Oh, Christopher Hitchens. I think you are absolutely correct about the hitch. He is an extremely knowledgeable individual who, inspite of himself, says many a good and interest thing. Unfortunately I think his glossing over the gross misdeeds of the Tunisian dictatorship is very consistent with his current tenor. His continual need to fight the bogey of islamism and render everything through that lens, impedes his ability to be an honest broker of the truth. Look at his track record.

T.Rollie Fisher

Hitchens is an incredibility talented wordsmith, it's a darn shame that talent has been in the service of some shoddy individuals and causes for the last few years. I enjoy reading him even when I don’t care for his content.

.> he can be interesting, even informative.

Given what Hitchens writes about Libby, how can I have any trust in anything he writes about any other subject? Tunisia for example - I have no personal knowledge about that country. So I am supposed to believe what Hitchens writes about it? The guy who packed 27 lies about the Libby treason into 5 paragraphs yesterday? How do I know he isn't lying about Tunisia?

sPh

Unlike Hitchens, Freedom House is dedicated to understanding the reality on the ground with respect to political rights and civil liberties. On Tunisia, the verdict is that the country is "not free", the lowest ranking a country can get. Highlights include:

• "Citizens of Tunisia cannot change their government democratically. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali [...] has the right to appoint the prime minister, the cabinet, and governors of the provinces, and he can rule by decree when the parliament - which is a rubber-stamp institution - is not in session."
• "In a region - the Arab world - where free press is a rare commodity, Tunisia's press ranks among the worst."
• "One of the last places of refuge for critical voices in Tunisia is the internet, which is also severely restricted by the authorities."
• "Mosques are monitored, controlled, and subsidized by the state, with imams receiving their salaries from the government."
• "Tunisian authorities [...] severely restrict and monitor universities. Open debates, or even courses about the role of government, are avoided. Authorities review academic journals prior to publication, and sensitive material can, like sensitive newspaper articles, be censored."
• "Freedom of association and assembly, although guaranteed in Tunisia's constitution, is sharply controlled. Politically oriented nongovernmental organizations remain unauthorized."
• "Independent human rights activists are often harassed by the authorities, who routinely monitor their telephone conversations and e-mail correspondence, prevent them from leaving the country, and sometimes arrest and beat them."
• "Tunisia's judiciary is a tool of the government, and it is used as a blunt weapon to punish critics. Trials are neither fair nor free."

But on the plus side:

• "Compared with women in other Arab states, Tunisian women enjoy many rights and legal protections. Despite some societal challenges to women's equality, the overall trend is toward improvement."

I guess like others here, I find it easy to be seduced Hitchens' elegant prose. But he is an unreliable reporter, to say the least. Good thing for him he isn't Tunisian.

Realizing that Saddem [sic] was a "true evil" does not imply that he should have been ousted. You know how doctors have the thing about doing no harm? Excising a brain tumor but killing the patient in the process does not count as being helpful. Iraq under Saddam was no doubt a very sick country, but removing Saddam and turning Iraq into a near-dead country was hardly an improvement.

It would do well meaning people good to occasionally remember what the road to hell is paved with...

You start off your complaint about Hitchens's lumping-in with a reference to Hitchens's . . . entire generation? Well played.

This is unbelievable. I had previously thought that Hitchens had thrown in his lot with the neocons out of opposition to the brutal practices of the Taliban and Saddam's regime. That is, the same people he vigorously opposed when they were propping up right-wing dictatorships, he now supports since they were trying to topple other dictatorships. Stupid, but at least there was a simplistic moral logic to it.

Evidently his conversion to the dark side is now complete, since he is willing to apologize for tyrants who are sympathetic to US aims and fighting Islam on every front. All he needs now is a dark mask, and we can rechristen him Darth Hitchowitz.

Oh shit!....Inviligate's a verb. I used it as an adjective. Hitchen's would roast me in my own saliva...not to mention Prof. G.

I do think a DNA test on Buckley and Hitchens is worth the investment. Only if it pins down the origins of their accents.