EA Flashback: Christopher Hitchens and the Policing of Dissent

After seeing Hitchens at this debate, I fear his thoughtful moments will be rare. "The Hitch" is no longer an activist, no longer a participant in the real debates about power and who wields it, no more a source for thought. No, he is an industry, posing in trench coat with a cigarette dangling from his top lip, hailed as "one of the few remaining practitioners of the five-hour, two-bottle lunch". And, naturally, the most profitable industry is a monopoly. So he packages himself, surreally, not just as a policeman but the only policeman of "a radical left that no longer exists".

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