Christopher Hitchens interview on the Clintons (1999)

Christopher Hitchens is here born in England educated at Oxford he has become a Washington insider known for his prolific writing and for his wit he's a longtime contributor to the nation and Vanity Fair if new book is called no one left to lie to the triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton explained to me your feelings about him and how you came to these conclusions because you are as it is passionate about your animus towards him as anyone I know yes I really really really don't like him my little book is a big part isn't address I hope it's got a general interest but in part it's a reproach to the American left to the American liberals for falling for him and for defending him when but from everything else he is an extremely and always has been a very extremely conservative person politically but also because of his corrupt and selfish and I would say mean almost psychopathic the deceitful tendencies that have done enormous damage to politics as any honest person could appreciate them I think it's been a tremendous sign of the degeneration of American liberalism you come to has been really well worth having cause it's because it's fratricide that's argue that debate I mean they have that debate with you and in a sense not but please do engage you on it but you say so many things that it's quickly to jump on why would you come at this from your own ideological position which is where looks well to the left of Mister Clinton Wellesley left and most people well turned so I mean you're not just the left of the notion actually which is whereas the Nation magazine well to the left of traditional liberalism in America yes I mean whenever I go on c-span are older of our own mutual friend Brian lamb always asked who said he was still a socialist I know one day he's gonna he's hoping I'm gonna say no okay Brian I've got over all that and I left all that behind partly just to spite him yeah I won't I'm not gonna deny it I swear I it's where I learned my politics and I what I learned from it isn't isn't well all means all useless so when we characterize yourself in terms of any politics in England and in the United States no democratic socialist democratic because it's an international position one of the reasons I'm attracted to it is that it's the same you know or should be the same for all societies a Democratic Socialist like Tony Benn and I'm cognitive nerve Jenny bath if there's differences with him but he's an honorable guy and I know him slightly yes that's that's that's not I was a not a great admirer of mr. Blair who I think is you know one of those people who wants politics to be all things to a man but I don't think is a mean person or a corrupt person so the difference in Blair and Clinton really where your money is with Clinton so not political there to do with with with with the ruthless megalomaniac political style and with a real self advertised readiness for corruption and dirty work which is what got me into trouble with him in his I'll be getting ahead of the story well yes but that's why I think we're giving if you like New Hampshire I always suspect it that he was he Clinton I was thought this new Liberal Democrat looks rather excuse me New Democrat and Democratic Leadership Council DLC right was a bit glib and a bit sorted because if you after eight years of Reagan and for of Bush to conclude the main problem in American politics was that the Democratic Party was too much to the left seems to me a weird conclusion and it was all based on saying well what we've really got to do is address the morals of the underclass that's the real problem with this country is the underclass doesn't behave well but I thought that actually there were some over class problems and needed attention but so I admit I went to New Hampshire not liking him I didn't much care about the flowers business I still don't I think he treated us very badly Jennifer flowers yeah I think he treated it very badly and I think he lied to everyone about it but that seemed so solid when I held at the same point would he not here's what I did but but any other politician which I know if mr. Clinton said yes I did I loved her and it's none of your damn business we've been living in a much better culture now I would have applauded him if he'd said that it would also been true then he loved her yeah well he certainly acted like you do if he's since love yes they were obviously very tight that she really loved him did he love let's say suppose that he had said he loved her and yes I did that would have just been a little nicer than saying well no I had nothing to do with her and then seven years later saying okay I did it with her once and that was it as if he doesn't know that it's the height of bad manners to sleep with Washington is full of politician they're not stepping forward to say I had an affair with someone that I may have told him a lot but don't so anyway here's what he did to get over it out of it right he was many points behind my on the stage she left that campaign trail in New Hampshire flew down to Arkansas he was still government to personally supervise the execution of a lobotomized black defendant inmate Ricky Ray rector by name and Cummins prison and couldn't even understand the charges against him he'd blown his brain away he was gone he didn't know he been sentenced to death he didn't understand why they came to give him his last meal what was happening in Clinton