2006-11-04

Andrew Sullivan, Hitchens on Bush's War

Is anybody smarter and funnier than Christopher Hitchens? In this TV interview, some vacuous talking head hoochie-mama finds herself hopelessly over matched in conversation with the intellectual Hitchy, who stumbles early and never recovers when introducing Hitchy as a "conservative." She can't comprehend that a Bush Iraq invasion supporter doesn't qualify as a "conservative," so she just pushes on, only to learn that she doesn't even understand commonly misused words:

"Do you think that Rumsfield is doing a fantastic job?"
"Well, 'fantastic' means fantasy, so do you mean to ask if he's doing an imaginary job?" Oh, my.

Sully joins Hitchy, and I find him wonderful as well. Sully makes very plain that he has withdrawn his support for Bush, and feels that Bush and his team are incompetent and have let down all of those who supported the effort to liberate Iraq and build a democracy there.

2 comments:

Tom Philpott said...

Hmm. actually, Hitchy seemed rather constrained and defensive, trying to put distance between himself and Bush while still supporting the war. And note that his crack about the meaning of "fantastic" came not at the newscaster's expense, but rather at Bush's. Bush, not the newscaster, declared that Rumsefeld had done a "fantastic job."

Paul Hue said...

I didn't notice that Bush misused the word fantastic; still, it flummoxed the newsreader, exposing her empty head. I wonder how Bush would react if somebody corrected him on this word.

I disagree with the rest of your take on Hitchy. He wants freedom in Iraq, and respects the people trying to erect it there. The US democracy which has enabled freedom in Iraq has now turned against this effort. Hitchy is concerned about what will happen to the democrats in Iraq when the US military concedes defeat to the various tyrants.