Hitchens, gossip columnist of genius
The famed atheist and Vanity Fair writer was more concerned with self-promotion than actual ideas
By Michael Lind
Salon.com
“In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath,” Samuel Johnson remarked. Even so, claims that the world has lost a major thinker and great writer in the late Christopher Hitchens go beyond the mild flattery that is appropriate in obituaries and call for correction. The rule de mortuis nil nisi bonum does not apply to those who take part in public life or public debate; their deaths provide the most appropriate occasions to evaluate their significance and their legacies.
My assessment of Christopher Hitchens is not colored by any personal conflict with him. On the contrary, my few interactions with Hitchens were friendly. In 1995 he wrote a favorable review of my first book, “The Next American Nation,” in the New York Times Book Review, and thereafter invited me to drinks at a Washington bar several times. Some claim that he was a fascinating conversationalist, but as I recall he showed no interest in ideas and preferred to peddle gossip about politicians and journalists and authors, until I found opportunities to excuse myself. Gossip, like alcohol, is safely consumed only in small quantities.
He invited me to a dinner at his Washington apartment, where he introduced me to his friend Sidney Blumenthal, the journalist who had become an aide in the Clinton White House. Blumenthal and I discovered that Hitchens was remarkably ignorant of American history for someone who earned money writing about American politics. We spent much of the evening explaining the differences between Whigs and Jacksonians to the British expatriate, and I was not surprised that reviewers found his later book on Tom Paine to be riddled with mistakes. That particular evening ended with Hitchens cornering me at the door on the way out with a boozy harangue about how he was going to come to the defense of David Irving, a right-wing British author who had been denounced as a Holocaust denier. I was grateful to escape.
When, soon afterward, as part of his self-publicizing campaign to save America from Bill Clinton during the impeachment crisis, Hitchens collaborated with Ken Starr and the Republicans in an effort to destroy his former friend Sid Blumenthal, I ceased to hear from him, perhaps because he correctly assumed that I thought his actions were deplorable. The last time I saw him was in New York about a decade ago. We were together on a panel at the New School and he muttered comments in order to attract attention to himself whenever another panelist was speaking.
(More here.)
By Michael Lind
Salon.com
“In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath,” Samuel Johnson remarked. Even so, claims that the world has lost a major thinker and great writer in the late Christopher Hitchens go beyond the mild flattery that is appropriate in obituaries and call for correction. The rule de mortuis nil nisi bonum does not apply to those who take part in public life or public debate; their deaths provide the most appropriate occasions to evaluate their significance and their legacies.
My assessment of Christopher Hitchens is not colored by any personal conflict with him. On the contrary, my few interactions with Hitchens were friendly. In 1995 he wrote a favorable review of my first book, “The Next American Nation,” in the New York Times Book Review, and thereafter invited me to drinks at a Washington bar several times. Some claim that he was a fascinating conversationalist, but as I recall he showed no interest in ideas and preferred to peddle gossip about politicians and journalists and authors, until I found opportunities to excuse myself. Gossip, like alcohol, is safely consumed only in small quantities.
He invited me to a dinner at his Washington apartment, where he introduced me to his friend Sidney Blumenthal, the journalist who had become an aide in the Clinton White House. Blumenthal and I discovered that Hitchens was remarkably ignorant of American history for someone who earned money writing about American politics. We spent much of the evening explaining the differences between Whigs and Jacksonians to the British expatriate, and I was not surprised that reviewers found his later book on Tom Paine to be riddled with mistakes. That particular evening ended with Hitchens cornering me at the door on the way out with a boozy harangue about how he was going to come to the defense of David Irving, a right-wing British author who had been denounced as a Holocaust denier. I was grateful to escape.
When, soon afterward, as part of his self-publicizing campaign to save America from Bill Clinton during the impeachment crisis, Hitchens collaborated with Ken Starr and the Republicans in an effort to destroy his former friend Sid Blumenthal, I ceased to hear from him, perhaps because he correctly assumed that I thought his actions were deplorable. The last time I saw him was in New York about a decade ago. We were together on a panel at the New School and he muttered comments in order to attract attention to himself whenever another panelist was speaking.
(More here.)
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