This just sucks:
Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.
The world has one less interesting person. He did it his way.
And I am not going to tolerate your ugly corpse-kicking bullshit in this thread. If you have nothing nice to say, just move along. I’ll delete and ban anyone who can’t follow those simple instructions.
Surreal American
This lukewarm agnostic wishes to express his condolences.
cokane
damn, had my disagreements with the man, but he was a great thinker.
Calming Influence
That does suck. He was a true character, spoke his mind and liked his drink. Rest is peace.
Jay
VF’s server is down. Wow.
Mary
He was brilliant and deliriously funny. I disagreed with him of late but will miss him very much. RIP Christopher.
Chuck Butcher
Sorry to see you go Christopher, if nothing else you kept it interesting when you were in it.
nowhereman
RIP. this does suck.
Cain
RIP,
although I will make an observation that perhaps the smoking, the drinking and caffiene (all in display in the photo) serves as a reminder that we should take things in moderation.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Somehow I always wondered if he drank as much as people said he did. It seemed like he held his life together, more or less; he wrote books and kept his job. I’ve never really known any alcoholics, so I don’t know how easy it is to get drunk every day and still get through life. It’s the same reason I kind of discount all the stories of Boehner drinking all the time. How do constant drunks get to be Speaker of the House or prolific writers? Can they really pull it off? I ask this as a guy who could never have more than two beers without falling asleep.
LT
Most honest and I think effective speaker and writer calling religion to the carpet in our time.
RIP. Too damn early.
Cap'n Magic
Hitchens, like Patrice O’Neal, went way too soon.
Jewish Steel
My uncle, who died last month at 64 was a similar kind of fella. His siblings shook their head sadly at his reprobate lifestyle. It was his undoing but it was his choice and he did precisely as he pleased for most of his life. I think there’s a lot to say for that. Even if it means an early exit.
JGabriel
John Cole:
I’ve no desire tho kick Hitchens’ corpse. I had some deep disagreements with his turn towards the neo-con during the Bush years, but he was always an invigorating iconoclast of a writer, and he will be sorely missed.
.
LT
maybe it makes perfect sense to tell people who are talking about smoking and drinking the story of the first stone? And that not everybody has a lot of tolerance for the shit this world can be?
Hill Dweller
While I didn’t always agree with him, he was certainly talented, intelligent, thought-provoking, and great on TV.
Condolences to his loved ones.
MariedeGournay
As I agreed with him less and less, I liked him more and more. Funny that.
Jeff
Just hope for the world’s sake that there’s a smart, eloquent-as-fuck, cheeky bastard ready to take his place. RIP.
CaseyL
Such sad news. He wrote a piece recently, saying his latest therapy was thought to have done some good.
He was acerbic, and witty, and very very intelligent; and courageously held to his beliefs to the very end. I disgreed with many things he said and did, but there is no way I will ever be as erudite and quick-witted as he was.
I will miss his writing very much.
RIP, Christopher.
Kane
If I were assembling a dream debate team, Hitch would be my number one draft pick.
scav
If he did things in moderation, he wouldn’t have been himself. Sin boldly, especially if you don’t believe in it. At least there was a there there, even if you didn’t always agree with it.
dance around in your bones
Well, there was a lot of writing that he did that was great before he got insane on the Iraq thing. I used to love reading him. RIP, Chris.
Plus, my Spousal Unit just died at the exact same age. It’s just too young to die. So my eyes are leaking again.
gaz
Teh cancer sucks.
Frankly, I knew little of the man, other than his politics.
That said, condolences to his friends and family. I hope he found peace in his life before he passed, which he did far too young. It sounds like he didn’t have a lot of time once he was diagnosed. How awful.
If it were a just world, aggressive cancer would be reserved for the most awful people in our midst. =(. It’s taken more than a few family members, and some of my favorite people. Douglas Adams comes to mind. I’d love to live to see medical science finally able to put an end to this. We lose too many good people to this disease.
MikeJ
He may have been wrong, but at least he wasn’t dull.
dollared
RIP Christopher. May you not meet your maker – that would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?
But thank you for all the people you pissed of who deserved it.
Do you think if Charlie Pierce would switch over to hard liquor….??
Name
You have my condolences. RIP, Mr. Hitchens.
LT
@dance around in your bones: Really sorry to hear that. A toast and a kind thought to you and yours is the best I can offer…
Coca leaves & Pearls
Damn, that’s a loss. My condolences to his family and friends.
Whatever everyone’s disagreements with him (and he’d be disappointed if you didn’t have any), he spoke his mind and never left a point un-argued.
Most of all, nobody can say he didn’t live the hell out the life he got, didn’t let time and years go to waste. Good for him, and I’ll raise a glass to him for it.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
dance around in your bones
@LT: muchas gracias. it was very recent, also very sudden, so it keeps hitting/hurting me. but thank you for your kind thoughts.
Nicole
I disagreed with most of what he said, but, oh, how beautifully he said it. I will really miss reading him.
Nicole
@dance around in your bones: I’m so sorry. It is too young, for sure.
xyzxyzxyz
I too disagree with much of what he said…(my wife just called him an egotistical penis), but no one likes to see someone die too soon….penis that he may be.
Mike in NC
Hitch was OK, agree or disagree with him. Raise a toast to his memory.
dance around in your bones
@Nicole: oh hell. thank you. I feel like I just kill threads with my sads, but really – thank you. You guys are great.
thingsbreak
And I am not going to tolerate your ugly corpse-kicking bullshit in this thread. If you have nothing nice to say, just move along. I’ll delete and ban anyone who can’t follow those simple instructions.
I am a daily reader of this blog. I am, despite the neocon anti-Muslim stuff, a big Hitch fan. I think this blog is great, and I think your (JC’s) instincts are more right than wrong, but come on. Isn’t emotionally-driven groupthink what got you in the place you decided you couldn’t live with? If the haters hate, so the f–k what?
Would Hitch want you censoring and banning people? Surely not.
furioso ateo
Damn, that’s a shame.
middlewest
Here he is taking on the Catholic Church with Stephen Fry. Good stuff.
chrome agnomen
he was sure an equal-opportunity offender.
GregB
I always enjoyed people who’d have a spirited debate while mostly sticking to the facts.
Hitch was smart, caustic and very opinionated.
I’ll take him over most of the Erin Burnett style tv stooges of today.
RIP.
Loneoak
Will definitely take a nip of whiskey for him tonight.
CT Voter
Terrific writer.
Annoying as hell.
So comfortable in his skin.
And a genius at making others uncomfortable.
wengler
I had deep disagreement over his policy of preventing tyranny through state terror.
He could turn a phrase, and against the US pundit hack class it wasn’t much of a competition.
LT
@dance around in your bones: Please don’t think that. This place isn’t a vacuum. How could you not say what you said? If there are as many kind words for you and your spouse here as there are for Hitchens – well good and fine.
Mark
I see Hitchens being described as “controversial”. The guy never denied global warming, never blamed an earthquake on Haitians’ supposed savagery or advocated for ‘The Bell Curve’, never quite pined for an authoritarian Chinese-style dictatorship…
whetstone
Hitch pissed me off at Slate, at the same time his lit crit at the Atlantic blew me away. RIP to a hella fine reader. Infuriating as he could be, English is without one of the people who understood it best. Bless him on a beautiful, challenging career.
RossInDetroit
When Hitch wanted to tear into someone or something he never held back. The more I read of him the less I thought of George effing Will.
As a nonbeliever I appreciated the energy he put into analyzing religion as a cultural force rather than a mystical one. I owe him for that.
CT Voter
@Mark: Well, sure.
It’s “controversial” to observe that the earth isn’t flat, even though Republicans claim that it might be.
Dee Loralei
@dance around in your bones: Sorry about your loss too.
and RIP Hitch. You were an original, erudite, iconoclastic and facile. The world needs more great writers.
And yea, the irony of him dying the day we officially leave Iraq, not lost on me.
fourmorewars
Moving along.
Paul
So sad. I just finished reading his last piece for Vanity Fair before I heard the news. I followed him for years, and while I disagreed with him about the invasion of Iraq I understood where he was coming from philosophically and continued to agree with him about most other things.
One of my favorite quotes was in his review of a particularly mawkish Nixon memoir where he said about the man “the unlived life is not worth examining.” I don’t think that will ever be said about Hitchens.
