"His shtick is really more of a “question authority” pose taken to its limits of paranoia and nihilism"

Via Hot Air (and Althouse), on this clip of Mos Def, Hitch, and Salman Rushdie on Bill Maher last Friday:



I watched the whole show, and I didn't find it that excruciating to watch, at least not quite in the same way others did. It was vexing no doubt, to see a performer I always thought was cool expose himself as being neck-deep in naivete, ignorance, and "the government-can't-be-trusted-on-anything style paranoia, but as Allahpundit points out, Hitch saves the day:

Consider this yet another reason to like Hitchens, though. Is there anyone else on the chat-show circuit who would have kept after Def as persistently as he does? You keep waiting for him to relent in the name of “cultural differences,” but he never does. No sacred cows for Hitch.

Hitch is fearless. He's proved that. You can call Hitchens a lot of things, but cowardly is not one of them.

This Does Give One Pause

You know, I don't exactly buy into the "left-wing cabal versus America" meme that the righty partisans advance, at least not in the way they do. Don't get me wrong, the far-left is in full assault mode, and indeed has far too much influence in the Democratic Party, and the country. The catalog of attacks on Joe Lieberman and others who would dare to support him are proof of this. This notwithstanding, I do think George Soros' influence is somewhat overstated in the grand scheme, and he serves as a convenient boogeyman for the right. That being said, as it pertains to the effect of his propaganda machinery and influence on the Party, this poll really does concern me.

Let me be clear that is pure insanity to suggerst that Bush knew about the attacks in advance, and allowed them to happen, or any other politician for that matter. There is no evidence to support such poisonous absurdity. Such baseless conspiracy theories have far too much credence in our discourse on 9/11, and while it's easy to dismiss this as more O'Reilly-fueled hysteria, again, this numbers give me pause. Whatever one thinks of the poll, this is a substantial number.

This does sort of reflect somewhat the divisions within the Democratic Party. While the majority doesn't hold this view, you've got a third of Dems who are totally sold out to far-Left insanity, and this group has too much influence as it is. It's hurting the Party, and more importantly, the country.