just made absolutely clear he was changing the second order you're not gonna get me on law and order you're not gonna think I'm soft you're not gonna have you're not gonna Willie Horton me right and the two things about the second me or one that he did this in cold blood to the sky and I have a long section about in my blog and to that no one in my profession and no one in the liberal wing of politics thought this was a test of character or of intention there's among the things that depressed me I did write a column about him Eric Kempton dead that was about it right what depressed me really was the the suggestion it had of a relationship in the president's mind or the then governor's mind of a sick relationship between sex and death that he would change the Soviet away from the illicit flowers love nest to the the lethal chance okay but then you were put it you're what you were doing in that case I mean you can make the argument that that it that he should have been more compassion more sent him that issue and you could make the argument at he did it because he wanted to firmly come down and make his position about capital punishment evident to all and that he was tough on criminals and not compassionate about your messages let me finish my point I'm sorry my point is is that you are simply you know you were reading motivation where you don't know as to the fact that he left Jennifer flowers because he wanted to tie together sex and death that the motivation to go there rather than distract from Jennifer flowers was in fact he's it's very it was a very strange week to leave New Hampshire he was in trouble it was quite a desperate gamble to go down there and this is a guy who any other week would have been would have received clemency from the governor because there was no no one in the prison thought he should be executed this is a tough prison in a tough state the prison chaplain resigned on the issue the warders and others have been quoted as saying we shouldn't have done this to another one it was like were chosen and where this man was imprisoned it was like killing a child okay but did they say it shouldn't be done well yes of course this it shouldn't because I'm asking I don't know yeah and the brother the prison chaplain resigned this is not a sentimental area yeah of the United States as you know so no I just I'm sticking to my point I think I think it was an atrocious thing to do it suggested something fairly monstrous about the guy and it's Jason there was probably nothing he wouldn't do and it also suggested an attitude to a signal you might say about what kind of firm but he addressed exorcism in the time did he not know do you know he didn't know there was some criticism I remember people raised up I thought no never he's never been has never been asked a question about I know because I tried in the adoption he turned his back and walked away no shift the scene I mean I beg to differ he doesn't tell you I'm a Kurd it with trepidation because you've written the book but there there was no criticism of him at the time anywhere I know there wasn't any phrase it you know Charlie let me phrase it like this if a Republican governor an ambitious ruling governor trying to be president right had in the course of a tough primary return to the same state to supervise the execution of a mentally disabled black man the name of that man would be very well known I think you'll agree we would know and not argue where they shouldn't all right we'll be records name is virtually unknown and so that's that's in a sense my point your point also is this this for you is a liberal define is a defining what this act was for him a defining insight into his character and what else well I thought so and I thought it showed her I thought it showed a as I said a creepily sadistic attitude and a willingness to bid for the racist subconscious as well in the in the electorate to say look you know don't don't call me softer I can snuff this black guy who doesn't know what the charge against in it willingness to bid for that willingness to get really rough when the he was already engaged online or another front about his flowers in changing the subject and and what I consider to be an eerie and active ability to get liberals to keep their mouth tight shock which there they shot them there and they've kept them shot ever since about that kind of calculation of what it is because liberals I assume the indictment here against liberals in them then the Democratic Party is that they made a cop out because they wanted a Democrat in the White House for all the spoils left I'm speaking that's it that was the deal they made in their own yeah and Republicans are prepared probably to do the same thing in the year 2000 in terms of setting someone less conservative than they'd like to seek because they want to be back in the White House correct that's one element of try animation yeah and it's also sometimes called traditionally that was called the you know the lesser evil theory where you simply say in advance well this guy I'll vote for whoever the nominee is but it's a it's a pretty arid form of politics and there were better people running an instance of that nomination I thought I think many people could have taken Bush that year as a matter of fact generally it shipped in turn to do so but it's a way however you have notified the way peed which people can Sol themselves you identified the way in which people explain these things to themselves yes