Maude
He wrote so very well.
Violet
RIP, Hitch. One of a kind. I’ll miss his writing and his brilliant mind. Agree with him or not, he was always interesting. Condolences to his family and friends.
Marci Kiser
Agreed. Even in areas where I disagreed with Hitchens (the ‘war on terrah’, etc.), I always respected that he was at least *thinking*. He was never one of the argle bargle crowd, and seemed as willing to engage his critics as he was his own thinking.
That is, even where he was wrong, he was often brilliantly wrong. And when he was right he was succinctly, incisively, uniquely right.
Rest In… oh, who am I kidding. He’d probably be pissed at being described as ‘resting’, like he’s just taking a kip while waiting for Jesus to fire up the Rapturemobile.
You were awesome, Christopher Hitchens. And now you’re gone, and people notice your absence. I think that says enough on its own.
pseudonymous in nc
Adams had a heart attack at the gym. Not quite the same.
Hitch was a fucker, in the British sense of the word, which conveys affection qualified by exasperation. I saw him the once, in 2003, at the time when he called the Dixie Chicks ‘fucking fat slags’, but I wasn’t at that particular event, and only read the stories afterwards.
I think he fucked up post 9/11 and never truly understood what Orwell understood close-hand in Spain, which is that the enemy of your enemy is really not your friend, and is more likely, in fact, to fuck you over than your actual enemy. I think Stefan Collini’s gentle takedown was on the mark. His erudition often felt wide and shallow, rather than narrow and deep. And I don’t know whether he leaves a legacy of his own, in terms of his writing, which was always aimed at the moment, and not for posterity, but I think that he gave to the American journalistic scene a glimmer of how to write and not be fucking dull. Nobody could put together a thousand crafted words like Hitch, and he will be missed.
asiangrrlMN
RIP, Hitch. My condolences to your loved ones.
@dance around in your bones: I’m so sorry for your loss. My deepest condolences. 62 is way too young to go. ::hugs::
KG
Hitch was always one of my favorites. It’s a shame to see him go. If ever there was someone stubborn enough to beat cancer, I’d have figured it was him.
dance around in your bones
@LT: Tashakor. Y’all are so nice. I sometimes feel like I’m harshing the mellow, ya know?
@Dee Loralei: Danke velle. I am so glad I have this place to hang out with like-minded people….I try to turn everybody I know on to Balloon Juice, because it’s just such an awesome place.
dedc79
reading his articles was like playing someone who is better than you at chess. That mix of frustration in the face of greater skill, and pleasure at learning from the challenge.
Laertes
Hitch made the world a more interesting place. I’m gonna miss him.
John Weiss
Awww, hell. I didn’t like many of his opinions much but he was one of the most eloquent, one of the brightest. So sorry to lose him. He was great.
LT
@middlewest: That was amazing.
Eric F
Adios Hitch…you were always interesting, to say the least.
Bill H.
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Yeah, they can. I’ve been sober for almost thirty years now, but was a high functioning drunk for more than 20 years. I once made a machinery installation in a steel plant, $1 million machine, $100K for my installation, a job that took six weeks, and upon visiting the plant a year after I got sober I had no memory of ever having been there before. I was on that job for more than six weeks continuously, and was in a blackout the whole time. The manager of the plant said that he had no clue I was drinking. The installation was flawless.
Hitch looked like one of us. I loved listening to him, and I will miss him.
dance around in your bones
@asiangrrlMN: Oh gawdess, thanks. I still can hardly believe that he’s gone, it’s not quite real. Gack. And once upon a time I would have thought 62 was ANCIENT.
Crusty Dem
FWIW: for everyone making shit about Hitch getting cancer due to his lifestyle, know that the greatest risk factor for esophageal cancer is drinking very hot liquids. So if his consumptions that did him in, it was probably the tea, not the whiskey or smoking.
A fan
O’s L (For Hitch)
I used to dig The Bearded One
with the infinite reputation
but I took Him down to Occam’s once
and that ended the brief flirtation
I think I brooked the way He shook
when Occam left Him bare
but I must confess that I was took
by what there wasn’t there
I tried my best to make it work
as He grew it back soon after
I just never really could rid my mind
of the sound of Occam’s laughter
Big City Mary
I am so saddened by your leaving us, but as I read about your reporting on your treatments at MD Anderson, I just knew I could never fight that hard. Hats off to you and hopefully we will meet again.
Mark
@CT Voter: Yeah, it is only uncontroversial to speak lies to the powerless…
Ruckus
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Not to say Hitchens was or was not one, don’t have a clue, but I have known a few alcoholics over the years. Some could be delightful as long as they maintained a minimal BAC. Sober they could be absolute dicks. Others are complete assholes when drinking, I think some may have used alcohol as an excuse for being an asshole, as that seemed to be their nature. In other words just like everyone else. Now working for them, or living with them is usually just a bitch, no matter their dispositions. In my case I’ve pretty much stopped drinking after working for one. I just don’t want to end up some day, laying on the floor of some crappy bar restroom in a pool of my own vomit. Or having my liver become the equivalent of soiled, soggy toilet paper.
Charlie Dodgson
I remember a reading ten years ago at a bookstore in Harvard Square (the defunct and terribly lamented Wordsworth). As usual, a staffer started off by listing the store’s coming events, including Alan Dershowitz presenting his “Letters to a Young Lawyer”.
Immediately, a voice boomed out from behind, declaring that Dershowitz should be “Shunned, I say! Shunned!” This, of course, was Hitchens, who was there to present his own book in the same series, “Letters to a Young Contrarian”. (No, I’m not making that up.) Dershowitz was, at the time, floating the idea of “torture warrants”, and Hitchens, having only started his turn toward the neoconservative, was very much opposed, as he proceeded to explain at some length.
The poor staffer was left sputtering that hecklers usually stood on the other side of the podium.
A difficult character. The world has need of them.
Kane
The world’s collective IQ takes a serious hit.
pegleghippie
De-lurking for maybe the third time on this blog, this news took me off guard. Like everyone here, I found his late views on foreign policy and Islam short sighted and reactionary, but he could write like no other. “Letter to a Young Contrarian” is one of my favorite books, and taught me what effective activism looked like. His book on George Orwell (“Why Orwell Matters”) is a fantastic introduction to Orwell’s ideas and works. Both are highly recommended.
Fluke bucket
So it goes……….
freelancer
I’m going to miss his scalpel of a wit. Also, I found his very very long debates on youtube very fascinating. Also, the man could write. On the spot off the top of his head. One of my favorite impromptu quotes is somewhere on Youtube, where he’s being interviewed on the street by a couple younger guys and they ask him about priorities and life in general and he explains it thusly (I’m paraphrasing here):
I don’t know if I’ve heard a more brilliant, more pithy summation of the complexity of modern human life. It touched me. And if you feel like hearing somebody take the piss out of the man, this episode of the podcast Comedy Bang Bang had me crying it made me laugh so hard. James Adomian, in character as Hitch, just fucking nails him. Haters will enjoy it. Fans might find a laugh.
And it’s great. I say that as a fan of the man, and one who will miss his voice in the fray quite a bit.
Kimberly
Oddly, this has hit me very hard. Every day I expected this and I always wondered how I would take it.
It was Hitch’s brilliant God Isn’t Great that helped me reject religion for good. After 35 years of religious indoctrination–including altering the articles of faith in my church to conform to my lifelong doubts about God–Hitch set me free and helped me acknowledge fundamental truths about myself. His new Commandments are hung in my house as the rules my family lives by.
Recently he wrote in VF about his fear that he was losing the use of his hand. He said that without the ability to write his life would be over. I’ll miss his unique, unapologetic voice. He remained the contrarian until the end. There aren’t enough people like him in the world.
Thanks Hitch.
RIP
Yutsano
Another voice goes silent. Pacem a tei good sir.
freelancer
@dance around in your bones:
Sympathies. I’m so sorry. If you share, we’ll listen. If you can’t find the words, know that we still care. :)
Vixen Strangely
I consider him one of my examples of how to write. I will miss not hearing how he would opine on any given issue of the day–his writing has left me a kind of “Hitch-vox” in my head, but this is not nearly comparable to reading him again and knowing he’s still there to argue, to debate, to slap down with his arrogant brilliant mind. I will miss his voice.
