6.07.2004
’Cruel and stupid,’ indeed
[Posted 5:54 PM by Stefan Beck]
One can forgive Christopher Hitchens for a great deal on account of his occasionally excellent work–most recently his commentary on the importance of fixing Fallujah. But his latest foray into self-serving contrariness is as inexcusable as it is pathetic:
The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn’t like him all that much.
It is not necessary, of course, that Hitchens like Ronald Reagan. But Mr. Reagan is owed respect as a former American president and as a man who had an unquestionably positive impact on untold millions of lives. Hitchens mocks his eating habits, insinuates he was a poor father, and even at one point calls him a “cruel and stupid lizard”–all this only makes him seem small, petty, and irrelevant next to the legend he attacks. Reagan’s feet are anything but clay, and Hitchens’s column has no more impact than a rant on Cuban state radio.