justify them it's a political compromise you know I give up principle that I may believe in because of and but you had other they grant themselves the principles of course but only in order to give themselves the Roger so now they may not have had the principles to start off with actually not always true that they did go back to your point you're saying that this book is in fact how liberals in a sense lost their soul because of Bill Kennedy Bill Clinton and wanting to see him in the White House and be that Bill Clinton is you know for you almost the embodiment of all evil well none abnormally ghastly individual in every respect yes in every respect every respect yeah because he lies about he lies about everything to everybody no one left to life in everything to everyone know which is the titles here uses his daughter as a prop he uses the help as comfort women and then uses public money to defend back no I'm using daughters a problem I mean me a politician and contain lots of politicians who have had their family out front you know as part of their wholesomeness yes the fair enough I mean that's not I'm not using family as a prop so I don't need to take miss Chelsea across looking like this suppose that wanted got oneself into some indiscretion of that sort right it's impossible to imagine it happening and then you know people were looking at you scientists cancer so I can imagine doing various things in the hope of you know salvaging myself oh and what among them would not be appearing with my front of the cameras holding my daughter's hand I'm just I know I wouldn't do that okay but I mean for the first time you and I you and I could both disagree you know I could both make the same joke and I'm not disagreeing with your point of view about that I'm just saying that you you weigh it with much heavier contempt than most people you can say look that's well remember what I'm pushing back against I'm pushing back against the huge consensus of people who said for a long long time all this is his private stuff it's none of our affair I mean they didn't say that about other corrupt presidents so there's this corrupt president and this crooked presidents come with a huge bodyguard of falsity and propaganda supplied by intellectuals and academics and journalists for in which wit mr. Nixon couldn't count on getting didn't get nor mr. Reagan so it seems to me yeah it was more it was more incumbent upon me to say say what I thought and to point out how people were fooling themselves and fooling others as one who is a huge admirer of yours thank you I say that because of your polemic skills because if you're a very interesting guy and you've been on this show more than once to fun having said that uh haha knew the other shoe is done no it's not it have you ever asked yourself maybe I'm just over board about this guy I've just lent myself go nuts about this and I need to come to some saner place yeah I've asked myself and I've it's been said to me by other people and in a way I guess I could say the book is an attempt to get him out of my system yeah early but I thought like the Parsis I thought I started writing that he this is a dangerous guy in January 1992 I'm gonna see it through now I'm going to the end and you know what I'm gonna be vindicated two people are gonna be saying to me a little while from now isn't they already are beginning to maybe you were right about the guy level so that might be the reward for looking a bit obsessed for a while well then what I would hope was people wouldn't give themselves away wouldn't sell their votes and their prints also cheaply to people in the future not to a politician like this one never again well I mean you are nothing if not in a kind of class so let me start from there and and have had interesting opinions about a lot of people including famously mother Teresa mm-hmm having said that you look at his foreign policy yes and and characterize how you see his policy today mm-hmm with respect to Serbia well mr. Linton was asked by the Italian Prime Minister a couple of about a week before the bombing began mr. Clinton we had mr. Dahle Maron what are you going to do with the bombing doesn't work and what if it's what if mr. Malloy's fish doesn't change his mind and what if instead he tries to throw all the Albanians out of Kosovo shining Prime Minister came out gave his own press briefing and said mr. Finn's answer this question was to look at him like this like he never thought of that before and to turn to sandy Berger sandy Berger by the way can you imagine having such a guy in the White House and say well sandy what would be do if that happened a burger looked like that and said well I guess we just keep bombing Italian Prime Minister couldn't believe it it's Italy's nearest neighbor the bases just don't his soil his government could fall they could be overwhelmed by refined on yeah of course because it's a NATO birthday but he was hoping for a better answer than that from the president then the refugees are flung outs the biggest humanitarian calamity in New York for a long time and Clinton says oh don't blame us for that we knew that was going to happen we allowed for all that cleared this is monstrous it's it's the shame of it is not felt anything like enough in my view they knew this was coming up and they did nothing the shame of it in the fact that the president openly claims that this was part of the plan that they understood that Milosevic would do what he would has done I I think