Hitchens Is Losing It
Christopher Hitchens, who broke with fellow liberals in order to support the war in Iraq and has been having a very public near-nervous breakdown trying to justify that position ever since, ratchets up his rhetoric another notch in order to take on Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: Unfairenheit 9/11 – The lies of Michael Moore.
Not having seen the movie, I’m not in a very good position to criticize Hitchens’ criticism. But what I can say is this: Hitchens is seriously losing it.
Hitchens compares Moore to Rush Limbaugh, which I suppose is fair on some level. Both men are partisans with a gift for weaving a certain kind of spell, one that combines a little information with a lot of entertainment in a way that helps true believers chuckle while their pre-existing views are reinforced.
Which wouldn’t be bad in and of itself. But along with the information comes a certain amount of disinformation. In Limbaugh’s case, I’d say that amount goes well beyond what an honest person, partisan or not, would include. In other words, I think Rush Limbaugh is completely aware that he’s misleading people, and does so intentionally and aggressively.
In Michael Moore’s case, though, I think the stray embellishments and misdirections are more innocent. Not because I happen to agree with Moore’s positions, or not only because of that, but because I think Mooore himself is more or less sincere in the conclusions he presents.
I’ve looked carefully at the arguments Moore’s critics have previously offered of Bowling for Columbine, and comparing those criticisms to the actual movie, I think the critics are making a mountain out of a molehill. I’m fairly confident that I’ll end up thinking the same thing about Hitchens’ criticisms of the latest movie, once I’ve had a chance to see it.
In the meantime, if you feel strongly one way or another about Michael Moore, you should read Hitchens’ piece and see what you think. Hitchens tries to weave a spell of his own with a combination of information, exaggeration, and embellishment, but it doesn’t have the power of the stuff Limbaugh and Moore do. There’s an air of desperation in Hitchens’ arguments, a sense that what we have here is a guy who’s hanging on by a very thin thread. While there’s a certain entertainment value in that, it’s a different kind of entertainment from what you get in a Michael Moore movie.
I’m not sure I can point to any particular point in Hitchens’ screed where he reveals his own fundamental insecurity. It’s more a sense that emerges from the piece as a whole, from the extended run-on assertions, the racing from one half-formed thought to the next, the hypercharged emotion.
Moore, Hitchens charges again and again, is not “serious”. (The word, or a variation of it, appears six times in the review.) But it is Hitchens who comes off as unhinged, incoherent, unserious. Or maybe it’s that he’s too serious, too caught up in defending his own increasingly untenable intellectual position on the war.
June 24th, 2004 at 1:54 pm
Could you be any more one-eyed?
June 29th, 2004 at 12:44 pm
WTF????
I was reading and reading, waiting for you to point out specific contradictions or untruths that Hitches makes in his article. You had nothing but opinion. Your point is basically, “Christopher Hitchens is losing it because he points out the lies and deceptions of Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Why don’t you just say, “I like ice cream because I don’t like yogurt.” It would have the same kind of credibility.
Seriously, the next time you try to take a position or have an opinion, here’s a tip – SUBSTANTIATE IT.
It’s because of people like you that I am so glad I abandoned left-wing politics long ago. Nothing but a bunch of people who like to hate and cry and make fun of the right, but do not offer any solutions. I never see anything intellectual in left-wing arguments. If half-assed verbal jabs are all liberals have to contribute to society, the fall of the U.S. will come much quicker than the one that faced the Roman Empire.
July 4th, 2004 at 12:13 am
Hitchens is a tough guy too argue against because he is very well read and has a body of work that crosses party lines. I think the main problem with his criticism of the 9/11 movie is that he makes more attacks on Moore’s persona and style of filmmaking than he does of the movie.
