Christopher Hitchens is one SERIOUSLY grumpy Englishman.

Just finished watching "Real Time with Bill Maher" here on the left coast and that MoFo is a grumpy, crabby, sanctimonious, supercilious right wing apologist if there ever was one!


My conclusion?

Hitchens =
a giant

so he's not ALL bad.

Low talker + thick British accent + drunk = ???

...with Galloway (on C-Span last week).

Around the time that he warned the student audience to be careful what they applauded because they were being televised and their parents might be watching.

Pompous prick.

He told Bill he "Might regret that in the morning" regarding poking fun at Laura Bush!

I have heard him before and he makes some good points but i think he has just fallen to the point of kissing Bush's ass at every opportunity.

Hard to believe that he used to write for the Nation.

I dunno if it's because he's British, I don't think it is, but I still find him easier to take than most Bushista pundits.

He just gives a new meaning to stubbornness and refusal to go back on an opinion. His being buddies with secular kurds does not in fact excuse everything else just because a few of them might be selfish enough to say it's all worth it.

Overall, though, he can kiss my you-know-what.

I wanted to throw up every time I saw him lobby for War in Iraq going on TV interviews against former weapons inspector Scott Ritter who said Saddam was contained and no threat.

Hitchens has a special place in Hades waiting for him. He looks as if he knows that.

I missed Willie, going to try to catch it on a repeat. But I thought the show was interesting, Hitchens wasn't near as annoying as PJ O'Rourke was last week. At least he shot down that fight them over there crap. And his stupid Laura Bush comments, and the like, were just stupid. But it was nice to see a more reasoned debate about Iraq then we usually get in this country. Particularly Galloway differentiating between Bin Laden and the people he is recruiting and that to stop terrorism you want to remove the fuel for the recruiting. That recognizes the difference between Bin Laden's own agenda and the issues that he uses to get people to follow him. It's no different than Bush using religous issues to get our fundies to follow him. Bin Laden's recruits and Bush's fundies are both being duped.

Galloway is such an appealing public speaker. It's too bad he's done some other stuff I take issue with in regard to middle easter affairs. But he was clearly successful countering Hitchens own debate skill, which is (desite the knee-jerk people who call him an idiot and/or dumb and such) not an easy thing to do.

And that's pretty hard to take seriously coming from a guy with a history of irreverence. He's an overbearing blowhard just as a personality, and he also is fully into imperialism. On that point alone we part company.