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VIEWS AND VOICES An altogether rotten human being September 2, 2005 | Page 8
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS is more than a pathetic, soused ex-leftist with an almost pathological need to press his lips against the buttocks of American power. He is an altogether rotten human being.
His diseased soul was on clear display in a recent column titled "Cindy Sheehan's Sinister Piffle." After calling Sheehan's vigil in Crawford "dreary sentimental nonsense," he casually--like an infant flinging their poop at the wall--states that Cindy is an anti-Semite who has "David Duke flying to her side."
He then flies off onto a garbled flight of repugnant fancy, imagining himself in Cindy's shoes: "Suppose I had lost a child in this war. Would any of my critics say that this gave me any extra authority? Why, then, should anyone grant them such a privilege?"
We cannot write off Hitchens' attack as just another case of too much scotch. Hitchens is reflecting the hysteria in the pro-war camp that Sheehan may provide a focal point for the antiwar silent majority in the United States. Therefore, slandering a woman who lost her 24-year-old son in a war of their making becomes a question of the utmost urgency, and in the process reveals their collective moral bankruptcy.
As for Hitchens, I for one cannot wait until later this month, when he debates British Member of Parliament George Galloway in New York City. I think Hitch will find that an audience of New Yorkers will be a touch less kind than the D.C. politicos that pat his head, scratch his ears and snicker behind his back, as he wobbles to the next cocktail party on Embassy Row.
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