Most of the time Christopher Hitchens is such a compassionless contrarian, one hesitates to agree with him even slightly. Occasionally, though, he hits all the marks and delivers a denunciation so viciously erudite, you have to admire the form if not the content. Case in point: Hitch's utterly unmagnanimous anti-elegy for Reverend Teletubby on Anderson Cooper 360 below. (BTW, see also his piece for Slate.) In this case, the accuracy of content's gravy, but you have to respect the rhetorical quality of such sucker-punches that dismiss Falwell and his brethren as "Chaucerian frauds" and characterize the man himself as "pinching his chubby little flanks." It's vintage vituperation, pure vinegar without even a drop of pseudo-palliating wine. Enjoy.
How's this for a TV show: Hitchens and Anthony Lane conducting weekly excoriations of popular and/or intellectual culture? Now that'd be a bitch-fest worth tuning in to see.
GEEKY FOOTNOTE: Observe Hitchens' sentence in the article: "The evil that he did will live after him." Kewpie dolls and laurel-leaves if you can catch the paraleptic implications thereto. (Or should I say rendered unto? )
This bigot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the pulpit 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-BIGOT!!
)
