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Entry: Hitchens Unhinged Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/hitchens_unhinged_part_i#6579 Post contents: The Empire finds Christopher Hitchens a serviceable dance man and so is happy to allow him as many public vomits as he wants; but does anyone take the man seriously? Has anyone ever? Giddier readers at the Nation once tried I suppose, even giddier anchormen might actually have succeeded, and doubtless more than one librarian has decided Hitch's Biblical exegesis is as briskly no-nonsense as hers, but… Oh wait. I forgot the New York Post's Page Six, which yesterday featured Hitch's fondness for having his pubes shaved regularly, and I guess you have to include the philosophers who read Vanity Fair, and well, of course, short of Andy Sullivan, the most enthusiastic admirers of all if, shall we say, least reflective, are surely the Podhoretz wing of the neocon world, the NeoPods as it were. Doubtless they'll love the piece Hitchens just wrote about some poor kid silly enough to take the prose so seriously he joined the Army because of it, and thus arguably got blown up and killed because of it too; but Hitch wants you to know he can't but admire the guy for his admiration and thinks you should admire the dead kid for that too. Hitch also hopes you'll understand how moved he was helping the family scatter the boy's ashes into that oblivion Hitch insists was his end, but at least an end that, because he read Christopher Hitchens, he went out and fought for. [continued below] Problem is, with apologies to dogs for the comparison, long has the world cautioned against lying with them if you expect to avoid fleas. Surely it is no exaggeration to say that David Horowitz, like Hitchens, is a NeoPod par excellance, and that Richard Poe has long, publicly, been a Podhead; and Fr. Rutler a – not hidden – Catholic auxiliary. Foul as all the belching was, there was nothing Hitchens did or said at that meeting that he hasn't been known for doing and saying right along. If Fr. Rutler had the means to block Hitchens after the invite, so did he before it, and thus the umbrage seems a tad unctuous, don't you think? Meantime though one of a Podhead's favorite things is to holler anti-semitism – Hitchens so labeled the inestimable J. Zmirak, who often writes for this site, due to the clearly Nazi proclivity in liking his Astoria neighborhood – but to accuse Hitchens of it because he pretends to protest ancient Israelite religious practices is almost as idiotic as Hitchens's snarls at Zmirak. The brawl itself can be read at the link to the Horowitz site, though its tone is little different than anything else on that site, which Fr. Rutler could also have noted if he was interested of the dignity of his club – and, by the bye, if Poe's eyewitnesses are reliable, doesn't Horowitz, as the sponsor of the vomit, also have the obligation to apologize to Fr. Rutler? Instead, he continues to feature and lionize Hitch the NeoPod danceboy, but if Poe isn't just posturing, it is to Horowitz he should begin his demands for an apology. The criticisms of Fr. Rutler aside, it sounded indeed like a high charity that motivated his post-meeting admonitions to Hitchens. Duty joined it, no doubt, when the Trade Center was obliterated, though Hitchens would scorn Fr. Rutler's efforts there. One looks accordingly forward to Horowitz organizing a meeting with Hitch where people scorn the boy who died because he was too stupid to see through Hitchens's posery, to see if the danceboy considers it as tasteful an expression of raillery as his own delicacies so regularly are. Sent at: 2008 05 16