I think he’s been reading the SDMB, because I invoked those exact same names in reference to Moore, only I got attacked for it. Attack this guy, I dare you. He’s one of your people, after all, I died-in-the-wool liberal.
Also:
Anyone care to dispute this?
You know what? Read the article. This guy makes the case far better than I ever could. Moore is a pure, unadulterated propagandist. And his target audience is calling him out. I am suffering from a perverse kind of unholy enjoyment having read this article.
Trust me, if he weren’t a died-in-the-wool liberal, Hitchins wouldn’t be working for Graydon Carter, one of the most virulent of left-wingers, at Vanity Fair. He’s not a right-winger, he’s just accurate and honest in his observations. Sometimes, of course, this means he says so when a left-wing issue is bogus. Left-wingers don’t like this, and since they regard anyone who disputes anything they think, say or do as an outsider and not one of their own, they believe someone like Hitchins couldn’t possibly be a liberal, even though in most aspects he is.
Be advisible to pay closer attention next time to your come ons. While Hitchens might still be a border-line socialist (duno, hasn’t really mentioned it too much), he’s gone from sensible hawk disgusted at the zany-anti-war left in the War on Terror to a knee-jerk hawk on Iraq. It’s been a good career move if nothing else, but pretending that he’s some anti-Bush leftist who’s yet outraged at Moore is a pretty big strech.
This article makes some good points, but also some fairly weak ones that make me think he was just looking to throw the kitchen sink at the movie instead of really take it to task.
Hell, by the date of the article the body wasn’t even cold yet before he was busting Ronnie up.
OK, now I’m just belaboring the point. If you consider this guy to be a conservative I think we need to seriously open a lengthy discussion on what the difference is, because I sure as hell can’t tell.
Again, to make the point more clear: Hitchens has spent a large quantity of ink over the last few years defending just about every foriegn policy choice Bush has made. Utterly regardless of how you label him, it’s pretty silly to present him as some Bush-hater who nevertheless finds Moore’s film despicable.
I’ve yet to see Moore’s movie, so I have no basis to judge. From what I’ve heard, it sounds about as deceptive and nasty as a talk radio show, but not without some troubling points either that apparently got favorable hearing even at the first FoxNews review I read.
No, not really, its just that I don’t think Mr. Hitchens speaks for anyone but Mr. Hitchens. I think he is molding himself for a disagreeable curmudgeon role, brimming with sharp satire, etc. A poor mans Evelyn Waugh, all the snobbish snottiness without the leavening of wit. At any rate, I never paid that much attention to him to begin with, can’t see starting now.
Hell, I’m more interested in what you think that what he thinks.
Thrash all you want, Doors, but this is basically a losing fight. You didn’t know much about Hitchens, and you’re learning. But the basic premise of your OP: that Hitchens is someone all anti-Bush people have been nodding along with until now, is completely and utterly a botched one. And, complain about liberals ejecting this or that position from their ranks, you simply have to concede that Hitchens himself broke with most liberals over the war issue quite solidly and publically. So holding him up as a “died-in-the-wool” lefty is just, well silly. For a lefty, he’s at the very least unconventional, which negates your entire “come-on” thrust in the OP.
I think the point is, he’s no longer a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and hasn’t been for a couple years now. This isn’t an example of a leftist turning on Moore, it’s an example of a former leftist attacking Moore to demonstrate his new rightest credentials.
Not that I disagree with either you or Hitchens on the subject. Moore is a propagandist, and a damned good one. When I want to have my political views re-enforced, I watch a Michael Moore movie. When I want to have my political views challenged, I come here.
I did know that he was a war supporter. I didn’t know that you were so shallow as to disavow any association with him based upon one position, one that I interestingly enough agreed with him on once upon a time and now disagree with him on.
Funny, that. How even people who you have much in common with can disagree with on some things. Unless you prefer your commentators to be shills for the DNC like Mr. I-Never-Had-An-Original-Thought-I-Am-A-Republican-Mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh is for the RNC.
May I remind you of your post not several posts ago? “You guys are attributing words to me that I never stated. I’d thank you to kindly stop doing so.”
I haven’t disavowed Hitchens. I think he’s become knee-jerk in his defense of Bush’s Iraq policy. I thought he was dead right on breaking with Nationites over their anti-Americanism, and as I said, I think his article makes some good points.
But fact remains: I’m just still not sure whats with your OP. A die-hard Bush supporter (leftist or no) supports Bush. News at eleven. I dare you to attack this guy, liberals!!!
Can you see how people might find that particular posture a bit silly? Yet that was, pretty much, your OP. And yeah, I also find it hard to square Hitchens as a died-in-the-wool leftist when he has repudiated a lot of the left: not on just Moore but on quite a lot of things.