Crusty Dem
dance around in your bones:
My deepest condolences. 62 is way too young.
rb
RIP. too few public intellectuals have anything like his acuity of mind and allegiance to reason, or even give a damn to try. When he was wrong it was sincere, making the argument worth having (imagine that.) I’ll miss his voice.
Ruckus
@dance around in your bones:
We discussed this before and my last post still of course applies. I am 62 and yes it is too early to go, but as we cross into the 60th decade of living I think many of us start to realize that the boat has sailed many more years than we have left. We don’t sail as well as we used to, not answering the helm as crisply, the speed is down due to the barnacles that can just not be removed, the sails may be tattered and stretched, the paint is worn and faded and occasionally there are water leaks. But damn we still want to sail around the world and win that silver cup, our heart is in it all the way, the body sometimes just fails us.
thymezone
RIP
No one of importance
Though he did things I abhor, he had a wonderful ability épater les Chrétiens, and oesophagal cancer is a truly shitty way for anyone to die.
I won’t say RIP since he was famously an atheist, but not many of us make the mark on the world – for good or ill – that he did.
Comrade Mary
@dance around in your bones: I am so, so sorry. My condolences. I’m glad you have your family around you, especially at this time of the year.
The last article Hitchens wrote for Vanity Fair is here. Very much worth reading.
Beauzeaux
I am so sad. I loved him like a brother. A really special brother. Not without faults but very smart aand very sharp. I am so sad.
gaz
@thingsbreak: interesting point. =)
still, I reserve my classless corpse kicking for those that deserve it. Hitchens said some stuff I really took exception to. But he wrote well. Certainly I’d have rather read him, than Bobo, even at his most inebriated he was a better writer than most of the usual cretins…
And I have a grudging respect for anyone that can so regularly piss me off – as long as they can do it without being a moron. Hitchens excelled at this. Even when he was wrong, he was a cut above the Krauthammers, and a league apart from the Micheal
WienerSavage s of the world.As far as I know, Hitchens never graced the front page of World-O-Crap, and only rarely got taken behind the woodshed at Sadly, No! – that’s an accomplishment for a neo-conservative opiner. Seriously. Gotta give him credit there.
Coca leaves & Pearls
Noone else has mentioned it yet, so I thought I’d bring it up.
When one of your famous American celebrity reverends died (I think it was Falwell) I remember Hitchens on some news show saying that if the good reverend had been given an enema, they could have buried him in a matchbox.
I’m not sure if the line was Hitchens’ originally, but the baser aspects of my personality laughed with him not only for having the stones to say it on TV, but also to say it while all of TVland was feigning sorrow and mourning. Was it Mark Twain who said that though he did not rejoice in other peoples’ deaths, there were many obituaries he read with satisfaction?
eemom
Did not interact much with the man, but I was impressed as hell by:
(1) his undergoing of waterboarding;
(2) his debunking of Mother Theresa;
(3) the essay he wrote about about his cancer diagnosis.
I am also impressed by:
Cole Lays Down The Law.
If you hadn’t’ve, there would have been at least 200 assholic comments by now.
MikeJ
At least he’s with Jesus now.
Xenos
RIP. I loved his writing on Orwell and his evisceration of Mother Theresa. Going after the Queen Mum was a bit much, tho, but hey, somebody needs to take on the plaster saints.
His limited support of the neo-cons stands or falls based on its own justifications. He was honest throughout, and so we can take what we like and need from his work, and disregard the rest. That is, I think, a pretty good panegyric for a professional troublemaker.
fasteddie9318
@Loneoak: That’s a hell of a good idea, and I think I’ll go do the same. RIP Hitchens.
No one of importance
@dance around in your bones:
My condolences. Too young, indeed, and too cruel.
No one of importance
@gaz:
“Douglas Adams comes to mind”
Uh, he died of a heart attack :(
D-boy
I came of age politically by reading the Nation and Hitchen’s column was always something I looked forward to. RIP
Lynn Dee
Andrew Sullivan, yesterday, writing about Hitchens: “He is the greatest advertisement for the existential courage of the atheist I have ever known.”
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/pray-for-hitch.html
freelancer
@Coca leaves & Pearls:
Clarence Darrow.
dance around in your bones
@freelancer:
@Crusty Dem:
@Comrade Mary:
Do you know how much this helps me? I hope so….I mean, really….thank you. A bazillion thankyous.
gaz
@Xenos: Taking on Mother Theresa was a mistake.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1655720,00.html
Mother Teresa was a profoundly charitable, and yet deeply conflicted woman. She was a complicated person, and the simplicity of her outward convictions and beliefs belied a mercurial and rather dark inner struggle.
There was so much more to that woman than met the eye.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@gaz: Have you actually read his book about Mother Theresa?
Bnad
Something nobody has mentioned but I will always remember about him–
he was the only western journalist to have first-hand knowledge of what waterboarding is like, which he volunteered to learn. Which doesn’t make him a hero, just a fair-minded journalist.
I can’t believe there wasn’t even one other journalist who would join him in that.
No one of importance
@Crusty Dem:
Not to mention a lot of other very common foods high in acid:
http://www.everydayhealth.com/esophageal-cancer/esophageal-cancer-prevention-diet.aspx
So all the victim blaming can end now, thx.
dance around in your bones
@No one of importance: Yeah. You just never fucking know….diagnosed and three weeks later dead. Ok, I will stop talking about it now. Gads.
Jess
Loved his book “God is Not Great.” I’ll forgive him for just about anything else he’s ever said or written just for that. I don’t think he was really a NeoCon, just anti-Islam, which makes sense from an anti-religion perspective. Hitch, we’ll miss your outrageous take-no-prisoners rhetoric! RIP.
gaz
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Nope I haven’t. Probably never will.
Hitchens had a profound dislike for Mother Teresa. That’s fine.
But he also called her a fraud. That’s enough for me. I know enough about the woman to call bullshit on that assertion, despite the fact that I know little of hitchens by comparison. I was an occasional reader of his. Not his books though.
No one of importance
@dance around in your bones:
My husband is 61. It’s preying on my mind how he will *probably* live to be 92 like his dad, but he could be taken for just about any reason at any time. And though sometimes (lots of times) I could cheerfully kill him and dances on his corpse for being such a dickhead, I know I couldn’t cope if he dies before me.
Don’t shut up on our accounts, dear. It’s how we deal with grief. Hope you have friends and family to hug you tonight.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@gaz: So then, you’re operating out of deliberate ignorance. Your loss.
gaz
@No one of importance: Shit really?
I could have sworn it was prostate cancer. *blush*
I stand corrected.
dance around in your bones
@No one of importance: I thought the same thing about my husband. His papa lived to be 90+ and I always thought he’d be the same – I joked that I’d be feeding him whipped up eggs from a saucepan like his Mama did, him shuffling around in his bathrobe and me sleeping on a pallet on his bedroom floor like she did.
Didn’t happen that way. So…just be happy for what you get, what you have, what IS. Love that guy/gal cuz you never know when it might end.
Gawd, I sound like such an old fart.
And yes, I now have three VERY active grandbaby boys to keep me busy. I’m friggin’ exhausted.
freelancer
@gaz:
Yeah, inasmuch as there is a moral argument against the cause Mother Teresa, and I believe there is a helluva lot to say there (prayer and pro-life prescriptions are not an effective avenue for helping the abject poor overcome poverty and suffering as well as her idea that suffering cleansed the soul of those who suffered.), she was ovaries deep in her involvement with questionable fundraising in the West, knowing full well the corruption of those that were her benefactors (Keating and other 1 percenters from the S&L scandal.) Just saying.
gaz
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Or I could just name off a bunch of books you have not read, and accuse you of the same thing.
Let me help you understand something.
Christopher Hitchens stated EMPHATICALLY that Mother Teresa was a fraud. I don’t need his book to tell me that.
I also don’t need his book to tell me that he’s wrong about that.
Do you know much about Mother Teresa? Or are you operating out of deliberate ignorance?
Now if you can make the case, that she’s a fraud, I’ll listen.
And if you can count up her good works, and compare them to her sins, and come away feeling as though she was a fraud, I say make your damned case, instead of casting around accusations of ignorance.
Your post amounted to a stupid baseless insult, without a single shred of evidence.
