The Obligatory Falwell Post
Elsewhere on the web is Christopher Hitchens doing something I like least about him: at the moment someone he dislikes dies, *poof* there’s a steaming pile of dyslogy. It took me some time to think about why I disliked it so, even though Hitchens is saying what he thinks and being consistent in his opinions. It’s that Hitchens doesn’t do those columns before the guy dies, or long enough after the guy dies that the immediate reaction is over. He hits at the moment you’re least expecting excoriation, and I think that’s a cheap shot and harmful to the point he wants to make.
As pointed out in this clip, the most gracious discussion coming from someone who dissented from Falwell was the pornographer. That’s very interesting.
Update: Attack Cartoons has a good summary.
5 Responses to “The Obligatory Falwell Post”
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May 18th, 2007 at 4:54 am
Hitchens isn’t just being consistent in his atheism and utilizing the passing of Falwell as a platform for the same, he’s also being consistently Hitch — the man loves to stir the pot and stick his verbal knife for greatest effect, hoping the resulting escalation will intensify the spotlight — those are the “fleas” that come with him.
And you gotta love Flynt, who not only utilized Falwell’s persona to better demarcate the expansiveness of the First Amendment, but who also isn’t so bound by ideology that his inner once-brokeass-redneck could come to empathize with and like the same quality in Falwell. The same Larry Flynt who, as Joe Eszterhas chronicled in American Rhapsody, put a lid on the insanity that Monicagate spiraled into.
In all, a neat vignette of the human condition.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Hitchens is just a mean little [redacted] who, curiously enough, sees the enemy clearly, mostly, nowadays..well since 9-11. Can he string a phrase, diagram a sentence? Sure… Personally re this ol’War: I want my thinkers to be in government or on active duty- Doing. Hitchens is just entertainment.
That is all. Nothing else there. He is small. Won’t warrant a drop of my venom if he drops tommorrow.
b2
May 19th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
There are some graves that need [bowdlerized].
May 20th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
“need [unfairly censored] on”
And that Barry, is the difference ‘tween me & you…
b2
May 20th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
One of ‘em, anyway. :-)