you'll find some debate about that whether they knew that he was gonna do it I realized they've been all over the place on this but you would be consistent on that the pentagon spokesman has said that Karina so it Albright said and the president has said it we anticipated this that was the line of the day so it wouldn't look as if they were stupid and something had happened that made them repaired and you were saying if they knew about it where are they with the front they knew about and then went ahead with the bombing then they are what they're complicit in the expulsion of the refugees they're complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo so if there was to be a punishment for it they'd have to go and stand in the same dock so is your is it your argument against the President on this particular case that he did not go in aid that he would did not level with us about what he knew and expected thee he did not put on the table the possibility of ground troops and three he did not use the full force of bombing that he could have used well some I mean that those could be recombined in another way but I mean and I'm not a military strategist but I have been in the Balkans quite a bit my view is that mr. Linton paid paid no attention to the subject cares nothing about it has not cared to inform himself as he's spending most of the last of the relevant time using public money in his own defence and for his own private and selfish interests we have had several very devastating reports of meetings he should have attended about either Iraq or Serbia which he didn't show up at because he wasn't closeted with his lawyers wasting our time on his end selfishness so I'm not impressed at all but what he has actually said in public is appalling and remember though I agreed that finally he had done the right thing in tried after trying not to for a very long time the price would she willingly pay it was to make mr. Milosevic not his enemy but his cosigner and negotiating partner and honoured guest at Dayton that's quite a high price to pay now they've suddenly discovered mr. Mellott switch work do after all but this is hardly even amateur hours for our statesmanship instance and then they've now made themselves responsible for the for the calamity impossible co responsible for it I think it's pretty bad picture but on the other hand we you can relax because there he is going to build the Star Wars system which Reagan only promised to test it's a difference now committed to blame but it's a different Star Wars no it's still the bigger spoon and the most Don's destabilizing boondoggle ever undertaken and it consummates his sell out to the military-industrial interests across the board is it possible she was so wrapped up in your what's the best word you much more bottomless contempt yes bottomless contempt would be good that you can't see straight about this but take it because everything I think it's everyone else who didn't have enough contempt to see straight things everyone else this is right contempt is so bottomless and so deep on every issue that it's like except for which I was gonna raise and you carefully did yourself Ireland yes yeah I don't give him natural you know but now it's contempt but it's look at some there's a rock of Lennon's I used to be very fond oh he said that what you have to do is have your heart on fire and your brain on us that's where you think you are a hard time because to you about the guy just look at him very coldly and I think this is disgusting now why of course it's true could he just be a guy who is a politician who has been consuela the world very sighs let me what he politician consumed by ambition and actually genuinely wants to do something and wants to in fact make a difference and he you may have political differences because he's not in favor of a litany of programs that you're in favor of and because he he tilts it the conservative side are to the center I mean some say that his most extraordinary lives I would say no no but did most extraordinary achievement as he brought the Democratic Party to the center that's what he's contributed to in eight years in the office Democratic Party was in the sense of the year I was born which is 50 isn't good enough center in the polemics that you and shoots concerns arrive under thought I would say so no I don't think that was a great historic task now I just think he's his rule it's been a long period of nothingness punctuated by nastiness I would say and that's gonna be his epitaph the interesting thing is if most people aren't talking about all of your animus towards the president they're talking about what you did in the affair Blumenthal oh yes speak to me about that because it's got all your friends at the nation yeah I know you other place in the world actually a lot of my friends of the nation take my side on this but in the nation the magazine tried to publish a an editorial which didn't speak a thing though I mean that's been put right there there's a lot of confusion about this if you please brace it out for me the one of the things that mr. Clinton does when his comfort women don't suit his purposes any longer is he arranges to have them defamed you know Jennifer flowers was called a liar and a gold digger and all of this and I went checking through the whole story everyone knows what I'm talking about in the nowitzki case before they knew she had any forensic evidence they put out the story that she was trying to blackmail the