Stop Making Sense
Christopher Hitchens, the socialist who recognized the threat to our way of life and knew who was unwilling to defend it, has capitulated. Apparently it’s the small-town gun-toting religion-clinging that got him. “Vote For Obama: McCain Lacks the Character and Temperment to Be President, and Palin Is Simply A Disgrace.” Slate:
I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that “issue” I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the “experience” is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.
Not clear what reservoir of character, experience and ability he sees in Obama-Biden, let alone truthfulness, as Hitchens fails to expound with his usual precision in this diatribe. I always respected him for loving western civilization and favoring fundamental logic over ideology, but now he’s capitulated not on ideological terms, but on mere false superficialities. What a disappointment.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:42 am on Wednesday, October 15, 2008
7 Responses to “Stop Making Sense”
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October 15th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
As he is a Brit and a socialist (am I generalizing here?) of a certain generation, I would say misogynism probably explains it.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Hitchen’s apparently doesn’t know that the men and women who keep writers like him alive, out of concentration camps and prison share the values of McCain and Palin.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
[...] Crittenden takes Christopher Hitchens to task for his recent endorsement of Barack Obama. Writes Crittenden: Christopher Hitchens, the socialist who recognized the threat to our way of life and knew who was [...]
October 15th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
It amazes me that a serious thinker like Christopher Hitchens would let himself see what he wants to see when it comes to Obama. How, exactly, is the Obama-Biden ticket not capitulationist? Care to back that up with anything concrete, Mr. Hitchens? Because I would say that saying that you wouldn’t have supported the surge, even after knowing that it would work, is the definition of capitulationist.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
One thing about most of the intellectual class is that they are viscerally terrified of being thought foolish or unsophisticated by their peers.
They can stand in opposition to their peers when they believe they have an equally sophisticated PoV to defend, but let someone like Sarah Palin carry the banner and they fall all to pieces because they cannot counter the accusation that Sarah Palin is TACKY.
Part of this is eight years of trying to defend W. against the sneers of “rube” and “moron.” At least W. had Ivy degrees to his name, lending some degree of credibility.
But the prospect of eight more years of defending someone who IS a commoner — instead of someone who merely sounds like one — is obviously too much for them.
So when it came time to choose between one’s ideals and one’s self-image, it is not surprising to me that Hitchens chose the latter. But I’m discouraged by the others who have succumbed to their vanity.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Good analysis, di.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Fatty - indeed.
dicentra - how come Biden gets a bye in the dumbstakes? Nothing Sarah Palin has said has rattled me nearly as much as his extemporaneous generation of factoids during the VP debate. Hezbollah in Lebanon? Who’d a thunk it? Must be Bush’s fault.