Christopher Hitchens commenting in the Atlantic on Arthur Schlesinger’s memoirs:
Inded, Schlesinger’s good manners are almost masochistic. Of Vidal, he writes, “At least he knows me, which in a way legitimizes his right to attack me.” Self-deprecation could do no more; still, one might ask for a little more gin in the martini.
Alice Roosevelt once quipped to an unattached young woman at a dinner party, “If you don’t have anything good to say about anyone here, come sit by me.” That said, given the compulsive Hitchensian habit of poisoning every well that he jumps into, even Alice Roosevelt would read Hitch’s Schlesinger diss to as misery craving company, and feeling slightly uncomfortable in its absence.
Bombadil
That appears to be the cause of most of Mr. Hitchens’ problems.
horatius
Clearly, the fool is too drunk to make sense.
Punchy
Honestly, I read this as “who? said what where? about whom’s whats?
I guess until they make a Fantasy Politics league, I just have no incentive to actually pay attention to who these people are and/or what they do.
Jay
But Jesus still loves him.
Don McArthur
That was a Dorothy Parker quote, of course.
jcricket
Hitch is like Sully. He has a persona to keep perpetuating. His persona is the angry drunk British guy who makes too many literary references.
Sully is the overly wordy philosophizer who “delights” in being “unconventional”.
Neither are worth listening to for more than a minute or two.
Svensker
Sniped by Bombadil!
Chris
God, Hitch (and Sully, for that matter), were my old neighbors in DC.
I used to see Hitchens looking like he didn’t need anymore gin in his martini in the morning waiting for a ride to some CSPAN phone-in hell.
There needs to be a new catch-phrase equivilent to “jump the shark” about idealologues like this old self-described “trotskyite” who flip out in their desperation to live in times as important as Orwell’s.
Sullivan, of course, just has the usual vaginaphobia combined with a hairy daddy complex. Intellectually vacant poser.
jcricket
Don’t forget his racism.
His blind spots are really enormous (anti-Clintonism, black people/IQ and being anti-universal healthcare), and he displays little ability to actually change his views in ways that matter.
His belated mea culpa about the Iraq war is still accompanied by support for his “fifth column” statements. Someone who claims to be as smart as Sully does, but who cannot recognize he is part of pushing the climate of fear the GOP is selling, does not deserve to be listened to. Maybe I could give him a pass in 2003, but not in 2007.
grumpy realist
“You’re a drink-soaked Trotskyite popinjay”–George Galloway
There’s no one like the Brits for the mot juste.
trishb
Will Hitchens begin to make sense when I’m as drunk as he is?
I’m finding it odd that I’m stuck in an airport hotel and there’s still no logic to be found in his rantings.
ATS
The heady, elegant days of Oscar Wilde and Saki are definitely over.
The American tolerance, even reverence, for British parvenus is baffling. Hitchens is but part of a long line of snippy imports who make their living teaching us the fine art of decadence. I see at least three of them dragging their feet through Georgetown daily, tracking invitations to cocktail parties where they hold forth as wits, wags and worse.
One particularly disheveled one named Timothy made his living as part of George Will’s archival retinue, exuming obscure historical tidbits for spicing up the columns. It was said that Timothy would actually study up on the niche knowledge of party guests in order to wow blank-faced DC lawyers. The topics could range from Snow Leopards to Young Hegelians.
But Timothy would seldom remember to zip up his pants without leaving a shirt tail snagged. That’s Hitchens all over, except Timothy was mild and good-natured.