Even Lower

You knew it was coming. Once Cindy Sheehan took her anti-war argument to the source and came to the attention of millions, you merely had to check your watch for the exact moment when Christopher Hitchens would stumble into the fray and begin sliming her. And the old dear did not disappoint. Say what you will about Hitch's degeneration, his timing remains superb. He knows exactly when to appear and how much shit to fling around.

Now, had Hitch simply done that, we could smile, shake our heads and move along. But in Sheehan's case, Hitchens went further. Having so often been accused of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias, Hitchens wanted to try the tactic himself, and did, albeit clumsily. To be expected. First steps are always the hardest.

So, what exactly are the Protocols of Cindy? Hitch says it's this letter that she supposedly sent to ABC's "Nightline":

"Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation and this world were betrayed by George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agendas after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy . . . not for the real reason, because the Arab Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy."

Sheehan apparently told CNN that she never wrote those words about Israel, and I've been informed that the entire quote is a fake, intended to smear Sheehan, for rather obvious reasons (the evidence of this, I'm told, will soon appear, and I will link to it when it does). It is true that Sheehan has spoken critically about Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, and how this remains the flashpoint for all problems Middle Eastern. Is that so controversial? To some on the neocon right, such a view, no matter how softly peddled, is not only controversial, it is blood libel. Mention Palestinian suffering, or God forbid, their human rights in front of the likes of David Horowitz or Alan Dershowitz, and be ready to have a swastika drawn on your forehead. There's no talking to people like that, for they exist merely to shut down any debate on the subject. But for Hitchens to now join them is, well, rather startling, but not surprising, given his ongoing slide into what appears to be some kind of war-related madness.

I've been thumbing through Hitchens' old columns and articles about the Middle East, and there are numerous slams against Israeli aggression, duplicity, its savagery against the Palestinians and Lebanese, and its illegal gun running to Iranian mullahs and the murderous Guatamalan junta. Hitchens also wrote critically about US state ties to Israel, trashing the CIA and then-Vice President George H.W. Bush for "dirty deals" with the Mossad, and on and on. He's long been openly critical of Zionism itself, suggesting that it has corrupted the Jewish people. Page after page of this material exists, expressed in language that were Cindy Sheehan to adopt it, would bring a media avalanche upon her. Hitchens knows this, but gleefully and cynically, he throws shit at her anyway, hoping that some of it will stick. It is perhaps his vilest performance to date.

But there's more. Not content to imply that Sheehan is an all-around Jew-baiter and anti-Semite, Hitchens attempts to link her to American fascist David Duke. Why? Well, because Duke wrote an approving blog post about Sheehan's vigil. Has Sheehan ever said anything positive about Duke, before or after his statement of support? Of course not. I seriously doubt that Sheehan was even aware of Duke's ramblings. But Hitchens, in his desperation, tries to forge the two together, and that Slate allowed him to do this, complete with a Web link to Duke's site, is at worst editorially indefensible, at best, simply lazy. Either way, Slate indulged Hitchens' gutter tactic, and this reflects as poorly on them as it does on him.

What's truly disgusting about this is that Hitchens knows that critics of Israeli policies are often cited by domestic fascists and neo-Nazis to elevate their squalid theories. This has long been the case with the likes of Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Norman Finkelstein. Their serious critiques of Israel and Israeli history (along with Israel's New Historians, Tom Segev and Simha Flapan among them) have been used and twisted by the David Dukes of this world, but none of them have ever returned the gesture, and Hitchens is fully aware of this. He also knows that lunatics like David Horowitz and Werner Cohn try to use neo-Nazis to discredit Chomsky and Finkelstein, that somehow a "secret alliance" exists between Jewish critics of Israel and those who deny or play down the Final Solution. Of course it's all bullshit, and what's more, Hitchens has long known this. He ought to -- he's been on the receiving end many times himself.

I won't go into all of the various charges that have been made against Hitchens regarding the Nazi holocaust, simply because I don't believe that he's agnostic on the subject. His championing of Nazi historian David Irving, who's a big draw on the domestic and European fascist circuit, has enraged a number of people, but again, I don't see that as proof that he's a neo-Holohoaxer or is sympathetic to denial. I do recall drinking with him in a West Village pub many years ago where he told me about an encounter he had with an older Jewish man at one of his talks. Hitchens said that as awful and criminal as the Final Solution was, not everything attributed to it was true. Take the claim that gassed Jews were turned into soap and lampshades. "Stalinist fiction, my dear boy," he said with a smile. When he expressed this to the older man, the guy conceded that perhaps it was fiction, but no matter -- the propaganda value of the image was vital in keeping the memory of the death camps alive, and Hitchens shouldn't undermine this. Naturally, Hitchens dismissed the man, and told me that one should be alert to and, if possible, debunk propaganda of all kinds, regardless of source or cause. Intellectual honesty and clarity demanded it.

Again, had Cindy Sheehan said anything remotely like that, she'd be trashed and vilified to the end of her life. And the cruel irony, or hypocrisy, if you prefer, is that Hitchens would be among the vilifiers. His embrace of war, anguish and destruction has done a serious number on his mind, so serious that he now employs the grubby techniques that were once used on him. I'm willing, though God knows why, to view this as sheer panic on his part; that his arguments over the past two years have been proven false and crumbled, and this has forced him to do whatever he can to maintain a foothold in what currently passes as "debate." But I suspect something deeper is amiss.

There's more in Hitchens' piece to tackle -- his authoritarian concept of citizens' speaking rights, esp when it comes to military families, can be taken apart at length -- but there's only so much Mad Hitch I can stand in one sitting. It's a beautiful late summer day, and I'd rather go biking with my son. After sifting through such noxious fumes, I'm in need of some fresh air. Aren't you?