The Passion of Christopher Hitchens

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, an unsettling matter has roiled certain precincts of the left: Christopher Hitchens's zealous support of the Bush administration's foreign policy, in particular its war in Iraq. How could the once fearless radical polemicist have become a cheerleader for the neoconservative project to remake the world? Why must he revile former comrades as either traitors or slackers in the struggle against terrorists? Why, this June, did he join David Horowitz to conduct a ten-day tour of London, featuring private visits to the House of Lords and the estate of Winston Churchill?

Some believe Hitchens's apostasy began in 1989 when an Iranian fatwa—which still stands—demanded the murder of his close friend the novelist Salman Rushdie. A few connect his militant patriotism to his applying for American citizenship or even the discovery that he had Jewish ancestors. Others prefer to fault his personality instead of his politics. Hasn't Hitchens always been an arrogant individualist, eager to bash the illusions of the left? Perhaps all that good whiskey and champagne finally curdled his synapses?