Funny stuff from Chris Hitchens.
Via Shakespeare's Sister and the Green Knight, I found this absolutely hilarious account of the Hitchens-Galloway Iraq War debate I meant to watch earlier this year when it was on C-SPAN, from the UK's Telegraph:
It was billed as the Grapple in the Big Apple and two of Britain's leading political bruisers did not disappoint as they traded punches in a heavyweight debate in New York.
..."You did write like an angel," Mr Galloway told his opponent as they exchanged insults over the war in Iraq. "You're now working for the Devil and damn you."
"The battle over which of us can be the ruder - I have already conceded that to him," parried Mr Hitchens. "The battle over which of us is the more cerebral he has already conceded to me."
..."I am delighted to be called a popinjay in the proper sense of that word, which means a target for archery or shot," Mr Hitchens, a cheerleader for the war and now regarded by many of his old comrades as a traitor.
Mr Hitchens was once an elegant "butterfly", continued Mr Galloway. But "he had now done something unique in natural history: he is responsible for the first ever metamorphosis of a butterfly back into a slug. The one thing a slug does is leave a trail of slime behind it.
"I was told by my father never to wrestle with a chimney sweep, because you always come away dirty. You are not a chimney sweep. That is not coal dust on you. You are covered with stuff you like to smear on others."
...Mr Galloway accused Mr Hitchens of "Goebbelian tricks". Mr Hitchens fired back by accusing Mr Galloway of courting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the "human toothbrush, the slobbering dauphin son of a slobbering tyrant".
"For Mr Hitchens to use the word 'slobbering' is not wise," Mr Galloway said.
In his column today for Slate, Hitchens laments that "After almost three years of combat, the standard of debate ought to have risen and to have become more serious and acute. Instead, it has slipped into a state of puerility." He urges us: "Let's try not to be silly."
In the course of the same Slate article, Hitch calls Bill Clinton "wrong as usual" and his recent USA Today interview "smarmy"; calls Rep. Murtha "honorable but simple-minded"; calls Jacques Chirac "ludicrous and sinister"; accuses advocates of withdrawal from Iraq of being "bound in a nutshell". As opinion offerings, there's nothing really wrong with any of these statements. It's just that Hitch's yearning for a "higher level of debate" -- by which he explains he means not so much less emotion as less stupid things being said -- really rests not so much on greater "civility" across-the-board as on the existence of people who aren't 100% sure of their own opinions and completely dismissive of anyone who disagrees with them, like Hitchens is. Stupid does remain a subjective concept. For instance, I don't especially care for the "send the hawks' children" argument and agree it's been used sloppily by opponents of the war, but it's also a rather glaring fact that the children of the political and pundit class, and the professional class in general, almost never volunteer for what is essentially a lower-middle class institution. And the argument has been made intelligently now and then. As for the complaints about "silliness", I'll concede that, compared to Galloway, Hitchens is probably a moral giant. But he specifically chose to get himself involved in a high-profile live "debate" with Gorgeous George and to engage in several weeks of back-and-forth printed trash-talk leading up to the event. If that's not courting the very sort of silliness Hitch is lamenting today (albeit with British accents and literary references and plenty high-society-ish turns of phrase thrown in; I notice how much Hitch seems to adore the phrase "sinister piffle"), I don't know what is.
It was billed as the Grapple in the Big Apple and two of Britain's leading political bruisers did not disappoint as they traded punches in a heavyweight debate in New York.
..."You did write like an angel," Mr Galloway told his opponent as they exchanged insults over the war in Iraq. "You're now working for the Devil and damn you."
"The battle over which of us can be the ruder - I have already conceded that to him," parried Mr Hitchens. "The battle over which of us is the more cerebral he has already conceded to me."
..."I am delighted to be called a popinjay in the proper sense of that word, which means a target for archery or shot," Mr Hitchens, a cheerleader for the war and now regarded by many of his old comrades as a traitor.
Mr Hitchens was once an elegant "butterfly", continued Mr Galloway. But "he had now done something unique in natural history: he is responsible for the first ever metamorphosis of a butterfly back into a slug. The one thing a slug does is leave a trail of slime behind it.
"I was told by my father never to wrestle with a chimney sweep, because you always come away dirty. You are not a chimney sweep. That is not coal dust on you. You are covered with stuff you like to smear on others."
...Mr Galloway accused Mr Hitchens of "Goebbelian tricks". Mr Hitchens fired back by accusing Mr Galloway of courting President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the "human toothbrush, the slobbering dauphin son of a slobbering tyrant".
"For Mr Hitchens to use the word 'slobbering' is not wise," Mr Galloway said.
In his column today for Slate, Hitchens laments that "After almost three years of combat, the standard of debate ought to have risen and to have become more serious and acute. Instead, it has slipped into a state of puerility." He urges us: "Let's try not to be silly."
In the course of the same Slate article, Hitch calls Bill Clinton "wrong as usual" and his recent USA Today interview "smarmy"; calls Rep. Murtha "honorable but simple-minded"; calls Jacques Chirac "ludicrous and sinister"; accuses advocates of withdrawal from Iraq of being "bound in a nutshell". As opinion offerings, there's nothing really wrong with any of these statements. It's just that Hitch's yearning for a "higher level of debate" -- by which he explains he means not so much less emotion as less stupid things being said -- really rests not so much on greater "civility" across-the-board as on the existence of people who aren't 100% sure of their own opinions and completely dismissive of anyone who disagrees with them, like Hitchens is. Stupid does remain a subjective concept. For instance, I don't especially care for the "send the hawks' children" argument and agree it's been used sloppily by opponents of the war, but it's also a rather glaring fact that the children of the political and pundit class, and the professional class in general, almost never volunteer for what is essentially a lower-middle class institution. And the argument has been made intelligently now and then. As for the complaints about "silliness", I'll concede that, compared to Galloway, Hitchens is probably a moral giant. But he specifically chose to get himself involved in a high-profile live "debate" with Gorgeous George and to engage in several weeks of back-and-forth printed trash-talk leading up to the event. If that's not courting the very sort of silliness Hitch is lamenting today (albeit with British accents and literary references and plenty high-society-ish turns of phrase thrown in; I notice how much Hitch seems to adore the phrase "sinister piffle"), I don't know what is.
1 Comments:
English people can be pretty impressive at putting people down (see Cowell, Simon) but only if they steer clear of particularly English words. If somebody called me a 'popinjay', I'd just laugh.
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