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Hitchens shows his hand?
Writing in the New York Times last week about John Kerry, Hitchens concludes with:
"He still gives, to me at any rate, the impression of someone who sincerely wishes that this were not a time of war. When critical votes on the question come up, Kerry always looks like a dog being washed. John McCain was not like this, when a president he despised felt it necessary to go into Kosovo. We are looking at a man who would make, or would have made, a perfectly decent peacetime president. "
August 26, 2004 | Permalink
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Comments
At the conclusion of a piece which sneers at everything about Kerry - even his sneering? Are we to be surprised?
Fritz Mondale might ask, though, "Where's the beef?"
Posted by: Aaron at Aug 27, 2004 7:21:48 AM
Aaron,
I agree that the piece is fairly critical, but I wouldn't characterize it as sneering (cp. Hitchens' obit of Reagan).
This passage may not evince much enthusiasm, but it does reflect an effort to give the man his due:
"By being a brave warrior and a prominent antiwarrior, Kerry was profoundly involved in the two largest claims to participation in a ''noble cause'' that the last half-century has offered Americans. He has succeeded in getting two very striking and independent women to marry him, the second of whom, though she sometimes resembles a large-print version of Bianca Jagger, is nonetheless living proof that ketchup is not a vegetable. His service in the Senate, while not describable as stellar, has featured some important moments of gravity and responsibility. He might wince from the compliment, but he deserves to be called un homme sérieux."
Posted by: Paul Craddick at Aug 27, 2004 12:47:55 PM
How could I have missed the absence of shrillness in his comparison of Teresa to a "large print" Biancca Jagger. I've never seen a more relevant or less shrill comparison in my life.
Seriously, what is it that people see in Hitchens? I keep hearing how brilliant it is (presumably at something other than clever put-downs), but the pointers all lead to stuff like this.
Posted by: Aaron at Aug 27, 2004 6:56:57 PM
So is it fair to say that you don't like Hitchens much?!
Posted by: Paul Craddick at Aug 27, 2004 7:32:10 PM
No, more that I simply haven't been impressed to date. The pieces I have seen, and the "debate" appearance linked from Harry's Place, make him seem to be something of an acerbic version of Michael Moore - but angrier and with intellectual pretensions. (Compare, e.g., Moore's latest "Open Letter to George Bush".)
Posted by: Aaron at Aug 28, 2004 7:41:15 AM
Aaron,
This thread may inspire me to pen a "why I like Hitchens" piece. You're not alone in thinking he's overrated, but I think quite well of him. I think that as a scholar he puts Moore to shame, though his manner can be abrasive and offputting.
As I think about it, except for Norm and Harry's Place (and possibly Oliver Kamm), most of the left-leaning bloggers that I link to are negatively impressed with Hitchens. It's interesting - I wonder how much of it has to do with him being something of an "apostate of the Left."
Posted by: Paul Craddick at Aug 28, 2004 6:22:55 PM
I didn't know (probably more correctly, notice) Hitchens before his apparent change of heart - actually, until some time afterward. And I have no problem with people who reconsider their past positions in light of new facts or better logic. So that is quite irrelevant to my position.
I am not impressed with him because his arguments seem focused primarily on what he (and those at Harry's Place) see as "witty put-downs" of what those at Harry's Place deem "stoppers", and his attacks on his opponents tend to be logically weak and factually sloppy, while offering little of substance.
Posted by: Aaron at Aug 29, 2004 6:56:22 AM
Paul, I was going to do a post about this myself, but... I'll just spill it here. You heard it first.
Okay, the thing about Hitchens is -- he murdered Czeslaw Milosz!
Now, I know you might wonder what my evidence consists of. I know you think that it is a wild charge. But listen -- a confession exists, in Hitchens own hand, for those who have eyes to see it. How else to explain this sentence in his recent insane reading of The Captive Mind (a reading that bent it into a meditation on Islamofascism -- which is surely like the the King of Zembla's interpretations of John Slade's poem in Nabokov's Pale Fire):
"Not entirely by chance, I was rereading his classic collection of essays The Captive Mind in the weeks before his death."
Not entirely by chance????!!!! Have the Berkeley cops investigated this statement? The scenario is obvious. A crazed Hitchens breaks into the Milosz household, copy of The Captive Mind in his trembling hands. Nothing to drink in the kitchen, and then -- the old man is hauled out of his study. Protesting in Polish (the safe is behind that portrait of Gombrowicz -- take all the zlotys you want!), the poor guy is stunned when Hitchens threatens to get violent on him -- to, in fact, skewer him polemically -- if he doesn't admit that the book is really about Islamofascism. Milosz, defending his artistic integrity (and the fact that the book was written in 1953), tries to reason with the Brit neo- putting-the-con-in-con-con, but in vain.
So my guess is we will be hearing a lot more about Hitchens in the future, but ... in a courtroom venue. The game is up. My guess is that he will try to get his case to follow Michael Jackson's, on the courtroom docket, so he can capture a margin of that publicity.
Posted by: roger at Sep 1, 2004 8:16:56 AM
Roger,
I'm honored that you broke your scoop at Fragmenta Philosophica!
I'll have Reuters, AP, and the other wire services contact you directly at RWG editorial.
Come to think of it, we may need to put you in the witness protection program.
Posted by: Paul Craddick at Sep 1, 2004 1:24:06 PM