On Not Apologizing for Christopher Hitchens

Before we pen any number of tributes to the late Christopher Hitchens, let us not forget that he spent at least the last decade fighting, often in the guise of atheistic polemics, for the spirit of American imperialism. Let us not forget that he could write on why women aren't funny while demonstrating that he didn't have much of a sense of humor, that he could write The Trial of Henry Kissenger but not notice that many of his arguments applied to Bush or Cheney, or that he made a big show about volunteering to be waterboarded just about the time he decided to jump ship on the Iraq War, rather than admitting that he had been wrong all along. A few years ago, I wrote:

It's a lot of work to recreate yourself from something like a Marxist, to G.W.Bush and war on terror advocate, to 'shoot-from-the-hip' atheist.

And if I was wrong about that characterization, I was mistaken on the part about effort: it was easier for Hitchens to recreate himself than it was for him to admit that he might have made an error in judgment concerning his stout endorsement of imperialism.