If you’d like to convince someone that they are a moron, a good place to start is by not looking like one yourself.
eemom
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
I agree. IMO, Hitchens made a rather compelling case that she did a lot more harm than good….and that she WAS in fact a fraud, based on who her friends were.
If someone who purports to “know enough about the woman to call bullshit on that assertion” wants to make a reasoned case for “bullshit,” I’d be very interested in listening. But there is frankly nothing more intellectually despicable than someone who “calls bullshit” on something they didn’t even read.
Robert Green
my first job out of college (really during college, but i never went back) was working at the nation as an intern and then a “promotion” to fact checker, where i had the privilege of fact checking hitch and cockburn, a real twofer. the process was: for every statement of fact underlined by the copy editor, you had to find TWO sources who would back it up as being true. Hitchens wrote a column that could pack 150 statements of fact onto one page of the nation. there was no internet to help–it was calling and calling and calling and an old-fashioned rolodex, and if you couldn’t find it the TERRIFYING prospect of going into hitch’s world of some seedy bar at 3 PM to get him to give you his back-up notes or docs. which would lead to a long lecture about your and the world’s shortcomings.
i loved him back then, and when he lost his mind about iraq, i was deeply deeply saddened. it felt like a real betrayal, although his atheism in all its incandescent brilliance and bile was enough to bring me back around.
peace out mr. hitch.
THE
I also loved God is not Great. Though in all honesty, I already knew that God is not great before I read Hitch.
Very sad. A genuine intellectual warrior, even if flawed like all of us.
MoeLarryAndJesus
My very favorite living non-fiction author.
Until today, of course.
And yes, I disagreed with him very much on some topics, but that really doesn’t matter in the end. He left behind a body of work that will be more important as time goes on, not less, just as his hero and mine George Orwell did.
Thank you, Mr. Hitchens.
gaz
@freelancer: Ahh, substance.
nostradumbass could learn a thing or two from you.
I think at the end of the day, Mother Teresa tried to do good, and made a lot of mistakes along the way.
I’m not sure exactly why she did what she did – I don’t think she was either. I think it’s safe to say that she was never in it to get rich. I’m not seeing the fraud angle.
And she spent a good deal of time wrestling with her own mistakes.
She did a lot of good for a lot of people. She did some harm too. But she tried. Every fucking day. Most people here, myself included, can’t say that.
Mistakes? Certainly
Did some harm? Most likely
Did a lot of good – certainly.
Fraud? no.
She may accurately be called some uncharitable things. Fraud simply shouldn’t be one of them.
Mother Teresa was no grifter.
dance around in your bones
@Robert Green: Stellar comment, Mr. Green.
freelancer
BTW: Found the Hitch quote about life and death that I paraphrased above:
I gotta say, I think I got it pretty close from memory, though the holding hands thing was probably Danny Concannon from the last season of The West Wing.
Wrye
I would like to think, that if there *is* a God, s/he is on the receiving end of some very hard and pointy Hitchensian questions right about now. Resting peaceful won’t enter the picture!
dance around in your bones
@freelancer: gosh, i may have to change my nym to ‘try not to do anything ghastly’…
nah. i like my new nym.
Short Bus Bully
I disagreed with about half of what he proposed to believe but I ALWAYS read what he wrote. He was just too good to pass up. I knew that there were only a handful of other writers on the planet who could even carry his jock.
So good that I would read him and my dreams of wanting to write professionally would subside for awhile because I knew that he was out there saying it all so well and so often that the world didn’t really need me muddying up the waters.
I’ll miss the hell out of him.
gaz
@eemom: I call it bullshit because I know the definition of fraud.
What was mother teresa selling?
Fraud simply isn’t a word I’d use to describe her.
If you want to make a moral case against her fine.
I may even be on board with that – not too down with the catholic institution myself.
(and even then, I tend to give a bit of a pass to someone that gets their hands dirty in shittiest parts of our world)
The keating/fundraising thing is pretty weak tea as far as I’m concerned.
I could bash obama by similar associations. He has received gobs of money from very large, malignant institutions. They helped him into office. He’s a fraud now too, right?
Waynski
He was brave beyond belief. No pun whatsoever.
rb
@eemom: Well put in re ‘calling bullshit.’
fordpowers
well put.
Batocchio
Hitchens’ best pieces were superb.
JasonF
Given his views on religion, I’m not sure “Rest in peace” is an appropriate epitaph, so I will instead say that a world in which Hitch is not a part of the political discussion is a poorer world. I will miss seeing him on my TV and reading his writing.
Man, what a shitty day. As a comic book fan, I had to deal with the loss of two great creators (Joe Simon and the far-too-young Eduardo Barreto) and now this? I should have stood in bed.
joeyess
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m gonna miss that wit.
TuiMel
@freelancer:
I sign on to this. My deepest condolences.
luke russert's condoms
I’ll not engage in ‘dirty corpse-kicking’.
Not Mr. Hitchen’s, nor the tens of thousands of Iraq War casualties he helped to send to their deaths for no apparent good reason. (pssst — ‘Mission Accomplished’ this week — didya hear?)
wobbly
I read the news today.
Oh boy.
Citizen_X
@ Charlie Dodgson: Great story. Name someone else who could use words like “Shunned, I say! Shunned!” and actually make them sound intimidating.
Coca leaves & Pearls
@gaz “Do you know much about Mother Teresa? Or are you operating out of deliberate ignorance?”
Also from gaz “I know enough about the woman to call bullshit on that assertion” and “I was an occasional reader of his. Not his books though.” “I also don’t need his book to tell me that he’s wrong about that.”
I’m actually curious, when presented with what you’ve said, quoted, collated and presented in this manner, do you realize what a profoundly moronic argument you have made?
If I may summarize, you contend that though you haven’t read any of Hitchens’ (or anyone elses’) criticisms of Mother Teresa, you have the balls to accuse other people of deliberate ignorance?
Let me ask you, if you didn’t find time for Hitchens’ critiques of her, who did you read that opposed her mission?
Can you name anyone else who has opposed her work whose writing you are conversant with? Or are you just making this bullshit plea for someone to be civil about her because it makes your cross necklace burn and the baby jesus cry?
All your posts are about how you know so much about her, don’t have to read Hitchens because he’s wrong, even though you clearly have no fucking idea what he wrote.
Might I suggest you return to whatever website dedicated to the preservation of institutional boy-fucking you prefer if you’re not prepared to entertain any arguments opposing how amazing the Catholic Church, and all of it’s recognized special super-jesus people are if you can’t provide sources and actual, logically constructed arguments?
Also, thanks to freelancer and joeyess for the citation of the quote to Darrow, and the actual quote I paraphrased above.
Arclite
I read him a week ago, and he was just as sharp and insightful as ever. Moreso, maybe, due to his dire straights. In fact, the fact that he was so coherent led me to think maybe he was coming around. Sadly, I guess not. RIP, Hitch. Your voice will be missed.
tjproudamerican
I disagreed with Christopher Hitchens about huge matters, I believe in God & am happiest at my almost two hour song-filled joyous Catholic Mass, I hated our incursion into Iraq, and I love Ezra Pound….
And I deeply mourn the man who I loved to agree and disagree with, Christopher Hitchens. Since faith is one of those totalizing things, my belief is that Hitchens got a surprise when he died, and he is arguing with God now. But, if I am wrong, I hope my nothingness salutes Hitchens anyway.
I loved Hitchens because he told the truth. Obviously, as he saw it, but he never tried to say, Oh Clinton is doing good things, or oh, the anti-Islam warriors are going too far, or any other accommodation that we so terribly make.
Don’t misunderstand. Christopher Hitchens was not always right. But he argued for a consistent world view and he did so with wit and a palpable love of life.
He was a giant and we need more giants, so imitate Christopher and be honest with what you really feel and not what you think people want you to feel.
Salute, Mr. Hitchens. Ave atque vale.
wetcasements
RIP, Hitch
EconWatcher
This feels like a very personal loss, though i never met the man. I discovered him in 1986, when i was in college, and have been hooked ever since. He got a little lazy in later years (phoning it in with the book on Orwell, for example), and of course he made a ghastly error on Iraq and wouldn’t admit it. But there is nothing more delicious than paging through his collections of essays, beginning with Prepared for the Worst. He could have been a writer for the ages if he had been a little more self-disciplined. But then, as someone above pointed out, he wouldn’t have been Hitchens.
eemom
good heavens Cole. You’ve created a monster. Is there any other thread in the history of this blog that has been so uniformly respectful of ANY person, dead or alive?
