I’ll Mark You Down As Unimpressed
The great Hitchens delivers another one of those patented rejoinders, this time to the Obama speech on Wright and race:
It’s been more than a month since I began warning Sen. Barack Obama that he would become answerable for his revolting choice of a family priest. But never mind that; the astonishing thing is that it’s at least 11 months since he himself has known precisely the same thing. “If Barack gets past the primary,” said the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the New York Times in April of last year, “he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.” Pause just for a moment, if only to admire the sheer calculating self-confidence of this. Sen. Obama has long known perfectly well, in other words, that he’d one day have to put some daylight between himself and a bigmouth Farrakhan fan. But he felt he needed his South Side Chicago “base” in the meantime. So he coldly decided to double-cross that bridge when he came to it. And now we are all supposed to marvel at the silky success of the maneuver.
You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily.
Ouch! I’m on the record as being impressed by Obama’s speech (at the very least, he was fairly direct and avoiding the dancing around so common in today’s politics)…but Hitchens has a way, when found on the opposite side of an issue, of making you feel somewhat foolish for your stance. I’m feeling a little bit like…well, like when the character’s head in an old Warner Bros. cartoon fades into a “sucker”…and just for good measure, the Hitch makes it explicit:
To have accepted Obama’s smooth apologetics is to have lowered one’s own pre-existing standards for what might constitute a post-racial or a post-racist future. It is to have put that quite sober and realistic hope, meanwhile, into untrustworthy and unscrupulous hands. And it is to have done this, furthermore, in the service of blind faith. Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come.
Well, I STILL think it was a good speech (he says sheepishly as he shuffles to the back of the room)…
Christopher Hitchens can reliably be counted upon to be wrong concerning just about everything, and this is no exception.
What Obama’s preacher preaches is about as important a criterion in choosing a President as whether or not Al Gore looks good in earth tones. Obama never endorsed Wright’s speeches; there is nothing that Obama has said in his speeches and debates remotely similar to what Wright said; all he did was sit in a church pew. The fact that this non-issue has received so much play is a testament to the fact that those who want to see Obama lose don’t have anything more substantial to throw at him.
Moreover, Obama’s membership in the church was not a ticking time bomb, as Hitchens implies. It could have become an issue or perhaps not (Barack said a dissasociation “might have to happen,” while Hitchens amplifies that to “knowing precisely” that it would be a certainty) — back in April, when the world thought that it would be a race between Hillary and Rudy, you would have had to be awfully prescient to imagine that it would ever get any attention — the idea that Obama had to announce to the world a year ago that his priest said some off the wall things is ludicrous. Almost as silly as David Patterson telling the world on his second day in office about his trips to the Days Inn. (Although if I was as active as the priapic Governor Patterson, I would probably tell the world too).
Hitchens is a buffoon in the model of Ann Coulter, and will say anything which is outrageous. You have to wonder if he actually believes this stuff. The irony of the diehard atheist criticizing Obama for his choice of a church is too much to stomach. Christopher Hitchens is a dyspeptic crank with a drinking problem, and why anybody pays any attention to him is beyond my understanding.
Methinks you doth protest too much…why all the slurs on Hitchens? If you disagree, you disagree…but Hitchens is hardly the first to notice how quickly Obama threw his own grandmother under the train in a silly attempt to justify the radical posturing of his pastor.
Peter, I wonder…have you ever read one of Hitchens’ many excellent books (I’ve read almost all of them)? Have you read his literary reviews in the Atlantic? The man is truly brilliant…if you disagree with his polemics, that’s fine, but spare me the ‘drinking problem’ hysterics…I should have such a drinking problem, to be a contributing editor to both Vanity Fair and the Atlantic, the author of over a dozen excellent books, hundreds of essays and reviews, and one of the most quoted political thinkers on the planet…yes, I’m a fan, but I’m not an apologist. He can be wrong at times, but who can’t?
The left hates him because he supported the Iraq War, in complete ignorance of his lifetime of journalism arguing for the cause of human rights…so began the slurs, and they appear to have found a wide audience…
Anyway, to compare Hitchens to Ann Coulter is an outrageous statement that shows that you have very little real knowledge of the career of this great writer…
Examples of his works you might profitably consider:
Blood, Class, and Nostalgia (a history of Britain and America’s ’special relationship’)…Unacknowledged Legislators (a collection of his literary reviews and essays)…Why Orwell Matters (a brilliantly illuminating short work on attempts by both the right and the left to claim the legacy of Orwell, and why they’re both right and wrong)…The Trial of Henry Kissinger (the most devastating ‘bill of indictment’ ever leveled against an American politician for war crimes)…For the Sake of Argument (a collection of his very left-leaning, very long early pieces of journalism, written with a depth and clarity rarely matched anywhere)…
Does this sound like Ann Coulter?…
Correction: That’s Unacknowledged Legislation, not Legislators…
Again, regarding the Ann Coulter comparison, from his Wikipedia profile:
A Coulter-ish buffoon? No sir, not he…
Well, Mark, I concede that sometimes while watching Obama speaking, I’ve almost been taken in by him as well. The best way to overcome that is just to pay attention to what he’s saying than how he’s saying it. I can’t remember where I saw the quote — it may have actually been from this piece — but someone said that Obama’s voice and mannerisms would make him placing an order for a Big Mac and fries sound profound.
