Quote:That Hitchens represents a grievous loss to the left is beyond doubt. He is a superb writer, superior in wit and elegance to his hero George Orwell, and an unstanchably eloquent speaker.

Quote:That Hitchens wants to flash his friendships and credentials is of minor importance. That he wishes to justify his complicity in the disaster of the Iraq war is another matter altogether. "I probably know more about the impeachable incompetence of the Bush administration than do many of those who would have left Iraq in the hands of Saddam," he writes. To which the proper response would be: It's a shame you didn't know less or you might have made a smarter decision. "If I was ever naive about anything to do with Iraq WMD" -- please, Christopher, don't pretend to be disingenuous, you know very well if you were naive about this -- "it was in believing that the production of evidence like that, or indeed any other kind of evidence, would make even the most limited impression on the heavily armored certainties of the faithful."

In other words, Hitchens wanted war against Saddam whether there were WMD or not, and that those who disagreed with his position were guilty of "heavily armored certainties to the contrary" on the subject. In which case one wonders why Hitchens didn't simply write at the time, "I'm positive Saddam has WMD, but even if I'm wrong you should agree with my position."