Hitchens

Hitchens

by digby

There are so many encomiums to Christopher Hitchens this week-end that I don’t suppose the world needs another post or article on the subject. But I wrote a lot about him over the years and this one little anecdote came back to me as I read about him all week-end. Reminiscing about his first meeting with Ahmad Chalabi in 1998, Hitchens observed:

At our long meeting, Chalabi impressed me for three reasons. The first was that he thought the overthrow of one of the world’s foulest-ever despotisms could be accomplished. I knew enough by then to know that any Iraqi taking this position in public was risking his life and the lives of his family. I did not know Iraq very well but had visited the country several times in peace and war and met numerous Iraqis, and the second thing that impressed me was that, whenever I mentioned any name, Chalabi was able to make an exhaustive comment on him or her. (The third thing that impressed me was his astonishingly extensive knowledge of literary and political arcana, but that’s irrelevant to our purposes here.)

The 25 year exile Chalabi greatly impressed him by bravely saying he thought the world’s only imperial power could overthrow a third world dictator. Plus he knew famous Iraqi people and he dropped lots of political and literary references into the conversation. Imagine that. All those things in one meeting with the Orwell-worshipping, name dropping literary and political snob, Christopher Hitchens. If I were a cynical type, I might just think the world-weary, grim crusader Hitch got himself well and truly conned. (Of course, he was hardly the only one.) I always wondered how often that had happened.

Hitchens was not my cup of tea even before he took his neocon turn after 9/11. When he sanctimoniously jumped into the Lewinsky affair allegedly out of gentlemanly concern that those in power would besmirch a good woman’s name, it reeked of narcissism and phoniness. (And that was confirmed a few short years later when he righteously defended the vilification of Valerie Plame.) Despite the fact that he gored a few oxes that I enjoyed seeing gored, it always made me feel slightly dirty once it was over.

He shut down anyone who disagreed with him as a moron (or a “fascist crackpot“), unable to even see moral complexity much less acknowledge it. And as a fellow non-believer, I can’t say that I feel he did those of us who agreed with him any favors. He fulfilled every stereotype of the dissipated, immoral atheist while giving aid and comfort to the most backward theocrats in America in their imaginary “clash of civilizations.”

Judging by the outpouring of grief I’ve been reading he’ll be greatly missed by his friends and family and that’s certainly a tribute to the affection he inspired among many of the people who knew him. Many also celebrate his writing talent which was impressive and he was nothing if not prolific. But he was an intellectual bully and I think our public life could do with a little bit less of that. I’m awfully tired of listening to angry men spitting out every rude thought that travels through their minds and calling it an act of courage.