Phillip Adams, writing his weekly column in The Australian, rightly takes Christopher Hitchens to task. At least on one level, Hitchens - he who seems to like hearing his own voice when speaking whilst being interviewed - is totally off the rails.
"I have an enduring affection for Christopher Hitchens and great respect for his work. When he wrote a book detailing Henry Kissinger's war crimes, I wanted an autographed copy.
When he dared to confront the mawkish mythology swirling around Mother Teresa, I followed any hip-hips with a hooray. When he reviewed Anthony Powell’s A Dance to The Music of Time for The New York Review of Books, I marvelled at his gift for literary criticism – and few have written better on Thomas Paine or George Orwell.
When it comes to God’s lack of greatness, Hitchens and I speak as one. Ditto on the death of Princess Di, when we seemed to be the only writers on Earth describing the global grief as mass hysterical twaddle. Apart from his talent, that’s the reason I liked Hitch so much. Until Iraq, we seemed to agree on everything.
Then the most contrary of contrarians befriended Paul Wolfowitz and wholeheartedly backed the Bush Administration. Like many of his admirers, I was at first bewildered and then appalled. Now it’s worse. In a recent essay Hitch refused to budge on the war – one of the greatest f..k-ups in human history. And among his principal justifications for the invasion? Saddam’s mass graves."
Read on here.
"I have an enduring affection for Christopher Hitchens and great respect for his work. When he wrote a book detailing Henry Kissinger's war crimes, I wanted an autographed copy.
When he dared to confront the mawkish mythology swirling around Mother Teresa, I followed any hip-hips with a hooray. When he reviewed Anthony Powell’s A Dance to The Music of Time for The New York Review of Books, I marvelled at his gift for literary criticism – and few have written better on Thomas Paine or George Orwell.
When it comes to God’s lack of greatness, Hitchens and I speak as one. Ditto on the death of Princess Di, when we seemed to be the only writers on Earth describing the global grief as mass hysterical twaddle. Apart from his talent, that’s the reason I liked Hitch so much. Until Iraq, we seemed to agree on everything.
Then the most contrary of contrarians befriended Paul Wolfowitz and wholeheartedly backed the Bush Administration. Like many of his admirers, I was at first bewildered and then appalled. Now it’s worse. In a recent essay Hitch refused to budge on the war – one of the greatest f..k-ups in human history. And among his principal justifications for the invasion? Saddam’s mass graves."
Read on here.
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