[lbo-talk] Hitchens

[C. G. Estabrook]

[While I detest Hitchens' apology for the recent American blood-lettings
(an apology that I think has more religious than social or psychological
roots), I think he got Clinton right.  While many soi-disant leftists were
defending Clinton (and some still do), he was publishing *No One Left to
Lie To* (a good title from someone not given to them). Ron Hogan remarked,
"He sums up the failure of those fixated on Clinton's adultery to fully
investigate his cronyism and financial shenanigans: 'It's not the lipstick
traces, stupid,' Hitchens warns, 'it's the Revlon Connection.'" Hitchens'
piece today (below) does a better job of getting Reagan right than most
I've seen (and note, for what it's worth, he refers -- today -- to "us on
the left...").  --CGE]

	Not Even a Hedgehog

	The stupidity of Ronald Reagan.

	By Christopher Hitchens

	Posted Monday, June 7, 2004, at 10:03 AM PT

Not long ago, I was invited to be the specter at the feast during "Ronald
Reagan Appreciation Week" at Wabash College in Indiana. One of my
opponents was Dinesh D'Souza: He wasn't the only one who maintained that
Reagan had been historically vindicated by the wreckage of the Soviet
Union. Some of us on the left had also been very glad indeed to see the
end of the Russian empire and the Cold War. But nothing could make me
forget what the Reagan years had actually been like...

full at <http://slate.msn.com/id/2101842/>.