president that she was saying to him if you don't sleep with me I'll say that you have okay which anyone who's ever been in an office job knows you had to protect yourself against someone that's crazy in that way but mr. Clinton well we now know what he did about that too now that it bears on the question of obstruction of justice because we know that they tried to find her various public and private jobs public sector and private sector jobs to just secure a perjured affidavit as well I would say but there's a link that you can't I mean you know was it they did they did did they not try to find her public jobs certainly probably a private job sure probably what do you end with you and depending on the way I spend enough her right it happens she gave a perjured affidavit I would agree there's no connect okay but but you just said it was as if it was fact there's a it's factual right there's no question about it it would take a long time to establish but it would take I think it would take you forever to say there's no connection at all no she among others have not acknowledged that that was in fact well not know I don't think I'd required her I would have required her confirmation don't know okay on the other hand the obstruction element kicks in with that's the promise then there's the threat those are the two things that constitute obstruction or witness tampering the threat is if you don't stay positive because they've lost contact with her by now they can only reach her through the media if you don't stay perjured here's what we're going to say value you will be held up to the whole world by the most powerful man in the world as a blackmailing minx as I said nothing you can do about it because they didn't know about the DNA the the commonplace word for that that's now being say is the stalker theory right the president told Sydney that story we know because Sydney went to the grand jury and told them all about it that's what the president thought Sydney in my opinion believed that story when he was told it he certainly seemed to believe it when he told it to me and my wife at lunch at lunch so it was the moral of this story so for going to these kind of meetings you take your wife with you yes I'm very glad the missing but I think I would yes she's also gentleman a confirming witnesses goes also journalists right so it was embarrassing for Sydney I imagine and very upsetting for me when I discovered that well the the the line of the day in the White House from Charles Ralph the chief counselor and that was that we don't know how the story got in the press and certainly we have no idea how the president's version has told the Sydney gets into 500 newspapers well I thought that this is ridiculous and I had said so very often and I knew many many other people in Washington actually I didn't know many journalists who had not heard from Sydney or others this story it was commonplace and common knowledge I thought well why should they get away with yet another lie at this stage and I wrote about it in an English newspaper I said I didn't say who the White House person was at the lunch but I anyone could have guessed so when the House Judiciary Committee came to me and said we know what story you've been telling and we know it would you put a say it again under oath I said sure what are my alternatives no I won't I'm gonna take me throughout again one who came to you the House Judiciary Committee came and the person up home in the person of a woman named their chief investigative counselors named Susan Berger okay so Susan shows up in Bogart she calls me up says look is it true that you've related and one case printed I forget if she mentioned printing it or not related to have knowledge of this story I said yes I'm sure I haven't by then told that to anyone who called me I would make an exception for the House Judiciary Committee walk me through the story she said well would you put your name shown under penalty of perjury and I said well I wouldn't need to be put under penalty of perjury I would just repeat that I think it's true but there are legal forms to be gone through and meant it meant I was asked to execute an affidavit which I did the alternative would have been to say I don't know what you're talking about which wouldn't have been true or no it's not true which would it be the lying and will lie that would have protected mr. Clinton so the what's legitimately obvious what I ought to do the problem was this for me it was clear I said to them look it's Clinton as who's on trial right not Sydney this is evidence show that the president has caused his deputies and underlings with public money on our dive to spread defamation of truthful women witnesses they said yeah that's right so no one else on trial here no president remember said he didn't even watch that child and watch his own trial sent deputies in to sit for him I said his friends and colleagues in to do that for him so I said okay but I'm not I won't I will not stand by this affidavit defuse it against anyone else I'll repudiate it they can't give me any guarantees but I know they heard what it's that I would do it again you were shot work yeah yeah I don't know I don't know the answer this so I'm an just asking what options did you think you had suppose you had said to this person from the House Judiciary Committee mm-hmm I'm a journalist I'm not gonna answer that question what would she have said she just said fine that's what one person I know did say when they