>So, why is Hitchens so incredibly vituperative (and I
>would say, intellectually dishonest) about people with
>whom he used to agree about most things?
I don't know. It's part of what's depressing about his whole turn. He can be - or could, at least in my past experience - very warm and generous. The dishonesty and vituperativeness suggest that the explanation lies more in the realm of psychology than ideology (or that portion of ideology that can be separated from psychology).
Lots of people find this gossipy, tedious, and politically irrelevant. And I suppose it is in some respects. But he was also a pretty important figure on the English-speaking intellectual left who, in pretty short time, became an apologist for the most brutal wing of American imperial interests. Our bench isn't so deep that we can afford to lose even one.
Doug