Chistopher Hitchens Needs To Lay Off The Sauce

It's clearly affecting his thinking ability:

It had been said that Sen. Barack Obama had once attended a dinner for professor Rashid Khalidi, a distinguished Palestinian academic.

Uh, no. It has been said that Obama has a long standing relationship with Khalidi, who was a frequent dinner companion of Obama. Chirst, is Hitchens so addle brained these days that he is going to give the ol' "He's just this guy who lives in my neighborhood" crapola?

It was further said that the Los Angeles Times, which had first reported the five-years-ago dinner in Chicago, was deliberately withholding a videotape of the evening

Yes, and do you know who said the LAT was withholding a tape? The LAT! It's not a matter of fucking opinion, its a fact.

...that would show Obama in the audience while tough criticism of Israel was being voiced.

That's right. Feting a mouthpiece for a terrorist organization whose avowed goal is the destruction of Israel equals "tough criticism." That's like saying the millions who died in Soviet gulags really only suffered "the mild displeasure of Stalin."

Here is how the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States described the situation in a radio interview in Miami:

I'm not in the business of talking about media bias, but what if there was a tape with John McCain with a neo-Nazi outfit being held by some media outlet? I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different.

I presume that in this fantastic piece of semicoherent Florida pandering McCain meant to imply the wearing of a neo-Nazi outfit rather than the membership of one,

Jeezus...now Hitchens is showing he can't read English either. Obviously, the term outfit is used in the sense of organization...you know:

Main Entry: out·fit
Pronunciation: \ˈaut-ˌfit\
Function: noun
Date: circa 1769

1: the act of fitting out or equipping (as for a voyage or expedition)
2 a: a set of tools or equipment especially for the practice of a trade b: a clothing ensemble often for a special occasion or activity c: physical, mental, or moral endowments or resources
3: a group that works as a team : organization ; especially : a military unit

This is the kind of stupidity and lack of reading comprehension I expect from my college freshmen.

So why is Hitchens being so obviously moronic? Ah, it's because he wants to whitewash Khalidi.

My main point, though, is not to call attention to the bullying and demagogy of McCain's attack. It is to observe how completely it undermines any claim on his part to foreign-policy experience. Khalidi has been known to me for some time and can easily be read and consulted by anyone with the remotest curiosity about the Israeli-Arab dispute. He is highly renowned, well beyond the borders of his own discipline, for his measure and care and scruple in weighing the issue. If he is seriously to be compared to a "neo-Nazi," then the Republican nominee has put the United States in the unbelievable position of slandering the most courageously "moderate" of the Palestinian Arabs as a brownshirt and a fascist.

Moderate? What the hell is Hitchens talking about?

Here is the real Khalidi:

Dr. Khalidi was a director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982. During this time the US State Department considered the PLO a terrorist organization and the PLO was involved with terrorist attacks. WAFA was not an independent, unaffiliated news organization. While it is true that the PLO has moderated over time and moved in the mainstream of Palestinian politics, that is not the point. What we are talking about is perception. Dr. Khalidi, notwithstanding his current work, cannot pretend he was some outsider with no ties to the policies and practices of the PLO in the late 70s. That point will be seized on by Republican strategists. I am not saying this is right or fair, but it is reality. So deal with it.

...

And here is a shocking development–Dr. Khalidi has some strong opinions. During an appearance on Al-Jazeera (note, I also have appeared on Al-Jazeera, so that does not mean one is a reflexive anti-Semite) Khalidi said the following about the Washington Institute:

By God, I say that the participation of the sons or daughters of the Arabs in the plans and affairs of this institute is a huge error, this Israeli institute in Washington, an institute founded by AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, and that hosts tens of Israelis every year. The presence of an Arab or two each year can’t disguise the nature of this institute as the most important center of Zionist interests in Washington for at least a decade. I very much regret the participation of Arab officials and non-officials and academics in the activities of this institute, because in fact if you look at the output of this institute, it’s directed against the Palestinians, against the Arabs, and against the Muslims in general. Its products describe the Palestinians as terrorists, and in fact its basic function is to spread lies and falsehoods about the Arab world, of course under an academic, scholarly veneer. Basically, this is the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States.

Talk about "code words." There is no way this rant isn't anti-Semitic in effect and intent. This may be the sort of thing that Hitchens is comfortable with, or maybe even actively supports, but that doesn't make it "moderate."

Khalidi has called Israel a racist, apartheid state that was used U.S. supplied "weapons of mass destruction" against Palestinians.

This is the asshole Hitchens want to protect. (And the sort of ideas Barack Obama finds interesting.)

He must be drunk.

Again.