Christopher Hitchens on Fox
Oct 19th, 2008 | By Chris Basinet | Category: NewsChristopher Hitchens, bestselling author of God Is Not Great and an advocate of Atheism ranked with the likes of Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) appeared on the O’Reily Factor yesterday night. Laura Ingraham interviewed him on the Personal Story segment of the show, where they discussed Hitchens’s unforeseen support of Obama.
Ingraham begins by noting the variation between his opinion put into his article The War Between the Wars for Slate in July and his newfound admiration for Barack Obama. In the July article, Hitchens wrote:
If we had left Iraq according to the timetable of the anti-war movement… the Iraqi people would now be excruciatingly tyrannized by the gloating sadists of al-Qaida, who could further boast of having inflicted a battlefield defeat on the United States. I dare say the word of that would have spread to Afghanistan fast enough and, indeed, to other places where the enemy operates. -July 14, 2008; Slate.com
Hitchens then responds by saying that Obama’s values have been getting progressively “better and more teachable”.
During the program, I did notice that Ingraham acted defensively and on several occasions, cut Hitchens off. I think it would be reasonable to say that she behaved unfairly, making connections to her personal life and in support of McCain-Palin in order to give the notion that she was under personal attack. How she performed did not entirely matter, it was just bad journalism.
Though, because of her behavior, it was difficult to extract the real roots of Hitchens’s change in opinion.
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Wow, I am surprised that Hitchens has endorsed Obama.
Go Obama!
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Well with all due respect, if we hadn’t invaded Iraq like Hitchens had advocated, you would not have seen all the sectarian killings, radical religious leaders, or segregation by violence that we see in Iraq today. Saddam may have been a bastard, but under his rule the average Iraqi had access to potable water and 16 hours of electricity per day, as opposed to no potable water and at one point 20 minutes of electricity a day.
This complete destruction of Iraq’s economy created a breeding ground for violent radical groups to form and recruit followers. Not to mention leave the door open for Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regain their footing in Afghanistan.
[Reply]
Rodrigo Neely Reply:
October 19th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
For what its worth I actually agree with you on this one.
I definitely believe going into Iraq initially was a bad idea. What we do now however, I am a little more ambiguous about.
[Reply]
[...] Speaking of Obama, Christopher Hitchens disappoints Republican Cheerleader Laura Ingraham on The O’Reilly Factor by supporting Barack Obama - It is hilarious to see Ingraham total inconsistency in order to constantly support the GOP. She was too nutty even for O’Reilly: [...]