"Speaking of ex-leftists, what's up with Christopher Hitchens calling Todd Gitlin and me "incurable liberals"? Since when is liberalism treated as something akin to a disease in this, America's oldest continuously published liberal magazine? Here's hoping my old friend gets some treatment for his worsening case of incurable Horowitzism. (Or is it Sullivanism? Hentoffism? Is there a Doctor of Philosophy in the house?) Meanwhile, I've got a new weblog with more of this kind of thing at www.altercation.msnbc.com. Check it every day, or the terrorists win..."
I think Hitchens is attack Gitlin and Alterman from the left. from the Columbia Journalism Review: http://www.cjr.org/year/02/3/giuffo.asp
"For nearly twenty years, he has appeared as Lamb’s guest on the venerable C-Span gabfest and, during each appearance, Lamb has asked the same loaded question: “So, Christopher Hitchens, are you still a socialist?” The answer was always an unqualified yes. Lately, though, Hitchens admits that that answer has seemed more and more untruthful, and he realized he could no longer lie. So, early on this cloudy February morning, he surrendered a little rhetorical ground and gave Lamb a qualified no, filled with explanation and nuance. “I wasn’t going to give you the satisfaction of saying uncle on twenty years of class struggle,” he told his host. The glee burned on Lamb’s and Sullivan’s faces — Christopher Hitchens no longer describes himself as a socialist. He insists, however, that he’s still a Marxist."