Sorry, I don't buy the premise. I apologize for my earlier Hitchens drunkeness joke because, yes, they are tiresome at this point, and I don't believe drinking is Hitchens' problem at all. He's an arrogant fool, plain and simple -- glib, not "sharp" in any way that indicates a discerning intellect. I heard Hitchens speak in public just once -- at an appearance with you, in fact, discussing the potential of the (now long-deceased) "Third Way." Even then, seemingly cold sober and before he reached his current state of moral and intellectual collapse, Hitchens could best have been described (as George Galloway later nailed him) as a popinjay.
Carl