I will open a can of whupass on Christopher Hitchens if I have to

It seems like every wingnut with an internet connection is creaming his pants over former leftist/current Bush apologist Christopher Hitchens' supposed take-down of Ron Reagan on Reagan's MSNBC show 'Connected Coast to Coast.' A Technorati search for 'Hitchens' and 'Reagan' produces a seemingly endless list of bloggers delighting in Reagan being "taken to the woodshed"; their exchange is described as a 'demolishing', a 'royal spanking', a 'trouncing', and a 'bitch-slapping'.

Here's the transcript of the alleged ass-kicking:

RR: Christopher, I'm not sure that I buy the idea that these attacks are a sign that we're actually winning the war on terror. I mean, how many more victories like this do we really want to endure?

CH: Well, it depends on how you think it started, sir. I mean, these movements had taken over Afghanistan, had very nearly taken over Algeria, in a extremely bloody war which actually was eventually won by Algerian society. They had sent death squads to try and kill my friend Salman Rushdie, for the offense of writing a novel in England. They had sent death squads to Austria and Germany, the Iranians had, for example, to try and kill Kurdish Muslim leaders there. If you make the mistake that I thought I heard you making just before we came on the air, of attributing rationality or a motive to this, and to say that it's about anything but itself, you make a great mistake, and you end up where you ended up, saying that the cause of terrorism is fighting against it, the root cause, I mean. Now, you even said, extraordinarily to me, that there was no terrorist problem in Iraq before 2003. Do you know nothing about the subject at all? Do you wonder how Mr. Zarqawi got there under the rule of Saddam Hussein? Have you ever heard of Abu Nidal?

RR: Well, I'm following the lead of the 9/11 Commission, which...

CH: Have you ever heard of Abu Nidal, the most wanted man in the world, who was sheltered in Baghdad? The man who pushed Leon Klinghoffer off the boat, was sheltered by Saddam Hussein. The man who blew up the World Trade Center in 1993 was sheltered by Saddam Hussein, and you have the nerve to say that terrorism is caused by resisting it? And by deposing governments that endorse it?

RR: No, actually, I didn't say that, Christopher.

CH: At this stage, after what happened in London yesterday?

RR: What I did say, though, was that Iraq was not a center of terrorism before we went in there, but it might be now.

CH: How can you know so little about...

RR: You can make the claim that you just made about any other country in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.

CH: Absolutely nonsense.

RR: So do you think we ought to invade Saudi Arabia, where most of the hijackers from 9/11 came from, following your logic, Christopher?

CH: Uh, no. Excuse me. The hijackers may have been Saudi and Yemeni, but they were not envoys of the Saudi Arabian government, even when you said the worst...

RR: Zarqawi is not an envoy of Saddam Hussein, either.

CH: Excuse me. When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world. The same is true of the shelter and safe house offered by the Iraqi government, to the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer, and to Mr. Yassin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. How can you know so little about this, and be occupying a chair at the time that you do?

RR: I guess because I listen to the 9/11 Commission, and read their report, and they said that Saddam Hussein was not exporting terror. I suppose that's how, Christopher.

CH: Well, then they were wrong, weren't they?

RR: No, maybe they just needed to listen to you, Christopher.

CH; Well, I'm not sure that they actually did say that. What they did say was they didn't know of any actual operational connection...

RR: That's right. No substantive operational connection.

CH: ...which was the Iraqi Baath Party and...excuse me...and Al Qaeda. A direct operational connection. Now, that's because they don't know. They don't say there isn't one. They say they couldn't find one. But I just gave you the number, I would have thought, rather suggestive examples.

But Clark Stooksbury says that "while Hitchens wins on style, his substance is wanting":

Note Hitchen's "answer" to the first question. He tosses in a kitchen-sink-full of examples of Islamic extremism that have little to do with our current predicament. He failed to note that prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi operated out of Northern Iraq, where Saddam had no control. As bad as Abu Nidal was (he died in 2002, before the invasion), He was hardly the reason we invaded Iraq. That occurred because of the "grave threat" posed by Saddam's large collection of chemical and biological weapons and his drive to get nuclear weapons.

Christopher Hitchens is a follower of "they hate us for our freedom" school of thought. "We know very well what the 'grievances' of the jihadists are. The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London." He should read Robert Pape, who argues convincingly that their grievance is actually foreign military occupation.

I'll second the suggestion to read Pape - an interview with him can be found here. He is a popular neoconservative author who convincingly refutes the myth that there is no 'rationality' to be found behind the actions of Islamic terrorists.



Voodoo Knickers has an accurate translation of Hitchens' remarks:

Ronny: England Bombings non indicative of winning war on terrorism status.

Bitchens: Unrelated rant, I know salman rushdie natch, saddam harbored abu nidal long live the war on TERRAH!

Ronny: but…

Bitchens: terrorists are totally irrational and have no concievable reason to attack britain, you’re an idiot, sir.

and adds:

changing the subject doesn’t count as winning the debate in my book.

It doesn't in my book either. Neither does being a pompous, pretentious asshole, nor a "drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay," as George Galloway described Hitchens. (Galloway also said to Hitchens: "Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink.") No, I am not sure what the hell a 'popinjay' is, but it doesn't sound good.

Basically, Hitchens is just hurling insults at Reagan and spouting the same tired bullshit that you'll hear out of the mouth of any College Republican. Just because he's dropping names and speaking with a British accent doesn't make it any less stupid.

Hitchens is a punk; the size of his head continues to grow in direct disproportion to that of his liver. This is a 'man' who desperately needs an ass-kicking.

Now, I'm a relatively peaceful person, but I've called out punks like Hitchens before, and they've run away in terror. I don't want to kick Hitchens' ass, but I will if I have to. So listen up, 'Hitch': either cut the shit, or prepare for a whupping you won't soon forget, I don't care how many Johnnie Walkers you pour down your wretched piehole.

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