[lbo-talk] the other Times does Hitch v Galloway

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Sep 15 14:03:09 PDT 2005


Michael Pollak wrote:


>I was wondering about that. I could have sworn Hitchens was against
>the 1991. (Wasn't it that was that occasioned his ringing
>denunciation of how the free press as a more efficient Pravda?) But
>when Jon Stewart interviewed him a couple of weeks ago, he said the
>problem in 1991 was that we didn't go further, that we didn't remove
>Saddam -- the standard neocon, Wolfowitz refrain. And he said it
>with such a serious mien and complete lack of cognitive dissonance
>that I questioned my own memory.
>
>Is he dissociative?

Dennis Perrin might be able to give more details, but Hitch is getting rather creative about his stance in 1991. You're right that he opposed the war. He was on the Donahue show as the war was beginning, and I remember very clearly his saying that the way that CNN was going on about "we" and "us" was remarkable - I believe the exact phrase was "a state television network could do no better." (The Donahue people actually tracked him down in a bar in Georgetown the night before the show.) He also was vicious with Charlton Heston when they appeared together on CNN in the run-up to the war. After noting the privilege of "debating the Middle East with Moses himself," Hitch asked Heston what countries bordered on Iraq, a place he was eager to bomb, and Heston came up short. He stuttered out "Bahrain," which gave Hitch the chance to point out that Bahrain is an island. Hitch triumphantly said, "You want to bomb a country and you don't even know where it is."

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list