Hitchens' Empty BOAST
Amidst his rampages through the talk shows, justifying his snitching on Sidney Blumenthal, we were surprised to hear Christopher Hitchens claim that he had been present at the Arkansas execution of Ricky Ray Rector in early 1992, a black man of severely diminished capacity sacrificed on the altar of Clinton's ambitions. To CNN's Bernard Shaw on February 9, Hitchens cried - amid abuse of Clinton - that he saw him execute Rector. So far as we remember the first journalist from outside Arkansas to bring tidings of what Bill would do to get elected was Mike Tomasky. Hitchens, on his own later account, witnessed his first execution in Missouri some years later. No doubt Blumenthal's lawyers will, if things comes to it, home in on this putative example of impaired memory.