Another Double (Down)

Christopher Hitchens, "So, Mr. Hitchens, Weren't You Wrong About Iraq?" Slate March 19

I started off with every intention of writing about this thing, subtitled "Hard Questions, Four Years Later", though in fact "Hitchens Acts As His Own Straight Man" would have been more like it. Before the first Hard Question he's already morphed the thing into a re-examination of his and his neocon buddies' justifications for war. Guess whether he still finds them justified. (Has the tiresome refrain about "Even the French and Germans Believed There Were WMDs" now, in March of Oh Seven, suddenly grown a point? Are spy agencies always truthful? Always correct? In the habit of understating threats?) By question four "Inspected" turns up in scare quotes. Hard Questions? You're taking the same damn exam you took four years ago.

Still, I intended to rebut a couple of points. That was before I came to this:

The Bush administration never claimed that Iraq had any hand in the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

So either Hitchens is the hair shirt Slate has assigned itself to wear for its pro-war coverage or he's become for them what Germany and France are to WMDs, the "See, Even He Thought So!" guy. Either way, I couldn't care less. It's flotsam. The convenient re-writing of the unpleasant Past is a much bigger problem now; Hitch's memoirs can be safely assigned to the Nostalgia section.