Norman Finkelstein on Christopher Hitchens

"Atlantic Monthly, the well-heeled house organ of Zionist crazies." WTF?

but this really isn't it - its generalisations about the dynamics of apostasy are just rubbish (even if they're true about hitchens, and i'm not convinced they are), and its assumption that only people on the correct bit of the left are principled or idealistic i think undermines it as any kind of analysis - it's a shout of "you are you mean" anger: the anger's justified but at best this is polemic to make those inside the circle feel a bit better, it catches a few contradictions maybe, but it doesn't have any explanatory political insight

you'd do better to reread some of the piece hitchens himself wrote about apostates back in the day: the one on conor cruise o'brien (which is semi-forgiving), the one on podhoretz (haha which is not), others too... i think there's plenty of stuff in there which comes back now and sticks to hitchens himself, and which could be worked much more effectively to make him squirm (or whatever the purpose is of finkelstein's piece)

http://www.citypages.com/databank/23/1146/article10878.asp

"Speaking purely for myself, I would be alarmed if my knee failed to respond to certain stimuli. It would warn me of a loss of nerve. I have written in the past year about the MX missile, constructive engagementm, the confirmation of Edwin Meese and other grand guignol episodes. Naturally I hope that my arguments were original, but I would be depressed to think that anyone who knew me or my stuff could not easily have 'predicted' the line I would take.

"In the charmed circle of neoliberal and neoconservtaive jouranalism, however, 'unpredictability' is the special emblem and certificate of self-congratulation. To be able to bray that 'as a liberal, i say bomb the shit out of them' is to have achieved that eye-catching, versatile marketability that is so beloved of editors and talk-show hosts. As a lifelong socialist, I say don't lets bomb the shit out of them. See what I mean? It lacks the sex appeal, somehow. Predictable as hell."

Hitchens in the nation, 1985 (quoted from "prepared for the worst")

Unlike most "apostates", Hitchens has NOT (yet) publicly or overtly disavowed the bulk of his earlier specific positions (that I've read anyway). He was on UK TV two weeks back laying into Kissinger and re-pronouncing his disgust at the Vietnam war and the murder of Allende. I think an attack on CH that has real content has to delve into his old arguments and force the issue: what changed between here and here, and why?

In fact, I don't actually think his current position IS "unpredictable", I think there's advance warning of it all over his writing even in the early 80s (for example in his - justly - famous defence of Chomsky over the Faurrisson business, written the same year as the above, he actually has an aside about his already palpable political differences with NC, which he chooses at the moment not to expand, arguing - rightly I think - that they are irrelevant to the issue at hand).

A major breach-point I suspect was his rage at the mealymouthed non-defence in some quarters of the left of Salman Rushdie's right to write fiction that offended religious reactionaries (of course he subsquently fell with Rushdie...) Anyway he was ALWAYS happy to rabbit-punch those on "his" side for arguing stupidly or writing badly (which of course they sometimes have, especially the latter). The strained archness of his style at its worst is all over the above extract (I went into triple dotting up there cz I got bored writing the whole gag out, and found myself thinking GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT HITCHENS) (haha how can I possibly value the style of so close a pal of Martis Amis?) (hasn't he fallen out with him also, over Koba the Dread?)

But I think the basic point re predictability is good, and it's certainly more deftly argued than Finkelstein (who is really not cut out for this mode of debate). So is he now pro-unpredictability, or is he angry that the valuable intricacies (as he sees it) of his overall position were actually being hem-hemmed over all along back in the day by his labelmates, bcz he largely respected the partyline? And this shift is the Return of the Repressed of the tricky bits in those details?

There are any number of reasonable, worthy left-wing critiques of the Clinton era - you could start with the continuation of sanctions against Iraq, and the death toll. You could start with Clinton backing down on healthcare and gays in the military. But by throwing in his lot with the irrational crap about murders and Juannita Broderick and blowjob impeachments, Hitchens cheapened a lot of left-wing criticism of Clinton, making it easier to paint it as crazy ("Look, they're making the same arguments as JERRY FALWELL!").

while i have some problems with the linked finkelstein piece -- esp. his rather free use of polemic (though i enjoyed his well-deserved kicks in Nat Hentoff's wrinkled tukhas -- why doesn't the village voice just send that senile old horse to the glue factory already?) and his own tarring of Todd Gitlin -- he brings up a good point re Chomsky. esp. since Chomsky plays it relatively straight, thereby standing in contrast with Hitchens.

the successful establishment of a milieu where What Noam Says Goes would be a catastrophe for chomsky as a serious political thinker, if nothing else - if yr whole world is yesmen and enemies, yr brain will fail

(hitchens back in the day was very impressed by paulin's hostile reading of conor cruise o'brien's 1968 essay on CREON AND ANTIGONE, and the ethics of rebellion... CCO'B of course being another former-left apostate and e.burke-fan that hitchens has long been (over?)fascinated with... anyway i noticed hitchens cited Creon and Antigone in his most recent Vanity Fair piece on how well things are going in post-war Iraq, an unexpected and potentially self-immolating reference which suggests - to me - that the whole dark complex of feelings about apostasy right or wrong is currently surging around in him also)

http://users.rcn.com/peterk.enteract/fink.html

What's Marty's relationship to The Atlantic? Apart from Hitchens (who is about as anti-Zionist as you can get) I haven't followed the magazine closely for years...

http://www.fair.org/extra/9301/zuckerman.html

Payback is a bitch.