Reply #19: Prism, a good and honest [View All]

assessment of Hitchens. I obviously disagree with his position on the war (and a number of other points), but much of the vindictiveness and bitterness surrounding Hitchens (both that which one finds coming from Hitchens and one finds going towards him) is sad, as when close friends suddenly find themselves unalterably opposed on matters of importance, and the only way they can react is by claiming betrayal or dishonesty. But these kinds of splits and the personal acrimony involved is something that has gone on with the left since the 1930s ( and probably earlier). It is easy to forget that most of the older neo-cons - Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, - started out as anti-Communist socialists. In some ways, it is interesting that many of the older neo-cons were even at once time Trotskyites, as was Hitchens. (wouldn't it be weird if, on some level, Bush was really the dupe of the Fourth International - sorry)
I think Stewart was very well prepared tonight because he knew he was dealing with someone who is, when he wants to be, pretty damn brilliant. Tonight, though, Hitchens did not wish to be, and in a longer interview, Stewart would had the time to have easily dismantled the four seemingly-substantive points Hitchens raised on why the Iraqi invasion was legitimate.