Reply #42: "It's been real..." - My defense of Hitchens [View All]

[FormerDittoHead]

"It's been real" is the line one says when they've had a miserable time, and Christopher Hitchens DID have his ass handed over to him.

Hitchens is losing his "edge" big time, but I must defend him to the point that he's more of a BBC / CSpan guy and doesn't really work at the increased pace of American TV. I'm not defending American TV - I WISH they had given him more time (a weekly one HOUR "Daily Show" as we don't have a Friday show?) and I wish the interview had the time to talk about the book as well. That he couldn't talk / think ("redraw the map," Hitch! "Redraw the MAP"!) as fast as Stewart and didn't have the time to get all his 5 syllable words in isn't his fault. (he used one last night that really flew by me - those damn English schools! Where do they GET those words!) Also, Hitchens didn't / couldn't / failed to play up to the audience and the applause was distracting, IMO, especially when you seem to not have gotten enough sleep (ahem).

In the end, however, he came on to plug a book. That's where he makes money, and the book plug was well, non-existent. I think Trent Lott sold more books from Wednesday's show!

I guess that's not much of a "defense"... Consider it that "public defender's" version...