Hitchens Debases Self
Christopher Hitchens, a serious man of letters, has debased himself with a cheap stunt best left to the nobodies of YouTube and CNN. He submits himself for a little waterboarding vid. Watch the video for yourself and you will gag. Why must this towering intellectual fall for this sweeps-week-Fear-Factor trick. I hope he got some extra dough or nice bottle of booze for this.
I get his point. But his point has been made long before he decided to put on the black hood and get the sensation of drowning. A roll call on YouTube suggests this is old news. Are we to believe that the middle-aged-Lexus-driving readership of Vanity Fair is still on the fence about waterboarding? Are they the last to understand what happens during this procedure?
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2:37 pm
Well, this is an easy one. He fell for the cheap stunt because his towering intellect is ultimately dwarfed by his towering ego.
2:45 pm
zing
3:06 pm
he looks a bit like auntie hillary in that shot, no?
3:12 pm
So this was something he subjected himself to? Too bad there was so little advance notice - but I imagine the line would have stretched unmanageably around the block if he had put out an advert for waterboarders.
3:13 pm
"I hope he got some extra dough or nice bottle of booze for this."
What you failed to realize is that it wasn't water that they poured on him, it was cheap gin. So let's just say that for ol' Hitch, the experience was it's own reward.
10:39 am
Okay everybody, I know it's fun to take cheap shots at ol' Hitch. But a lot of his fellow defenders of the Iraq war are still claiming it's not torture, and his experience should drive the point home to his fellow Fox news guests that no matter what anyone says, it's torture. Also, judging from the letters-to-the-editor Vanity Fair publishes, there are a fair amount of conservatives that still read VF, and Hitchens could do worse than to convince those types that torture is still going on.
I have to say though, Hitchens has been publicly subjecting himself to a lot of physical pain these days-- getting his body waxed, quitting smoking, now this. Paging Dr. Freud.
10:54 am
1 - It's hardly a "cheap stunt". A cheap stunt would've been performing a meaningless act like eating worms on Fear Factor or going on an episode of Survivor. Despite the hundreds of journalists who've discussed waterboarding ad nauseum and the subject of whether it's really torture or not, Hitchens is the first --- and only --- journalist to actually come to an opinion on the issue by actually trying it himself. Maybe you don't think the issue of whether the US tortures people is important. I do, and I respect anyone who thinks it's important to come to a conclusion on important issues by direct experience.
2 - Making jokes about Hitchens' drinking is shooting fish in a barrel and you know it. I'd say that's about the only "cheap stunt" on this page.
3 - You obviously haven't read Vanity Fair too much. Its readership is far and wide, and not confined the "middle aged Lexus people" who are so deserving of your derision (anyway, who cares if this pseudo-demographic reads VF anyway. They're smart for sure). VF has been around since 1913 and covers a wide range of subjects. It's a well-respected publication --- much more so, than say, that stapled tabloid rag known as the Washington City Paper.
Best,
Lonnie Bruner
10:56 am
ps: Was it a "cheap stunt" when Jason Cherkis tried doing stand up comedy years ago to figure out what that was like?
2:41 pm
Lonnie:
Your points are pretty darn valid.And wow. Thanks for remembering my own cheap stint at standup. But I guess my main point was that reporter's subjecting themselves to waterboarding had been done to death. Hitchens--who I think is a great writer--didn't need to do it to make his point....