asked I'm a journalist I might answer the question now what's wrong with that answer um it's just coming out it's saying that I have to live here I'm gonna go along and get along it's more trouble than it's worth to me probably it's defensible but I didn't want anyone thinking that of me and I also thought that it deserved to be known since it had been denied in the well of the Senate by the president's chief counsel that these people were knowingly lying to the Senate and to the public and I had possession of that information which I had not been asked to keep to myself now I really and truly wish it had been someone other than Sydney who'd made me aware of it I mean but I thought he was a different yeah but I made this pledge to them as I could that that I was not gonna be party to putting him in any jeopardy and of course he wasn't in and is not now in any jeopardy so all that subplot that was woven around me from fratricide Judas Kiss and son was all well so then you had to come up to you so what's happened to you as a result of all this got called a lot of real names may discover that the word hitch can be the name hitch could be made to rhyme with the word slip yeah undefended myself on that snoring doubt did that the fragrant Maureen did that a sniff just someone who tries to get a plea bargain to save their own skin I wasn't a new sort of said it went from trip to hitch I mean yeah well trip to his Linda and I don't know each other I know but you know the point oh come use all of a sudden you see columnist that were you going about you as a lot of that because if I've done it or violated all standards of journalism and if you had something you want to say do what you did in the beginning write about it and don't be cold here's what they said I asked someone today this why is this so controversial for you why is it you so have so much animus towards Chris Christopher Hitchens the answer was he collaborated with the government he betrayed a friend and he filed an affidavit none of those things are what we think well I didn't collaborate with the governor testify against the government I wasn't cooperating with the authorities where I live I do about where you live the president of United States and his gang are the authorities certainly it's true in Washington you know some would say well the government was in represent another share a committee is the lawfully constituted committee I mean that's not you know during the McCarthy era people would say that these were in fact the government that was doing the investigating even though they came from the Congress and they called well full up to testify and and when they did they were call collaborators and some of those inquiries were responsive bothered by the state after the relative cried I was passed and no question about this does justice isn't like that friends of all the people who testified in those cases we're doing so so they wouldn't be passed to they wouldn't be asked the questions themselves they were bargaining to save their own skins I wasn't under my skin was in their danger and way except from the people who you were gonna call me it's come later on I mean but I'd wasn't plea bargaining I wasn't buying myself any time or cutting myself in his lack nor was I nonnamous letter denunciation of anybody so the first objection of your friend I think this is false betraying friends I don't think so I mean the mystery was mr. Clinton who sent someone who who I can I can tell you really loves him I mean really like sitting on the table and given up a lot to go work for him fed him a false and dirty story convinced him of its truth and let him go into the grand jury tell it well there's a feeling to the grandeur and say the president lied to him about other matters no at the end finally at the front of the Senate he was asked does he now think he's been lodged right he said yeah join the club like right yeah he did but Clinton did all that to him and then let him go and be asked these tough questions in the Senate and and I'm the one who betrays Sydney its Clinton who's betrayed Sydney just that having anything to do with Clinton means that everything around him is poisoned including friendship between Sydney and me though I hope still well might be repaired you hope I've seen a reason why not he knows that he knows I didn't mean him any harm he isn't in any trouble as a result of what I said people had nauseating now I find more and more by the fact that the tension walked in that trial he got away scot-free nothing happened to him and it's become more and more clear that since the acquittal but all the stuff about the right-wing conspiracy and so was all nonsense so all it would need to happen was for Sydney to take the next step as a lot of other former Clinton people have and realized that he's working for someone who doesn't give a damn about him or anyone else then we could be friends again have you called his house I do cause I know what happily too soon why do you know me I got his extremely nice wife who's also friend of mine and I think she must have thought it was too soon as well because she I'm placed to receive it yeah and you call for what reason I have a couple of things I wanted to explain to them and a couple of things I wanted to say which were which were well that that I didn't think he was in danger but he would be and that I wanted them to understand what the position I'd been in was you ask me one more question which was I could have just written