. Get it?

These retorts are hilarious. It doesn't matter how many times you're busted for sidestepping substance to engage in character assassination, you just keep it up. Which of course signals your own lack of substance. Your insults sound like they come from a list that you apply randomly because they don't fit the situation. You get called on your bullshit and you lash out, because you know you don't have a leg to stand on.

So you admit you oppose honest speech and telling the truth about public figures.

You're the one who made this about Greenwald.

Talk about a predictable partisan hack, Ben has already provided links to pieces by people who actually knew the man but you post a bit by someone from the W. administration who met Hitchens a handful of times, didn't know him and had nothing interesting to say about him. Like Thom said, I don't know how you're not embarrassed by your posts.

[Ben]