For example, Hitchens spends much time on Moore’s claim that Saddam’s regime has not threatened or murdered any Americans. I would agree that this is somewhat misleading, and yet it is essentially true. Though Hitchen’s explores the many round about ways in which Saddam has posed threats to American interests while simultaneously berating Moore for his disclusion of Saddam’s atrocities against his own people, he seems to avoid adressing the main issue that I think Moore is trying to get at. Was Iraq public enemy #1 or was Iraq private conquest #1. Hitchens assertion that Saudi Arabia’s lack of complicity in this Iraq war disproves Moore’s claims of questionable relationships between the two regimes is lacking in common sense.
9/11, as Moore rightly points out, was largely the work of Saudis and for Saudi Arabia to back this war, as they did with the first Gulf War, would look very suspicious when the majority of the muslim world condemns it.
Hitchens has an aptitude for associating Bush decisions with farsighted prophetic rational. He continues this practice as he embraces Bush’s 7-minute schoolroom stupor as being an outward display of solidarity. He goes on to say that no matter what Bush did, the left would criticize, so Bush’s actions were apparently O.K. By this rational I guess it would be O.K. if Roosevelt sat blankly in a schoolroom after learning of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Clearly Bush did not behave as a leader, at least in these moments, and Moore’s inclusion of this in the historical memory of the American people is hardly an injustice.
Hitchens has embraced this administration, largely for its proactive stance on the Middle East and more specifically Iraq. It will be interesting to see how much credibility he will stake in asserting that the Bushies are acting out of ideology and not grees. Time will tell!
If you read this far and think I need to attack Hitchens more to make my point, I might say that Hitchens offered very few specifics as well, and unlike Hitchens I am not getting paid to write this. Thanks for reading this far.
July 6th, 2004 at 5:56 pm
The first area of duplicity on the part of Hitchens comes in his opening paragraphs, both of which point out that he is a liberal who has been waiting for a liberal leader to come along and rally Dems.
He leaves out the fact that he split from The Nation because he is no longer a liberal, and cursory searches of Google find him saying, in no uncertain terms, that he has officially split from the Left since 2001.
Now, why would a person who willingly said time and again he is no longer a liberal feel compelled to start THIS ONE REVIEW trying to reinstate his ACLU card?
For the purpose of making it appear that a liberal is discrediting Moore. Which is as far from the truth as you can get, as regards Hitchens’ stance since September 11, 2001.
In short, he does exactly what he’s trying to state Moore does, and he does it in his very own article.
December 1st, 2004 at 10:09 am
Moore is a liar.
I am not providing any examples to that statement.
“Hitchens compares Moore to Rush Limbaugh, which I suppose is fair on some level. Both men are partisans with a gift for weaving a certain kind of spell, one that combines a little information with a lot of entertainment in a way that helps true believers chuckle while their pre-existing views are reinforced.”
That was very true and fair. About the fairest thing I have heard a liberal say in months.
“Which wouldn’t be bad in and of itself. But along with the information comes a certain amount of disinformation. In Limbaugh’s case, I’d say that amount goes well beyond what an honest person, partisan or not, would include. In other words, I think Rush Limbaugh is completely aware that he’s misleading people, and does so intentionally and aggressively.”
Just like I did to Moore above, you have given no examples of Rush misleading people. I would say that Moore’s movies, and the FAIR Report are more misleading than the Master of the Dittoheads has ever been.
But of course, you are under no obligation to prove anything – you’re merely stating your opinion under the First Ammendment.
Which basically means you’re an unsubstanciated name-caller.
I tune into Limbaugh every so often when I have time just for laughs. He makes no serious claim to be a journalist, just an entertainer for conservatives. Moore used to claim that his movie was a documentary until conservatives punched holes right thru his arguments. Then it magically turned into a mere parady.
I haven’t seen Moore’s movie yet, though I’d like to. I think hanging around talking to my liberal friends who have larger volcabularies than I have all day is probably enough to get some balance.
You Demacommie.
See, I’m a name-caller too.
March 25th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Christopher Hitchens vs. Michael Moore
http://www.overcast.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/f911/hitch-moore.htm