You ought to, um, crack the whip more often. Or something.
DougJ
The only reason he became famous is because he was a leftist who hated Clinton and became, effectively, a neocon.
That’s it.
CaliCat
I love that photo. It looks like he’s really enjoying his life to the fullest. CH was an interesting and intense person and very smart indeed. He also showed great courage in facing his disease. That says a lot about a person as well.
RIP Mr. Hitchens.
Samara Morgan
Will i get banned again for this?
who can say.
Samara Morgan
@DougJ: lol!
that is gunna get u a reprimand from the taste police, Mastertroll.
JGabriel
@gaz:
Yes, but the point people are making is that Hitchens’ made the case and you haven’t listened (i.e., read it), so you’re not in a position to “call bullshit” on it.
.
EconWatcher
Dougj: Is something wrong,man? I mean that sincerely, because i’m usually a fan of your stuff. But you’ve been a little off your game lately, and the comment above is a good example. Ever read Hitchens’ essay about discovering as an adult that he was Jewish and his grandmother had hidden it? Or his essay on Victor Serge? How about his articles on Oscar Wilde, Kipling, or Waugh? Any intelligent person who can recognize good writing would know that there was something special and unique about Hitchens, if he read those essays. You are such a person, so it’s obvious you must not have read much of Hitchens, except his recent political stuff, which i’d agree could be very bad. But you’re commenting on something you plainly don’t know much about, and it’s beneath you.
paperbagmarlys
…he became famous is because he was a leftist who hated Clinton…
That is largely true. Before No One Left to Lie To, his first NYT bestseller, he was as famous as, oh, our host is now. People knew him but he struggled to make a living and his talking head gigs were once or twice a year. He was courted at length, financially and otherwise, by Barbara and Ted Olson and David Horowitz, among others. He started collecting serious fees for talking to small, more or less out of view conservative groups which allowed him to pull out debt, buy an apartment, and so on. His autobiography is dodgy about this period and if you take a close look at what he leaves out, you can see that he knew he was, to some extent, working as a mercenary. I think he stepped over some lines with No One Left to Lie To that he just didn’t want public. Sure, Clinton was hated by about half of Hitchens crowd at the time but that book is built on opposition research files. It’s the first book that Hitchens wrote where he was not the primary researcher, and the files he used built a rather dodgy case against the Clintons. Due to a range of law suits, the PB edition of No One Left to Lie To is quite different from the HB that made the NYT list. Hitchens was forced to change many of the key allegations in the book and he did so very quietly. It was a messy time in his career and, doh, it’s completely glossed over in Hitch-22.
That said, much of Hitchens work before No One Left to Lie To and some of his work after, is quite fine. It’s the couple year transition period between Nation star and Vanity Fair star that is most tricky, messier than his full-on neocon after 9/11, IMO. Also, I can forgive a lot for his Falwell obit clip on Hannity’s show: “Give Falwell an enema and you could bury him in a matchbox.” Surely no better line was spoken on Hannity.
JGabriel
@Robert Green:
Which bars? Names, please, so I can go there and drink a glass of wine or down a shot in his memory.
Was this in DC or NYC?
.
sherifffruitfly
RIP, Mr. Hitchens.
Edgar Allahu Akbar Poe
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
My best friend and the most remarkable person I have ever known was a functional alcoholic and also a brilliant thinker and writer. He was in his cups from the time he awakened until he slept and he never slipped at all; he could talk about the most complex topics, the densest literature, whatever he felt like and the only indication that he was drunk was that his face would turn red. Actually, I learned how to tell when he was drunk because he was always drunk. He lived pretty much precisely the life he wanted to live until he died very recently; fuckedly enough, it was two or three months of sobriety that did him in.
Weirdly enough, one of our last conversations was about Hitchens.
Xenos
@DougJ:
Many of us were reading Hitchens for years, if not decades, before his unfortunate positions on Iraq brought him wider attention. As for his hatred of both Clintons, well, he seemed to have them pegged as blue dogs. And he was probably right.
Samara Morgan
@Xenos: meh.
i admired Hitch because he never sold out on atheism and because he personally risked physical danger when he tore down Hizb’ signs in Leb after the Summer War. The guy was wrong sometimes, but the fucker was SINCERE.
i still luff what he said about Palin cockteasing the base.
Cermet
A truly great man who stood by his convictions (so few current people do – that is you democratic pols in congress) even in the face of death (ok, he was a realist but most people expect someone who knows and voices the truth to give ‘in’ near death … gotta luv his sticking to truth over
stupidityI mean religion.)The world is a lesser place, now. At least the stupid rip isn’t needed nor proper.
Thank you John Cole for standing by your beliefs, too.
Samara Morgan
@Cermet: well, hes gone on to the undiscover’d country now.
And…..what are John Coles beliefs anyways?
At least we all knew what Hitch’s beliefs were.
Xenos
@Samara Morgan: Hitchens described himself as a ‘conservative Marxist’ – that made him, I think, the only honest neocon in history.
Uriel
@DougJ:
To be fair, at a minimum he casts an undeniably long and imposing shadow in the atheist community, the Clinton hate aside. His posthumous critiques of Mother Theresa and Falwell were not only intellectually ground breaking, but contrary to the point of being sublimely transgressive. I tend to think he’d be known for those two pieces alone.
But to each his own, I suppose
THE
Vale Christopher.
One with Nature now.
To infinity and beyond.
Beldar
Even when I flat-out disagreed with the man, I could not deny the power of his writing and intellect. I read him every time he had a new article out. Sometimes I would end up yelling… but I always enjoyed the experience. That’s what great writing does, I think; it challenges you, even shakes you up, and leaves you wanting more.
I’ll miss you Hitch, you magnificent bastard.
Cheryl from Maryland
His book reviews for the Atlantic, which used the book itself as a jumping off point for intense discussion, were brilliant. They were the highlight of the magazine for me; I always read them first.
Let’s raise a parting glass of the best cabernet to Mr. Hitchens. Ave atque vale.
eastriver
Well, what a sweet surprise on a Friday morning. To find the model of a man whom JC sees himself as: Christopher Hitchens; a brilliant, contrarian drunk who criss-crossed partisan lines in a blur of bullshit.
Hitch, eh, JC?
Go figure.
Omnes Omnibus
Hitch didn’t have the internal braking mechanism that most of us have. It is usually the result of self-doubt, whether justified or not, but Hitch never had a moment of that. As a result, he was willing to say things that others simply would not say. Sometimes the results were brilliant, sometimes they were appalling, and sometimes they were both. It also led him, I think, toward the most extreme positions on any given issue. Mother Theresa could simply be less than the plaster saint that the popular media made her out to be; she had to be demolished. And so on. Oh, and the drinking too. Infuriating guy; the world is a less interesting place today.
Shawn in ShowMe
@DougJ:
Your contrarian view of Hitch’s career is quite in the spirit of the man.
Thorlac
RIP, Mr. Hitchens. I agreed with about half the things you espoused, but I was always in awe of how well you put your opinions across. You weren’t here to be liked, you were here to be heard. More people should think that way.
Elizabelle
This whole month has been a morning to wake up and have a Scotch.
Today, we could do it for Hitch.
Off to brew some coffee.
PS: Omnes’ interesting comment about Hitch not having an internal brake: maybe not in his writing, or following a stream of thought to where it took him, but the man kept friends for years and was married with a family for years too.
Complicated creature, and more interesting than most. Maybe with more demons too.
nitpicker
I have to wonder what constitutes “corpse-kicking.” Surely the man who said he thought one of the best ways a so-called contrarian journalist should function is to figure out who has become and unassailable icon and then take the piss out of them wouldn’t begrudge a bit of posthumous honesty about his own failings.
Menzies
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
My two cents on this question is that the man who has taught me the most Latin, the man who served as the chief Latin secretary to the Vatican for thirty years, was for most of that time an admitted functioning alcoholic who used to teach class with a bottle of wine or 40s sitting on the desk with him.
He slept four hours a night, watched one hour of TV, and walked to and from class every day. He taught German and Latin since the 1970s. And most of that time he was drunk.
