Jeet Heer: “Hitchens, too, can be a cranky curmudgeon, who has always taken independent stances, no matter how unpopular. In the last year, Hitchens has offended many of his erstwhile colleagues on the left by strongly supporting the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Writing in Counterpunch, a popular left-wing Web site, Jack McCarthy described Hitchens as a "lying, self-serving, fat-assed, chain-smoking, drunken, opportunistic, cynical contrarian."”
Jack McCarthy unwittingly described what I like about Hitchens, easily my favourite writer at the moment. I just finished Hitchens' Why Orwell Matters, and I don't know if he adequately makes the case that Orwell matters, but does, however, make a good case why Orwell mattered when he was alive, much more than his contemporaries would acknowledge. Orwell, as Hitchens points out, was right about the 3 great issues of the 20th century: fascism, Stalinism, and (less so than Hitchens leads on) British imperialism.
Niall Fergusson, in a book I read recently, The Cash Nexus, argued that the American military, for its size and strength, is, if anything, under-extended. What Hitchens has to say about American imperialism (a pill less bitter to swallow than Islamic imperialism), I'd like to know.
