What type of political slant is Slate supposed to have? Is it considered to be on the left or the right?
It’s considered to be moderately left of center, as mentioned in an article at the end of November remarking that a large majority of contributors were supporting Kerry in the election. Their three best-known columnists are probably Saletan, Kaus, and Hitchens. Saletan is fairly liberal, Kaus slightly liberal (but he backed Arnold in the California recall election), and Hitchens in consistently conservative.
Great. Now that that’s settled, we can safely parrot them/dismiss them without further thought.
Well, naw, I frankly prefer it when a news/opinion source makes plain which direction it leans. The only way to get to the truth of political matters is to listen to both sides of an argument. How are you gonna do that without knowing which side of an argument someone is arguing for? 
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Slight quibble: While I agree that Hitchens is probably now consistently conservative, his views have varied over longer time-scales as he used to write a column for the liberal Nation magazine. He seemed to start a conversion near the end of the Clinton era when he wrote “No One Left to Lie To” and then decidedly completed it after 9/11 when he became a neoconservative super-hawk. He’s sort of the Zell Miller of the columnist world (although Zell was probably never as liberal…and I am not sure if Hitchens is as conservative on other things, like environmental and tax policy issues as Zell is now, although Hitchens is so consumed with the War on Terror and Iraq that I am not sure he even writes on these other issues).
Further quibble: Hitchens is constantly drunk. I’d no more listen to him for his views on the topics of the day than I’d talk to homeless drunkards about where to invest my 401(k).
The only thing that keeps Hitchens’ bank account in the black is the fact that he’s a talented writer. But his opinions are erratic, nonsensical BS.