Hitch himself admitted to drinking something like a bottle of wine a day, with possibly a nightcap and something else in there. Perhaps he was exaggerating, but that’s what he did say.
Brilliant writer. I’m not going to say anything else but: Requiescat in pace.
serge
OK, I won’t say anything.
urizon
I do so love an autocrat. Always makes for good dialog.
El Cid
I admired Christopher Hitchens a great deal, earlier in life, and his passing is a sad occasion.
deep cap
The most convincing argument for atheism is reading the news.yahoo.com comments section.
dance around in your bones
@eastriver: You are projecting right across that river, eeeeeest. Better get it checked out, especially if it lasts longer than 4 hours.
Trinity
I respected Hitch deeply though I didn’t always agree.
He will be missed.
MikeBoyScout
For better or worse his candle burned brightly.
I for one found his literary criticism illuminating.
delphi_ote
@DougJ: He was famous for a hell of a lot more than that. The man was willing to get water-boarded in pursuit of the truth for Christ’s sake.
Privatize the Profits! Socialize the Costs!
Probably like many fellow commenters here, I bought and enjoyed his book “God is not Great”, but totally disagreed with his support for the Iraq invasion.
I think history shows that I was right about the Iraq invasion and he was wrong… but knowing him, I’d be surprised if he ever admitted that, either publicly or privately. Hope nobody considers this to be corpse-kicking.
But he certainly was a brilliant, legendary character, wasn’t he?
DougJ
@delphi_ote:
After recommending that others be water-boarded. Sorry, I’m not that impressed.
Svensker
@JGabriel:
He used to go to Cafe Loup in Greenwich Village.
Egilsson
Well DougJ, the thing Hitchens did that really got my attention was when he attacked Mother Theresa – repeatedly.
That was pretty wild.
handsmile
A truly iconoclastic journalist, Christopher Hitchens demonstrated that such description need not be an oxymoron. Hitchens was a very clever writer whose nimble mind allowed him to expound fiercely on a variety of topics. He believed emphatically in whatever he believed in the moment. His flamboyant rhetorical manner was always entertaining.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that on a website renowned for its own iconoclasm and ideological conversion that so many of the tributes here to Hitchens have been so personal and panegyrical.
“Cast a cold eye/On life, on death./Horseman, pass by!”
H.B. Wilson
You are correct- it does suck that Hitch won’t be with us anymore. I will now go dig up the clip of him on youtube discussing Falwell’s death with Anderson Cooper. Quintessential Hitchens.
RIP Chris.
DougJ
@Egilsson:
I think my comment came across meaner than I meant it. The reason he became an Establishment celebrity is his support for the twin Establishment holy wars against Clinton and teh Islamofascism.
I knew of him before that and many of you did as well. But his work on Mother Theresa only made him a dirty hippie, his support for the holy wars washed the dirt away and made him respectable.
Mowgli
So long and thanks for all the Hitch…
Paul Gottlieb
As a political commentator, not so much. But as a reviewer of books he was marvelous: sympathetic, yet sharp-witted and demanding. He loved books and literature and made you love them too
kd bart
In lieu of flowers, Mr. Hitchens requested that you contact Henry Kissinger and tell him to go f### himself.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Elizabelle: I think that the “no brake” personality is one that is also capable of immense love and force loyalty.
wasabi gasp
Seventy two virgins need a drink.
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
Guy was a straight-up awesome fucking writer, which means that he was able to persuade a lot of people to at least entertain some bizarre viewpoints. Thus, he was always interesting — and I mean that only in the best sense.
I already miss reading him.
sb
I remember being so mad at Hitchens that I literally wished for his death. And when he was diagnosed with the same cancer that nearly killed a dear friend of mine, I was ashamed. I still am. Alterman wrote beautifully about him a few months back and I’d encourage my fellow Juicers to look up the column at The Nation.
/heading to work
RIP, Mr. Hitchens.
The Ancient Randonneur
Hitch, even when I disagreed with you you wrote so beautifully I had to read on. I shall lift a pint in your memory tonight.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@dance around in your bones: I’m so sorry for your loss. There really aren’t any words of comfort, but you’re in my thoughts.
rb
The reason he became an Establishment celebrity is his support for the twin Establishment holy wars against Clinton and teh Islamofascism.
There’s some truth to this, but I think it says more about the establishment than him. He certainly never tired of attacking establishment figures and platitudes, with vigor.
Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite (formerly rarely seen poster Fe E)
In a lot of ways I saw Hitchens as I used to see you, John Cole. An irascible and acerbic thinker, somebody from the other end of the spectrum who wasn’t just a mindless spewer conservative platitudes. In other words somebody I could read who would challenge me in good faith–although to be honest I agreed with him on many more topics than I did you (pre-conversion).
He will be missed.
liberal
He was a warmonger.
A particularly incoherent one at that, given that Saddam was (despite any recent shallow pretensions to the contrary) no friend to Islamic extremism.
Sure, he was on the good side of many things (the religion stuff, and IIRC he died a staunch defender of Palestinian rights), but on the singularly important issue of the war, he got it all wrong.
liberal
…adding, I read his column at The Nation decades ago, so it’s not like I was a newcomer to his writings.
And all this stuff about how great his writing was? Give me a break. Good writers are a dime a dozen these days. His advocacy of the war far outweighs the quality of his craft.
Waynski
@Menzies: I have a brother in-law who is a doctor. I asked him once if when he asks a patient how much they drink when the patient is suspected of drinking too much, does he believe the answer? He told me no. He explained that his general rule of thumb was to double or triple the amount offered by the patient to approximate something closer to the truth. So if Hitch admitted to a bottle of wine a day… well. I’ll leave it to you to wonder why I was asking this question.
I loved Hitch and like many others have said on this thread I disagreed with him on many subjects, but he was the closest thing we’ve had to a public intellectual in this country in a very long time. He could think and argue circles around the soberest opponent with a healthy buzz on. And he had brass fucking balls, also too. If what awaited you Hitch was something other than nothingness, please give my regards to the FSM. If not, enjoy the quiet.
Bill Murray
@DougJ: I can’t believe you haven’t been banned yet. In truth, it’s good there is someone to push a little against the hagiography
canuckistani
I will always respect Hitch for standing with Salman Rushdie when he was needed most.
May we all rock so hard in life, and face death so well.
liberal
@gaz:
While I despise him because of his incoherent support for the invasion of Iraq, he was absolutely right on Mother Teresa. The evidence is damning.
liberal
@gaz:
Well, actually, yes. Just not nearly as malignant a fraud as the Republicans.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking as an atheist I can truly say from the bottom of my godmocking heart about Hitchen’s death
“well shit that’s a dummer”
I will miss the guy. Frap, couldn’t he has smoked less? Sigh.
Damned at Random
I always enjoyed his writing and wit, even when I disagreed with him. The man had courage- he hid Salman Rushdie when he needed hiding, he faced his own mortality without shrinking and was gracious to the Jesus botherers who interceded on his behalf. All-in-all, a class act
chopper
well, in terms of his opinions i generally disagreed, and his shit on iraq made my blood boil. i hate it when generally intelligent people get suckered into something so goddamn foolish.
OTOH, his writing was good and his death just reminds me how low in quality so much journalism and punditry is these days. journalists and bloggers and pundits hit the big time for most every reason other than good writing, whether it be the right access to the right people, big money bankrolling or just plain assholism. it’s almost never about good writing.
Booklover
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): In the course of a long, misspent life, I have worked with two full-on alcoholics (at the same company!)… One was the CFO, the other a VP, and they could do it because: a) their staff does most of the actual work, and their only real task is to sign things (which explains Boehner); and b)they get some work done between binges (Hitchens?). Besides, alkies learn to compensate for the booze, and the only outward sign is frequently a stiff, robotic look and slow, overly careful speech patterns.
Billy Beck
As I heard it put elsewhere: “He never truly crossed the river the way David Mamet has.” In the end, he was still of the Left.
Nonetheless, he was my all-time favorite leftist writer. We live in a nerveless time, full of sneering little animals in the dark and afraid of the light. That man stood up on a human spine, and he was all the more spectacular for the time in which he did that.
I maintain that on the day he died, he was the strongest intellect in this country.
