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. 

The Hitchens Travelogue: god is not Great

I am about half way through Christopher Hitchens' god is not Great, and I can admit that, at this point, it is well written; much better written than some of his lesser (h/t to Caroline), um, accomplishments. The most distracting, and annoying part about his narrative is his insistence on telling the reader about how many places he has visited. Great! You're a jet-setter! Hell, you might even get yourself waterboarded at about the same time you have decided to change your mind about the Iraq war! 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. If you want to know what the latest thing is, Hitchens is there, about 3 months to 5 years too late. To think, this guy once wrote the sharp and polemic The Trial of Henry Kissinger.

So, by the time god is not Great gets to the interesting anecdote about "representing the devil, as it were, pro bono" (the office of the Devil's Advocate having been recently abolished) in the process of the beatification of Mother Theresa (p. 145), he's already visited, in the narrative, Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, Baghdad, Bosnia, Calcutta, Damascus, Tehran, Doha, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Vatican (and I may have forgotten some). Hitchens, we know that you're a journalist; you don't have to tell us that you have traveled.

Update: He has also managed to mention trips to Hebron, Uganda and Afghanistan in subsequent chapters.

Update #2 (September 24, 2009): Add a mention of North Korea. His 'new' Afterword (taken from a piece in Vanity Fair) is an account of his book tour. So that adds Little Rock, New York City, Austin, Raleigh, NC, Atlanta, Coral Gables, FL, Los Angeles, Seattle and Canada. And just when you thought it couldn't continue, in his Acknowledgments he references a trip with Ian McEwan to "that remote Uruguayan coast where Darwin so boldly put ashore and took samples."