Christopher Hitchens

In a "Fact Check" published Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press's Thomas Beaumont insisted that Donald Trump's September 16 statement that "Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy," namely that then-candidate Barack Obama was not born in the United States, "is as untrue as his original lie." Some readers who don't get past Paragraph 3 might even believe that…

Christopher Hitchens has been brought back from the dead by Slate, but it won’t do them any good. Yesterday, they republished a hit piece by the atheist from 2010 that was vintage Hitchens: the man was a great polemicist but a third-class scholar. Facts never mattered to him. ("The Pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it.") Hitchens said the scandal “has only just begun.” Wrong…

Renowned liberal author and journalist Christopher Hitchens died December 15 at the age of 62 following a short battle against esophageal cancer, since summer 2010. One might assume Hitchens was pro-abortion, since he was also an avowed atheist. But he was not, in small or large part due to his history with abortion, as he explained in a 2003 Vanity Fair column:

The passing Thursday of Christopher Hitchens, at age 62 from cancer, reminded me of one of his finest moments, which occurred on a Friday night five-and-a-half years ago when he gave the finger to the pretentious, left-wing Los Angeles studio audience of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. As he laid out the case for how it’s Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who wants World War Three, not…

The death of Christopher Hitchens hits like the 2008 death of Tim Russert. Both were men you really wanted to hear from during a looming presidential election. The word being tossed about in reference to the passing of Hitchens is “contrarian,” and that strikes me as a little unfair. Hitchens could be infuriating and even wrong, but there was nothing dishonest or insincere about the man.…

With author Christopher Hitchens out promoting his new book, ‘Hitch 22: A Memoir,’ I was reminded of four summers ago when the British-born foreign policy hawk gave the finger to Bill Maher’s audience for derisively applauding put-downs of then-President George W. Bush’s approach to Iran. From an August 26, 2006 NewsBusters posting:Writer/author Christopher Hitchens on Friday night gave the…

Newsweek continued its campaign against the Catholic Church on Friday by letting one of the leading atheist (not to leave out anti-Catholic) voices internationally, Christopher Hitchens, spout half-truths and smears about Pope Benedict XVI and the Church. Most egregiously, Hitchens inaccurately stated that Vatican City "was created by Benito Mussolini," thus trying to tie Catholicism to fascism.…

For years now American TV audiences been constantly accosted with the overblown drama, feelings, and theatrics of people we don't care about. It is given the exalted genera title of "reality TV." Now Salon.com brings that drama queen sensationalism to journalism! Oh, joy. Enter Julie Limbaugh whining and complaining in the pages of Salon.com that her life is just oh, so hard because her cousin…

Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens and Salon's Joan Walsh squared off Monday evening on MSNBC's "Hardball," and things deliciously got personal.The topic on host Chris Matthews' mind was president-elect Barack Obama's choice for Secretary of State.Hitchens was none too pleased with the nomination of Hillary Clinton for this position, while Walsh defended Obama's decision with all her soul.With…

At 78, Larry Eagleburger hasn't lost his fastball.  Since leaving government, he might actually have added some MPH.  Appearing on MSNBC this afternoon, the former Secretary of State in George H.W.'s administration warmed up with some rough words for Barack Obama and Christopher Hitchens . . .  then absolutely rubbished Bill Richardson.Andrea Mitchell had invited Eagleburger on to assess the list…

Renegade Night on Hardball.  First up, Bill Weld.  The former Republican governor of Massachusetts, who has endorsed Obama, told Chris Matthews he believed the Dem candidate would, as president, reach across the aisle to govern.   Weld didn't—couldn't—cite anything to support his assertion out of Obama's hyper-partisan Senate record in which he's toed the Harry Reid line 97% of the time.But as…

Update: Reaction from document examiner Emily Will added at bottom of post (April 3 | 13:02 EDT) Mary Mapes (file photo at right), the former CBS producer behind the Bush National Guard memo scandal that eventually felled Dan Rather's career has a post up at the liberal Nation magazine's Web site insisting that comparisons between Memogate and the L.A. Times falling for fake documents about Tupac…

In all the brouhaha last week over the incendiary comments made by Barack Obama's pastor the media seemed to forget to partake in their traditional Holy Week Christian-bashing excercise.  There were a few entries in the "Easter Hit Parade," like the Comedy Central show "Root of All Evil" which my boss, Brent Bozell, wrote about in a column recently, and an episode of "Law and Order" which…