Christopher Hitchens taking Hannity to town.

[MadBadger]

Wow, he ripped into Hannity today about Falwell and how he doesnt have anything good to say about Falwell because he was an awful man. Hannity was spinning his wheels as Hitchens delivered the brutal honesty that makes me love this guy sometimes (See Terry Schiavo). Look for this video on Youtube. It is very worthy of taking a look.

[Fenris]

1. I will never understand Hitchens.

It makes no sense to me how someone who is as intelligent as Hitchens can hitch his wagon to causes that completely contradict other held positions. He is vehemently opposed to fundamentalism and religion in general and yet he clings to a war supported by religious lunatics that took out a secular dictator and replaced it with a sectarian civil war. What is sad is that he never notices these inherent contradictions.

[More Than A Feeling]

2. He thinks that Saddam's true nature was not secular.

Something about putting an islamic symbol on the Iraqi flag, and some other stuff. Not enough in my opinion to make it anything other than a secular dictator playing to the prejudices of his (Sunni) constituents.

[Fenris]

4. I believe that's the general opinion.

Saddam paid lip service to Islam to increase his hold on power, and to appeal to other, less secular Islamic governments and populations in an attempt to further his desire to be some sort of Pan-Arab statesman. Hitchens is likely reading it backwards.

[Kagemusha]

5. Ah, hmm, I see. Hitchens sees religious pandering as religious fanaticism

and believes all leaders to be every bit as cynical as he is, and therefore, if they pander to religion it's with the full knowledge that doing so is a real act of support for fanaticism, not faking it, but partaking of it, and therefore marks the leader who does this for regime change for the good of the entire world...

Therefore, Saddam was a religious fanatic.

Except that he wasn't, but to Hitchens, that's not the point, he pandered, so he was one.

[Gregorian]

6. I think Hitchins is logical to a fault.

He's almost mathematical. Brilliant. Highly educated. But your post summed up my experience of him too. I've been confused. But now I see. There is a side to him that is missing. It explains the odd behavior and his sense of choice. At least I think so.

I suffer from having more feelings than logic.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

11. Because it's so INTERESTING and EDGY to be CONTROVERSIAL! Wheee!

The whole concept of "attention whore" is not that difficult, I think.

It's more "fun" to be someone like Hitchens, and defy those molds of "leftist" or "stodgy angry FOX news conservative", since everyone will always be wondering what you will do next, what edgy and controversial thing you will say!

That is, if you don't mind the

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/books/review/Kinsley-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=books

Michael Kinsley on the new book Hitchens is pimping:

The big strategic challenge for a career like this is to remain interesting, and the easiest tactic for doing that is surprise. If they expect you to say X, you say minus X.

Consistency is foolish, as the man said. (Didn’t he?) Under the unwritten and somewhat eccentric rules of American public discourse, a statement that contradicts everything you have ever said before is considered for that reason to be especially sincere, courageous and dependable. At The New Republic in the 1980s, when I was the editor, we used to joke about changing our name to “Even the Liberal New Republic,” because that was how we were referred to whenever we took a conservative position on something, which was often. Then came the day when we took a liberal position on something and we were referred to as “Even the Conservative New Republic.”

As this example illustrates, among writers about politics, the surprise technique usually means starting left and turning right. Trouble is, you do this once and what’s your next party trick?

Christopher Hitchens had seemed to be solving this problem by turning his conversion into an ideological “Dance of the Seven Veils.” Long ago he came out against abortion. Interesting! Then he discovered and made quite a kosher meal of the fact that his mother, deceased, was Jewish, which under Jewish law meant he himself was Jewish. Interesting!! (He was notorious at the time for his anti-Zionist sympathies.) In the 1990s, Hitchens was virulently, and somewhat inexplicably, hostile to President Bill Clinton. Interesting!!! You would have thought that Clinton’s decadence — the thing that bothered other liberals and leftists the most — would have positively appealed to Hitchens. Finally and recently, he became the most (possibly the only) intellectually serious non-neocon supporter of George W. Bush’s Iraq war. Interesting!!!!

Actually it doesn't seem that interesting at all to me. Pretty much all those positions, except the Jewish thing, are right wing.

[WCGreen]

3. People of faith really believe that there is ever lasting life...

So if you can easily believe in everlasting life in a spiritual heaven, why does there has to be a beginning...

[spoony]

7. Lol, so some at DU have not only

found common ground with Fred Phelps in celebrating Falwell's "descent into hell", they've found common ground with that lush Hitchens too. How sweet.

[mark414]

8. even a busted clock is right twice a day

[spoony]

9. I look forward to your threads about what you like about Bush's policies, then.

[mark414]

10. i thought his NASA trip to Mars initiative was a good idea

but that's about it.

it seems a most ridiculous argument though - fred phelps thinks jerry falwell was a scumbag and i do too, so i'm bedfellows with fred phelps? christopher hitchens makes a good point that i might agree with, but he said a couple bad things once so i should never, ever agree with him?

i will do my best to be more ideologically pure and self-righteous next time, you have my most humble apologies.

[Jamastiene]

12. Don't forget the other time a busted clock is right.

Bush signed the "Do Not Call List" into law. Not that it has done that much good, but the concept was agreeable enough and seemed like it might work. Your other example of when something was actually right with Bush would be my other example too, but I'd say the other time would be the "Do Not Call List" deal.

In other words, I basically agree with your point. There are times when Hitchens is agreeable enough. Hitchens' views are all over the place, so anyone who NEVER agrees with him on anything ever is either not paying attention or changing their own views just to not agree with him some of the time. You made a good point there. :thumbsup:

[greenman3610]

13. Hitchens was amazing on CNN as well