I’m not sure anyone would really want to claim Hitchens as one of their own. He is, after all, The Guy That Hates Mother Theresa. Honestly, I don’t think you can properly say he’s ever been on anyone’s “side,” and I suspect he would violently resist suggestion of any such allignment. Mostly, I think he takes whatever position he feels is most unpopular with other journalists. He supports the war when most of the media is critical of it. He supports Clinton when the press is beating the crap out of him over Monicagate. He slams Reagan when everyone else is eulogizing him. He certainly has some liberal views, but I don’t know if I’d necessarily call him a liberal.
Hitchens? A liberal? Coulda fooled me. The words “Bush apologist” seem to ring pretty strong with some of his more recent statements.
And, for what it’s worth, I have described Michael Moore as “the left-wing Rush Limbaugh” more than once.
I find it interesting that Michael Moore drives rightwingers crazy while they nod sagely at Rush Limbaugh… and vice versa.
I also find it interesting that Hitchens’ article, the one linked in the OP, spends quite a bit of time howling about what Moore WOULD have done, if circumstances had been different… thus implying that he knows exactly what that bad boy would have done, said, and so forth.
Isn’t this kind of close to the behavior he’s excoriating Moore about? I mean, implications, innuendoes, and all that?
Firstly, just because a college rag call Hitchens a “leading spokesman” of the left does not mean that we on the actual left ever viewed him that way.
Secondly, that quote was smack in the middle of a whole paragraph doing nothing but slamming the American left, and in no way suggests that Hitchens himself is a man of the left. His use of the term “comrades” is obviously sarcastic, and meant simply to arouse contempt for the people he’s talking about by alluding to discredited, old-left-style Communsim.
Third, if you actually believe that Hitchens is a left-winger, i suspect that the Slate piece is the first bit of his writing that you’ve actually read in the last three or four years. If you had followed the circumstances surrounding his departure from The Nation* magazine, and his increasingly virulent attacks on anyone who dares to question US foreign policy in Afghanistan or Iraq, and his general lambasting of leftists and liberals over the past few years, you’d know very well that Hitchens does not even consider himself a man of the left any more. He actually said as much in a television interview about a year ago.
I think that Edward S. Herman’s term for Hitchens and others like him is a good one–he calls them the Cruise Missile Left, and uses the name for those who make general claims to liberal or leftist sensibilities, but who are ready to jump on the bandwagon whenever America decides to start flexing its muscle at the expense of other people. As he points out, these people are not real leftists at all, but their criticism of the left makes them attractive to the mainstream media, which can then point to these few “leftists” and claim to be covering all viewpoints on the war.
The Cruise Missile Left also provides a more general focus for self-congratulatory jerk-offs from the right wing to come out and say, “Hey, look you lefties, one of your own is criticizing your position. You must be wrong.” Kinda like the OP, i guess.
See, here’s where your lack of reflection bites you on the ass. It is really beyond your puerile comprehension level to realize that the world is not the simple dichotomy that you suggest in this post? Can you really be so stupid as to believe that disliking Ronald Reagan is the necessary and sufficient condition for being a liberal or a leftist? Are you really dense enough to suggest that the world is divided into only two groups–those who liked Reagan, and lefties?
Further to this obvious myopia on your part, may i point out that it is not necessary to disagree with all of a person’s positions in order to agree with a person’s position on a particular issue? You seem to assume that just because i might agree with Hitchens on some other unnamed issue, that i must therefore agree with him about Michael Moore. Not the case. Maybe that sort of unreflective, unthinking, blind loyalty is how you sort out your own positions, but some of us like to incorporate a little more nuance into our approach, and to judge issues on a case-by-case basis rather than make a pre-determined judgement to agree or disagree with someone on every single issue.
Perhaps the most pathetic part of this thread, though, is that you have nothing to offer except sophomoric finger pointing. And that, given your conclusions about Hitchens, you apparently don’t even understand what you’re pointing at.
That’s too funny, elucidator. You never cease to amaze me with your timely, glib witticisms. Anyway, now that the buttkissing is done, shall we stop cutting up the corpse of whether he’s liberal enough for you guys or not? I mean, I can keep busting you guys up with cites, if you like, but that doesn’t cut to the heart of the matter, which is laid out in the linked article.
Does anyone care to dispute the points he made in regard to Michael Moore’s latest propanganda piece?
Oh, and you asked me what I think of Michael Moore, elucidator? I think he’s a dishonest fuck. I’ve said that before, and I’ll continue to say it. This review (and most others that I’ve read) do not lead me to change my mind. Believe me, at this point I don’t mind seeing Bush get hatcheted at all, but dammit, with all the stuff there is to get him on, why the hell would you make a pure propaganda film? It’s not like he has to make an effort to make Bush look bad. Instead, he makes such an effort to make Bush look bad that he plays the fool and makes himself look bad. He did it with Bowling For Columbine, and from what I’ve read he did it here.