it in an article right you're right I was in the process of doing that when they called me in fact I think somehow they got wind of the piece if that piece had come out a week earlier it could have been used to to accuse Sydney of perjury if he'd committed it which by the way I genuine in any case would have amounted to the same thing but by saying no I'll I'll put my name through I was testifying in one jurisdiction against one defendant only namely the president United States and I think I probably missed both of them but the intention was to hit the president and miss Sidney I missed Sydney anyway and you hope you can repair the worst of it actually if you really want the truth I mean is that it the whole thing may have been a waste of time as the trial was a fix in a way I was there's no chance of them ever changing many people's minds I did get a call from one senator democratically good gentleman who said he was now going to vote to convict on obstruction of justice you told me on the phone that Sunday that he was determined to do it now but in the end he didn't so i wasted my time i guess but it was i thought it would have been cowardly not to stand by the story again let me sum up here this president will serve out his turn well I guess yeah reconcile he'll continue to prosecute the war you'll continue to refuse to answer questions about whether he's a rapist he still hasn't said a word about that isn't that doesn't that give you a shot he won't answer the question people think it's his word against us he hasn't said anything yet he said his lawyer has responded for him a lawyer who he didn't know that yeah as far as I know didn't there's no bean in well but it suggested the lawyer to speak to him now on come on come on you want to do better than that if you accused of rape I think if you go there I mean if you could have a lawyer speak story well no no no he didn't have a lawyer at that time did he did he have time the charges at that time so he had no need to have a lawyer at that time so the lawyer you would bring forth at this time is the lawyers representing you a minutes who happened to have just gone through and you've added no this has no knowledge of the case that's what I'm talking about you want to do better but Italy had a knowledge of the case well I what lawyer had knowledge of the case someone or all of these circumstances at the time they're being inquiries before to say if I said to you a plausible respectable woman with no motive of malice has made a charge of sexual assault against you what do you say would you be content to say well I know a lawyer who will say that it's not true I think you'd want to do make male self respect would make you want to do a little better than a course it was no way it doesn't matter because no one is asking Penge on these questions well the point doesn't have to keep refusing to and and the same Ahriman can't believe the laziness of the present same argument could have been made about the Milan whiskey from the beginning I mean you would say why doesn't someone come out and defend and fend and defend and make the position clear early on that argument was made at that time and was also made didn't you make it now would he deny that of course but he was lying through his teeth then yeah but it wasn't denied in terms of full questioning for you know and wasn't protesting to the to the fullest extent that might have been done although it was a protest but it was short and my point again no one left to lie to is this book by Christopher Hitchens who states had clearly his feelings about the President of the United States and also you've business with Sidney Blumenthal an aide to the president in the White House and a friend of Christopher's who he hopes will be able to regain the friendship at a future time most journalists seem to want to lecture to you well I think a lot of people didn't like me anyway well I so the field there to hold on the show was a pleasure Christopher Hitchens when we come back Tony Bowie the filmmakers just made a very interesting new film called three seasons

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

Views: 1,398,155

Rating: 4.8188915 out of 5

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Id: hlrM0Siszq8

Length: 34min 20sec (2060 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I miss the Hitch. Would really love to hear his take on current society.

[u/EloeOmoe]

Remember: they sacrificed Hitchens to satanic powers to give Kissinger another 10 years on this planet.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

Man, I used to love the Hitchslaps. The guy had a fucking way with words. Watching him defend the Iraq war and shit made no sense to me though. His responses to people criticizing him on that front were uncharacteristically weak as hell. His crush on Thatcher was also disturbing and absolutely disgusting. Still though, most of my memories of him are good. He was entertaining.

[u/red_ball_express]

His clips from CSPAN are the best. Always worth relistening to.

[u/iolex]

If there was 1 person I could bring back to critique todays ills....

[u/una_lata_de_sardinas]

He is consistently cool i reckon

[u/crashhat8]

He's a bit of a polemicist.

Clinton is viewed differently in Ireland because the GFA wouldn't have happened without him.

[u/[deleted]]

I just don't get the appeal. He always sounded like a modern William f Buckley to me.

[u/RoBurgundy]

I’m mostly impressed by the quality of the interview.