As for Hitchens being comparable to Ann Coulter, well a confusion between those two is just about as likely as Hillary Clinton becoming John McCain’s running-mate, or Britney Spears becoming president of the World Bank for that matter.
I’ll agree that Peter’s criticism goes too far, Mark, but being an accomplished writer is not mutually exclusive from being a dyspepsic crank with a drinking problem. Moreover, you’ve got to admit that your praise of the man you call “Hitchens the Great” goes just a tad too far in the other direction. The last time I called someone “the Great,” it was myself, I was 6, and I was wearing my dad’s sportcoat as a cape. Hyperbole can go in two directions (in the other, wouldn’t it more properly be hypobole?).
I also want to “reject and denounce” Peter’s more baseless criticisms of Hitchens, but I would at least like to associate myself with the general thrust. Someone should write a book called “Hitchens is Not Great” detailing all the ways this guy has been consistently wrong for at least the last five years.
If I were you, Mark, I wouldn’t feel sheepish just because a bully knows how to write intemperate things.
Aaron: Regarding Obama ordering a big mac, the same could be said about Hitchens ability to sound profound.
Mark: I wonder how Hitchens feels about being behind Chomsky on a list that votes him #1 intellectual…
What I find most remarkable, after looking at the list, is how sensible it is despite the fact that it was the result of a vote. Where are Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard?
When Hillary Clinton does become John McCain’s running-mate, I expect groveling apologies.
Geez, I had no idea that there are this many Hitchens lovers in the room. Sorry to be the skunk at the garden party.
If I protest too much, it is because I find a nastiness and sanctimony in his writings which not only are pervasive, but which obscure any kernels of truth which may be there. So Obama’s choice of a church is “revolting” (to whom? Obama’s black – it’s a big black church in his home town – wtf?); by not announcing to the world last year that he has a wacky priest, he “coldly decided to double-cross that bridge when he got to it”; in doing so, he “sold out his own grandmother” (he did? how? did he renounce his friendship with Wright? how was it a sell-out?); etc. It’s all bombast without substance.
Hitchens’s lurch from being a Trotskyite is curious, but others have had similar changes in thinking. Hitchens is far from the only one who was wrong on Iraq, but tries to insist that he was right all along. Hey, Churchill had a drinking problem too. The reason I find reading Hitchens to be like hearing fingernails on a blackboard stems from his writings and debates on religion.
I am not a religious person. I think religious dogma is inherently wrong, as dogma is the enemy of free thought. I do not believe in God. (Why did these lightning bolts just strike my monitor? Hmmm.) So I’m comfortable with where Hitchens is coming from. However, I found in his remarks an absolutism and a disdain for all who feel differently which would make the Taliban envious.
If people want to worship Jesus or Mohammed or Bruce Springsteen, that’s their business. (Actually, Clapton is God.) I say: live and let live. However, Hitchens seems to demonstrate a contempt for religion and the religious which is illustrative of his binary view of the world, where he is the only one with access to the Truth and all others are clueless morons. For a former Trotskyite who was consistently and reliably wrong about Iraq, one would expect a little humility from him.
There is nothing positive in his writing that I have seen – it’s all stink bombs thrown at those he dislikes. What is “shocking” is not Obama’s choice of a church; it is that he made a thoughtful speech on an explosive topic, which is so unusual for a Presidential candidate as to shock even Peggy Noonan (who wrote in last Saturday’s Journal: “Go, America, go!” This from a Reagan speech writer!). One might have expected Hitchens to at least acknowledge this contribution, but one would be wrong.
You could say that there are plenty of people on the left who exhibit the same traits. I don’t like them either. Perhaps comparing him to Ann Coulter was going too far, but at least Coulter has the redeeming virtue of having nice legs. I find them equally shrill and equally annoying.
I’d have to spend some time thinking on the best metaphor to use to illustrate this point: the shock angle, whether hyperbole or abusive language or simple condescension, serves to bring attention to the core message in the writings of these intellectuals. Were Hitchens not to employ these techniques he runs the risk of his writings landing on that pile of dry, intellectual stuff that you and I put in the corner to read when we have more time.
The issue I have with Hitchens (and Coulter) is the base mean-spiritedness in the writing.
Well, Peter, I find common ground with you re: Hitchens and religion. He is far too cruel and dismissive (and worse) to believers. However, to say there is nothing positive in his writing, I must stress again, is to show a shallow understanding of his career. Hitchens is far more than a polemicist – he is also a journalist and a critic. And his journalism and critical writings are not only, for the most part, positive, but they show an essential humanity and love of the underdog (and, dare I say, morality) that will be quite unapparent to those who only judge him by his punditry…
And Obama DID, in fact, throw his grandmother under the train – he used her occasional private use of racial slurs to excuse the quite public rantings of his nutjob pastor…I defended Obama from the charge of moral equivalence elsewhere, and I stick by that defense, on the whole – but he did resort to it in places…
Fargus, I call Hitchens “The Great” because, to me, he is so. However, I don’t expect you to agree. I also call Sinatra “The Greater” – and that he is – again, to me. Some people say, I don’t like him. For me, his singing is like oxygen. I can’t imagine life without it. That’s the beautiful thing about taste – it’s our differences that make us human…
A crooked politician is defined as someone who would sell his own grandmother and deliver someone else’s.