Pundits on pundits
Great dissection here of David Brooks' commentary.
Elsewhere, Christopher Hitchens skewers Fahrenheit 9/11. A choice sentence:
It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
One may safely assume that Hitch is commenting here on the film and not on the way in which his own hatred for Saddam and Al Qaeda has led to his inability over the past few years to write anything that might question the motives and legitimacy of the violent, lying thugs that compose the Bush Administration.
Homework assignment: do a database search of Hitchens' writings during the Clinton years to determine how often he was blowing the whistle about Saddam and bin Laden and their respective organizations. I'm not sure what you'd find, but I have my suspicions...
Elsewhere, Christopher Hitchens skewers Fahrenheit 9/11. A choice sentence:
It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
One may safely assume that Hitch is commenting here on the film and not on the way in which his own hatred for Saddam and Al Qaeda has led to his inability over the past few years to write anything that might question the motives and legitimacy of the violent, lying thugs that compose the Bush Administration.
Homework assignment: do a database search of Hitchens' writings during the Clinton years to determine how often he was blowing the whistle about Saddam and bin Laden and their respective organizations. I'm not sure what you'd find, but I have my suspicions...
2 Comments:
I tried to read this yesterday and I just find Hitchens so hard to absorb- he is a bit of a nutter. I won't be looking at the dead soldiers site, sorry! But John, will you be doing any posts on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen?
PS Xolondon is Steve. Shhhhh....
Congratulations, xolondon: first comment! I'll make sure you're officially recognized at this year's first annual Mundane Arcana festival, which will be held in the back of an ice cream truck somewhere in Canada. I still have to work out the details. Anyway...
I don't really find Hitchens' stuff hard to get through; I actually think that on his good days (ie, when he's not writing about the war or terrorism) he can out-write any journalist on the planet. But he's stuck on this One Big Idea about fighting totalitarianism and religious fundamentalism. He's got a bit of an Orwell complex, and, inasmuch as Orwell's politics were inconsistent, perhaps it's justified.
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