Funeral Crashers, Starring Christopher Hitchens
Obviously, you roll out of bed every morning and ask yourself, What's Christopher Hitchens been up to? Today, luckily, you have an answer: the Vanity Fair contributor and boozy British neocon has been, well, drinking. Per usual. But this time he's using his toasted powers to gain entry, despite being uninvited, into a private memorial for New York Review co-editor Barbara Epstein, who recently died of lung cancer. Alexander Cockburn, who loves nothing more than to regale the world with tales of Hitchens' liver damage, writes:
Visibly taken with drink, in the estimate of at least one observer, Hitchens showed up and soon made his way to Jean Stein, a close friend of Barbara Epstein, also editor of Grand Street in recent years. Hitchens spared Stein the habitual presentation of his hairy cheek but made a low, facetious bow and offered his hand.
Stein icily declined, saying she had no desire to shake hands with him for many reasons, not least the fact that Hitchens had attacked one of her best friends, Edward Said, while he was on his death bed.
As Hitchens retreated, someone remarked to him, "So your glorious war has turned out to be a total disaster, hasn't it?"
"It is glorious," the sodden scrivener blared, "and it IS my war because it needed Paul Wolfowitz and myself to go and convince the President to go to war."
As mourners digested this megalomanic outburst, Hitchens continued, "And we are going to kill every Al Qaida terrist and Baathist in the country and that's a good thing. They need to be killed and we will kill them."
Barbara Epstein, RIP.
