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. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)
*snip*
This flabbergasting process, made up of glibness and ruthlessness in equal proportions, rolls on unstoppably with a phalanx of reporters and men of the cloth as its accomplices. Look at the accepted choice of words for the ravings of Jeremiah Wright: controversial, incendiary, inflammatory. These are adjectives that might have been—and were—applied to many eloquent speakers of the early civil rights movement. (In the Washington Post, for Good Friday last, the liberal Catholic apologist E.J. Dionne lamely attempted to stretch this very comparison.) But is it “inflammatory” to say that AIDS and drugs are wrecking the black community because the white power structure wishes it? No. Nor is it “controversial.” It is wicked and stupid and false to say such a thing. And it not unimportantly negates everything that Obama says he stands for by way of advocating dignity and responsibility over the sick cults of paranoia and victimhood.
Its a great read and well worth your time. Read the whole thing.
Jamie posted this at 5:17 PM EDT on Monday, March 24th, 2008 as Hitch-slapped!
Amusing lunch between Hitch and Edward Luce at the Bombay Club:
Then Hitchens says that he and [Bill] Clinton had shared a girlfriend at Oxford. I was startled. Was this sequential or simultaneous, I ask? “No, no, no, not at the same time or in the same room,” says Hitchens, laughing. “And I won’t say who she is,” he continues. “She wouldn’t really mind now. But she managed to survive talking to a lot of hacks in the 1992 US presidential election and they all respected her request for anonymity — she’s now a very well-known figure in radical, lesbian, feminist studies in Britain.”
After dating both Hitchens and Slick Willy, I can see how one would swear off men.
Hubbard posted this at 2:20 PM EST on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 as Hitch-slapped!
Purportedly unaware that her license was still suspended, a result of being found with a whiff of alcohol on her breath, she also discovers that the majesty of the law will not give her a break. Evidently as bewildered and aimless as she ever was, she is arbitrarily condemned to prison, released on an equally slight pretext and—here comes the beautiful bit—subjected to a cat-and-mouse routine that sends her back again. At this point, she cries aloud for her mother and exclaims that it “isn’t right.” And then the real pelting begins. In Toronto, where I happened to be on the relevant day, the Sun filled its whole front page with a photograph of her tear-swollen face, under the stern headline “CRYBABY.” I didn’t at all want to see this, but what choice did I have? It was typical of a universal, inescapable coverage. Not content with seeing her undressed and variously penetrated, it seems to be assumed that we need to watch her being punished and humiliated as well. The supposedly “broad-minded” culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse.
I cannot imagine what it might be like, while awaiting a prison sentence for a tiny infraction, to see dumb-ass TV-addicted crowds howling with easy, complicit laughter as Sarah Silverman (a culpably unfunny person) describes your cell bars being painted to look like penises and jokes heavily about your teeth being at risk because you might gnaw on them. And this on prime time, and unrebuked. Lynching parties used to be fiestas, as we have no right to forget, and the ugly coincidence of sexual nastiness—obscenity is the right name for it—and vengefulness is what seems to lend the savor to the Saturnalia. There must be more than one “gossip” writer who has already rehearsed for the day that Paris Hilton takes a despairing overdose. And what a glorious day of wall-to-wall coverage that will be!
I would agree with Hitchens if Miss Hilton had something redeemable about her; she lacks even this. She has courted publicity shamelessly, and her every action reeks of a sense of self-entitlement. I’m less than fond of populism, but for the widespread loathing of Paris Hilton is a sign that people can still spot scum when they see it.
Still, I wonder if prison will help her grow up; it certainly changed Charles Colson for the better. As Eric Hoffer once noted: “Passionate sinning has not infrequently been an apprenticeship to sainthood. Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.”
Two things to note: 1) Hannity is once again outclassed. Its not often you see him flustered and striving to find words. I love it. 2) Does Hitch only own one suit? Every time you see him he’s in that white suit with a blue shirt.
Fellow scotch enthusiast and all around irascible jerk Christopher Hitchens managed to say just what I had been thinking about the late Reverend Dr. Jerry Falwell. As a bonus he makes the ever more insufferable Sean Hannity look like an idiot for chastising him for saying what he was brought on the air to say. Since Sean is clearly outclassed, and has no way to actually refute the points Hitch is making, he resorts to calling him “mean”. I remember when that debating tactic used to work, I think if was 2nd grade, “You’re a mean poopie head.” Way to go Sean.
Jamie posted this at 12:09 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 as Hitch-slapped!