Well, I didn’t give my Barkley post more than five hours before I found this. I’m no fan of Christopher Hitchens, especially in the past few years, and more recently, after reading Dan’s post of a few months back and then Hitch’s sexist (to say the least) piece on women not being funny to which it referred, but these two items – in the first, his refusal to in any way participate in any redemption of the dead Jerry Falwell, in the other his unwavering lambasting of religion – I do very much respect. Be sure to watch the video and listen to the audio, too. Wow. Stay tuned, I’m guessing there will be more to tell as Hitch hypes his new book, God is Not Great. I plan to get me a copy right quick.
I’d also like to note the remarkable even-handedness of the press in the reporting of Falwell’s death. Unlike, well, just about every other person who’s been famous and conservative and died old in my lifetime, dead Falwell took his lumps just about everywhere in the mainstream media. They were soft lumps, to be sure, especially compared to Hitchens’ pounding, but lumps nonetheless. Unlike the incompetent buffoon and neocon puppet Ronald Reagan, deified in old age and death, Falwell will remain, on the whole, unsung, even notorious. I only wish he were here to see it. It’s sad when they go too soon.