Joel
Max Perutz, the famous Austrian biochemist, once said (in response to Richard Dawkins), “even if we do not believe in God, we should try to live as though we did.” I subscribe to that theory, and Hitchens obviously didn’t. I’ll leave it there, only to say that it’s too bad he went out the way he did, and so soon.
Vince CA
De mortius nil nisi bonum. Requiescat in pace.
GrandWazoo
I was able to see him speak a few times at the James Randi Amazing meetings in Las Vegas and he was a really good speaker, very funny and thought provoking. He was a great voice for atheism and skepticism and I will miss reading his columns in those DFH magazines I read like Free Inquiry.
DougJ
@rb:
I agree completely, I didn’t mean it to say something about him. I don’t like him the way many here seem to, but he really believed all that shit about peace and freedom in Iraq, he wasn’t just trying to get ahead.
libarbarian
I don’t think it’s corpse-kicking to say that
Hitchens was one of the best Assholes this world has seen!
And I do mean that as a compliment!
Samara Morgan
@canuckistani: did you know that is why Dawkins has turned into a barking islamophobe? Rushdie got a knighthood for poking Islam in the eye.
Dawkins wants one terribly.
Here is Hitch’s petition for a posthumous knighthood.
knock yourselves out.
dance around in your bones
@Mowgli: Classic, Mowgli ;)
Donald
“The reason he became an Establishment celebrity is his support for the twin Establishment holy wars against Clinton and teh Islamofascism.
There’s some truth to this, but I think it says more about the establishment than him”
Yep. Hitchens was a complicated person, to be as neutral about him as possible, but before 9/11 or possibly the Clinton impeachment days he was mostly despised by the political establishment or at best regarded with amusement. His stock in the MSM started to rise with the Clinton days and he became a giant in their minds when he started attacking his former friends and joined the Serious People in calling for the Iraq invasion.
If he had stayed on as a witty columnist for the NATION and had opposed the Iraq War he would not have a front page obit in the NYT today.
Incidentally, unless I missed it there’s not a word about his former stance on the Palestinians in that NYT obit. Supporting the Palestinians while condemning terrorism and criticism of Israel used to be one of his signature issues. He co-authored a book with Edward Said on the Palestinians and Israel, including a piece by Norman Finkelstein. The mainstream didn’t love him then.
rb
@Joel: even if we do not believe in God, we should try to live as though we did
In fear?
WereBear
@dance around in your bones: My condolences. Bittersweet holidays for you, I imagine. It’s tough any time, of course.
rb
@DougJ: Then we agree.
eemom
@liberal:
And that officially puts to rest whatever feeble claim you might once have had to being something other than an arrogant little know-nothing twerp.
sb
@DougJ: Shorter DougJ: Who gives a shit if you learn from your mistakes?
Seriously, that’s the DougJ oeuvre; wrong once = always wrong. Asshole. But an asshole I love reading so there’s that.
Wee Bey
@liberal:
Spoken like someone who clearly knows nothing about writing.
Makewi
Great writer and interesting guy. He will be missed.
MBunge
“And I am not going to tolerate your ugly corpse-kicking bullshit in this thread.”
I’m not going to dump on the man or his memory, but if there’s every been somebody who would have wanted people to take their best shot at him right now, it would be Hitchens.
Mike
gaz
You know, since the pile on regarding Mother Teresa, (seems a lot of you guys took actual offense to my position that she was NOT a fraud – wow), I’ve read some of the material that Hitchens has written on MT. (There’s an article of his on slate, and various excerpts from his book across the net)
He seems to *almost* singularly focus on this as his source.
http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Teresa-Verdict-Aroup-Chatterjee/dp/8188248002
(somewhat troubling to me, is how he’d unceremoniously cite this source over and over, without providing any direct context in his article. He’d lay out an assertion, point to the source, and offer no other explanation – mostly I’m speaking of his article in slate. Suffice it to say, He must have really have wanted me to read this book (The Final Verdict). So I think I will)
Anyway, I never meant to derail the thread, and I never expected the huge pile on.
If anyone wants to take this to an open thread at a later date, I’ll be happy to. After I’ve read the book. Or maybe after reading Chatterjee, It’ll be moot, and I’ll have to concede that I am demonstrably wrong on this – it wouldn’t be the first time, and I’m not so full of myself that I can’t handle a little evidence proving me to be wrong).
But I’m going to withhold judgement. Hitchens made some interesting arguments (and some pretty weak ones too – the funding thing) but he points to chatterjee – often unceremoniously and without context, so I guess I’ll have to start there)
MBunge
@Wee Bey: “Spoken like someone who clearly knows nothing about writing.”
Before we go to gaga over Hitch’s ability to turn a phrase, let’s remember that advertising executives do it every day and usually far more effectively than he did.
Mike
JR
The first family member of my generation to die had the same cancer Hitch had. My cousin only lasted 3 months! Hitch got the best possible care. My Dad was treated in a clinical study at M D Anderson, his leukemia (CMML) was rare and had a mean survival time of 9 months. He lasted almost 4 years.
I always enjoyed reading Hitch’s stuff, Vanity Fair mostly, often disagreed with him, but that’s life. He wouldn’t be surprised at the news out of The Netherlands, where people are shocked, “Shocked, I tell you!” that there are tens of thousands of cases of child abuse by priests…
No RIP for Hitch, he wouldn’t be interested in any of that. Too boring!
gaz
@Billy Beck:
That’s a pretty bold statement. Just sayin’
(and no, I’m not saying Hitchens wasn’t a wickedly smart man, and a great writer)
mclaren
Dynamite writer, brilliant conversationalist, devastating wit. He went around the bend on Iraq, but everyone’s entitled to one freakout.
Hitchens became an establishment celebrity because he was unviersally knowledgeable about a vast range of topics. I recall listening to him hold forth about Homer on one of the CSPAN-2 book roundtables, and he got even the small details right. Nowadays, when pizza is a vegetable and we found WMDs in Iraq and Ronald Reagan cut taxes on the middle class, getting those details right matters.
gaz
@mclaren: You pizza is a vegetable meme needs an update. That meme is pre OWS.
The proper meme is now: Pepper Spray is a Vegetable.
The overlords have spoken.
Glad to help =)
Retief
Hitchens was frequently wrong, but he could do polemic like nobody’s business.
mclaren
@gaz:
Pepper spray is a food product, I think, is the new meme. But point taken.
Billy Beck
Gaz — I chose that word (“strongest”) very carefully. The man was a powerhouse; the most dynamic intellect in the country at the time of his death. Martin Amis called him “one of the most terrifying rhetoricians the world has seen”, and I think that highlights what I’m talking about. He kept rolling that enormous wheel of his — in a uniquely muscular style — right to the end.
I don’t see anyone like him, anywhere today.
gaz
@mclaren: hah! thanks for the link. lulz
pete
@thingsbreak: I agree. Hitchens sure liked people to say what they really think. And what I will say that is good is, he never shied away from a fight, he never trimmed, and he was willing to say things to people’s faces. Sometimes that became shtick, almost on the level of the Leary/Liddy freakshow, but occasionally it actually moved the discussion forward, whether you agreed with him (I sometimes did) or not (I frequently didn’t, beginning when he was a Trot). I also suspect he drank and smoked so much (he really did) because the world got to him more than he usually let on, and I actually respect that.
Joel
@rb: It was a generous way of advising Dawkins not to be such a raging dickbag.
Trevor Shane
@thingsbreak: I have to agree. Hitch would have kicked his own corpse if he disagreed with it on something.
Please Ban Me
He was a fine stylist, occasionally funny, with a selective allegiance to the truth. Mostly what I remember from his writing is his preening narcissism – every piece, no matter the ostensible subject, was ultimately about how witty and brave Hitchens was. Instead of a substantive discussion of torture and its effect on victims, we are treated to an account of the courageous Hitchens being waterboarded by the American heroes whom he knows will not kill him and will allow him to walk away that day. Instead of real reporting on the political conditions in Lebanon, we are asked to revel in the boldness of Hitchens defacing a Hizbollah poster, when this childish act of rebellion will be repaired the next day and Hitchens will have helicoptered out. And then there is his principled stance advocating for and defending an unjustifiable and disastrous war. In short, he was an egotistical dick.
Joey Giraud
@Retief:
Polemic, sophistry, casuistry, he did em all.
