I've encountered a lot of economic conservatives who use populism pejoratively in reference to supposed demogogues who are stirring up "class resentment," like meself.
I think you're being unfair to Hitchens, possibly Cockburn, too. In No One Left to Lie To (pp. 12-13 pbk), Hitchens writes, "... In the elections of November 1998, he [Wisconsin Senator Russell Feingold] submitted himself for reelection having announced that he would accept no "soft money" donations. This brave decision, which almost cost him his seat, rallied many Wisconsin voters who had been raised in the grand tradition of LaFollette's midwestern populism-- a populism of trustbusting rather than crowd-pleasing. His later Senate vote on impeachment, which represented the misgivings of at least five other senators who were more prudent as well as more susceptible to party discipline, forever negates the unending Clintonoid propaganda about a vast right-wing conspiracy, and also shames all those who were browbeaten into complicity...."
What do people think about the possible connections between Bush's selection of Ashcroft for Attorney General, the Lewinsky scandal and populism? I read the religious Ashcroft doesn't smoke, drink, or dance, but he did sing in Trent Lott's barbarshop quartet.
Peter - drinker and dancer