>why do you _want_ to explain the decline of Hitchens
Ok, there's a personal angle. I used to like him. He gave me a nice blurb when I first started LBO ("a charm against the priest and warlocks of pseudo-science"). He was charming and friendly. Still is, sometimes, I think.
But he was also very talented - a very good writer and magnificent on TV. He was more or less on our side. We don't have many like that on the left. It's a loss, and you kind of want to figure it out - if you find humans and human agency interesting, rather than ceding all to History and the Balance of Forces.
Doug