R.I.G.O.P

Obit For A Former Contrarian: A friend and protege tries to make sense of what's happened to Christopher Hitchens (Dennis Perrin, 7/9/03, City Pages)

And thus the table was set for the final course, which came on 9/11/01. Osama bin Laden provided Christopher the carnage-strewn opening he was waiting for, and soon after the Towers fell and the Pentagon's fires were put out, Hitch went off like he's never gone off before. Everybody to his left was a terrorist stooge. America was no longer an imperialist power. George W. Bush was a Noble Warrior for Enlightenment Values. From the wreckage of 9/11 came a new American Dawn, and Hitch soaked in its rays.

At first I was flabbergasted by the venom Hitch directed at people like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn (though, curiously enough, not at his old friend Edward Said, who didn't join Christopher's Liberation Squad). Then, after reading his arguments for smashing the Taliban and their al Qaeda "guests" in Afghanistan, along with Ahmed Rashid's fine book Taliban, I eventually came out in favor of the U.S. hitting those who backed the 9/11 attacks, if only to scatter them and knock them off balance.

When I explained my hesitant conversion to Hitch over the phone, he seemed delighted, and told a mutual friend that I was moving to "the right side."

Hmmm.

It's true I was pissed about the attacks on New York, my adopted hometown. And it's true that I took (and take) al Qaeda seriously and support undermining if not destroying them through international cooperation and effort. But I'm not a supporter of Bush's regime by any stretch, and was adamantly against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, knowing full well that plans for that attack predated 9/11 and had nothing to do with "liberation" or democracy, much less self-defense. Whatever goodwill the U.S. garnered after al Qaeda's hit was squandered by the administration's lust for expansionist war on its narrow terms. Can't support that.

The other difference is that, unlike Christopher, I do not revel in blasting apart strangers. There was a mean streak in me during the Afghan campaign where I did make light of Taliban and al Qaeda dead. But inside I knew that plenty more noncombatants were getting butchered, which bothered me. Plus I wasn't as gung-ho or dismissive about torturing prisoners at Guantanamo as were many of the war's supporters. Hitch has written about weapons that "shame us" and shown some concern for those chopped up by the U.S. Yet, more often than not, he's celebrated Bush's military attacks, and is critical when he thinks Bush isn't ruthless enough.

D.C. has finally gotten to him. That must be the main explanation. Yes, there are other factors to consider, but the D.C. Beast frames and distorts the thinking. Few on the Beltway's A List fret about crushing other countries. They enjoy it. They like the view from atop the growing pile of bodies. Always have. You can't live among these types for 20-plus years without some of their madness infecting your brain. And I'm afraid this madness, and the verbiage that covers it, is becoming more evident in Christopher.

I can barely read him anymore. His pieces in the Brit tabloid The Mirror and in Slate are a mishmash of imperial justifications and plain bombast; the old elegant style is dead. His TV appearances show a smug, nasty scold with little tolerance for those who disagree with him. He looks more and more like a Ralph Steadman sketch.

Mr. Hitchens isn't actually dead, so an obit seems a tad premature. Like most even just mildly sensible folks he's grown conservative with age and like any number of sincere but over-intelligent Marxist/Socialists before him--from Whittaker Chambers to George Orwell to Irving Kristol--his transition has been all the more spectacular because of the length of the turf covered and has been met with more hysteria than usual because those left behind feel betrayed. One interesting thing about at least Chambers, Orwell, and Hitchens--I don't know about Kristol--is that each did in fact become a "snitch". Suffice it to say, this is what happens when you leave a criminal enterprise and go straight. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 8, 2003 9:42 PM