Hitchens debated George Galloway about the runup to war in 04 or so. Hitchens started off with high-brow debate tactics, but was no match for Galloway’s simple but powerful moral clarity. Hitchens pulled out progressively more nasty debate tricks, and in the end I lost all respect for Hitchens’ intellectual honesty.
Skill and ability isn’t as precious as honesty and principle.
Scott Kennedy
Why do all of the most intelligent political thinkers of both parties have to die young?
Steve Gilliard, Molly Ivins, now Hitch?
He WAS right. There is no God.
LT
@Menzies:
You meant gin, right? A bottle of wine a day is nothing. Every other Frenchman does it in his sleep.
Sophia
@Trevor Shane:
Maybe that’s the point? Our refraining from kicking Hitch’s corpse is a moment of silence in honor of his superior corpse kicking skills? I remember him giving a bravura performance after the death of Princess Di. Wish I could find it on youtube. I did find this, which judging by the date may be the program where he said “it’s not like she was Mother Teresa” and then the death of MT was announced a day later.
dance around in your bones
@WereBear: Gosh, of course I didn’t see this til years after you wrote it. I do have grandbabies who are distracting me from my sadness…but, really, one cannot prepare for this kind of thing.
But the BJ community has been so stellar and supportive. I loves you guys ;)
sweaver
I think the greatest thing he did for me (extremely uncomfortable airing my views live and in person) was helping me to realize that the world will not implode if I do so. Thank God for youtube. RIP.
pete
@LT: No, scotch.
Elizabelle
A rare treasure from the WaPost, quoting Hitchens:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/christopher-hitchens-a-vanity-fair-writer-was-a-religious-skeptic-and-acerbic-master-of-the-contrarian-essay/2010/12/17/gIQAtiBHxO_story_1.html
Cambridge Chuck
Christopher Hitchens was Andrew Sullivan’s idea of Andrew Sullivan; alas, Andrew, it never was so.
LT
@pete:
Yeah, that’s right. But “gin” sounds more like “wine” – I was giving the commenter some wiggle room.
And this:
…was what I was getting at earlier. Or: I agree.
Donald
This, I think, is completely fair to Hitchens–it’s by an old leftist friend who still remembers the kindness Hitch showed him while not glossing over what he became.
link
No one of importance
@Joey Giraud:
You must be shitting me. Galloway’s a fucking grifter, and a big fan of Iran’s creepy President, to the point of denying Iran has the death penalty for homosexuals (which would have been a surprise to the 3 men executed in September for being gay).
Galloway is a prick with a big mouth and panders to the lefties while pocketing money from whoever will pay him.
stevestory
goddam i am crying. and took a couple shots. and soon several more. i haven’t cried since jim henson died. fuck this day.
Waterballoon
I like Christopher Hitchens and own many of his books, including the one on the Elgin Marbles. My favorite is “Unacknowledged Legislation.” His review of one of Tom Clancy’s doorstops is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
That being said, he would be horrified to hear that a blog owner was disallowing critical posts about him just because he died yesterday. That kind of attitude goes against everything he believed in.
gaz
@Joey Giraud:
Whenever someone mentions the phrase “moral clarity” I double check to make sure my wallet is still in my pocket.
“Moral Clarity”. Heh. Rarely do we ever get the opportunity to see so much stupidity, cheap judgement, intellectual dishonesty, and pompous delusional asshattery packed into one little phrase. The English language is incredible.
Morals are subjective. Moral Clarity just means you agree with the guy. Clearly, you don’t give a flying fuck about anything other than that.
If there’s definitive evidence against “intelligent design” – you’re it.
luke russert's condoms
“Gaz:
@Joey Giraud
Galloway’s simple but powerful moral clarity.
Whenever someone mentions the phrase “moral clarity” I double check to make sure my wallet is still in my pocket.”
Oh, sure, me too….but the fact is that Galloway beat Hitchens like a rented mule in that debate, owing to the fact that Hitchens was there to support an illogical, unsupportable, illegal act of aggression, and Galloway had the, yes, simple moral clarity (gasp!) to oppose the unleashing of death and violence when there was no grounds to do so.
From what I recall Hitchens stood there blank-eyed as if jonesing for a smoke for the last minutes of the debate while Galloway handily circled the table (I recall his calling Hitchens a ‘poppinjay’ in comment on his removed support for young lads going off to fight and die).
There was something in Hitchens’ writing that reflected the suthors’ belief that it was more outrageous and elegantly witty than it actually was. The closest he ever got to the Wildean repartee that he aspired to was his comment on Falwell’s passing: ‘If they gave him an enema he could’ve been buried in a matchbox’. Yeah, that was good, if a little too worked-over.
Anyhoo, if Galloway’s view had prevailed rather than Hitchens’, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and nearly 5000 Americans might be walking around alive today. Just sayin’.
Kool Earl
Hitchens- Rot In Puke, Trotskyist turned neo-con scumbag
paperbagmarlys
Dennis Perrin’s piece is nice and quite fair. Thanks for that.
In a similar vein, though less personal and more critical, there’s this pre-obit by Jeremy Harding in the LRB:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n07/jeremy-harding/diary
Harding references John Barrell’s devastating review of HItchen’s lame Thomas Paine bio. It’s worth a read:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n23/john-barrell/the-positions-he-takes
I’m okay with fawning obits of Hitchens and I’m even sympathetic to negative posts in this thread getting canned. We can be respectful, even kind to him here, because history will not be.
(another) Josh
I’m not sure Chatterjee, who hates Hitchens, is Hitchens’s sole source by any means. But he’ll clarify to you, gaz, the “fraudulence” accusation: evidently it’s really hard to find evidence that MT ran as many hospices and orphanages, serving as many people, as her organization claimed to. Criticisms of MT on the birth control thing, the right-wing dictator thing, or the sanctity of pain thing don’t exactly suggest fraudulence to me. Maybe hypocrisy, especially the last – her forbidding analgesics stronger than aspirin and generally pushing ascetic conditions on patients while getting the costliest medical treatment in the world herself bothered a lot of people.
Danny
My condolences to Hitchens friends and family. In his recent professional life, he had sadly become a whore for the forces of intolerance.
Sorry John, that’s the best I could do.
Samara Morgan
is it corpse kicking to say that every pic i’ve ever seen of Hitchens has him smoking a cig?
Talk about choosing your destiny.
Inutaisho
Painful way to go, but he lived the way he died- as he wanted to. Cigs and alcohol, sure, but he did what he wanted with his life, and was fortunate enough to be born and live in the world where he could do this. Not everyone has this luxury.
Did I like him, no. Admire him, no. I found him intolerant of others while expecting that same tolerance. No can do because that smacks of inconsistency and hypocrisy, and that’s when I even agreed with his views.
Is the world less interesting? No.
His followers will miss him, but there will soon be another to take his place in the world of media and wanting to influence others en masse. There always will be.
dance around in your bones
@Samara Morgan: Honey, fucking grow up.
Redleg
The only knock I will share about Hitchens is that he’s drinking Johnny Walker Red Label instead of Black or Green.
I did appreciate his passion, humor, and insight even when I didn’t agree with him.
KoolEarl
Somebody please make sure to post where he gets buried so that I may one day urinate on his grave
Samara Morgan
@dance around in your bones: WTF?
you do not see a connection between esophageal cancer and a lifetime of smokin’ cigs?
metalgirl
@dance around in your bones: So sorry for your loss. I lost my husband a little over 5 years ago, unexpectantly, and it does get better and different, but never back to what was normal. I’ve had steeper hills and valleys and I cry about things that never would have touched my emotions before. But my boys are better now (were 12 and 15 when he died — they had more issues than I did). I strongly encourage you to see if your local hospice has a program for people who have lost a spouse or care-giver. We went through a program in 2007 that was really great for my boys and me. Good luck!
Darnell From LA
Hitch would have loved knowing that Kim Jong-Il didn’t last more than a few days longer than him.
Love you, Hitch. RIP.
Paul in KY
I did not agree with his writings on the Iraq War. That is all.
John Mikes
I’m glad the pro-war bag of shit is a corpse. I think of the 4500+ Americans who died and an unknown number (to me) that were maimed (physically and mentally) in Hitchen’s and Cole’s fun little hobby war, and I join those who wish to shit on his grave.
Fuck you, Cole, you censorious asshole.