Quote:
Originally posted by Shape Shifter
You know, we really could use some work on our ad hominems around here, as Christopher Hitchens demonstrates:
Galloway's preferred style is that of vulgar ad hominem insult, usually uttered while a rather gaunt crew of minders stands around him. I have a thick skin and a broad back and no bodyguards. He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a "popinjay" (true enough, since its original Webster's definition means a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest). In a recent interview he made opprobrious remarks about the state of my midriff, which I will confess has—as P.G. Wodehouse himself once phrased it—"slipped down to the mezzanine floor." In reply I do not wish to stoop. Those of us who revere the vagina are committed to defend it against the very idea that it is a mouth or has teeth. Study the photographs of Galloway from Syrian state television, however, and you will see how unwise and incautious it is for such a hideous person to resort to personal remarks. Unkind nature, which could have made a perfectly good butt out of his face, has spoiled the whole effect by taking an asshole and studding it with ill-brushed fangs.
http://www.slate.com/id/2126121/nav/tap2/
(Hitchens article on George Galloway)
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Actually, not his best. Too muddy... too Maileresque. Thats the problem with Hitchens' complicated constructions. The flow is so frequently disrupted the punchline gets lost among the speedbump asides.
This is why I revered Thompson for so long. His language always knifes the reader right between the eyes. I love Hitchens' views and opinions. He's brilliant. But he doesn't come right out and drive the hammer into your skull. I've always been searching for that one book that approached the literary equivalent of Never Mind the Bollocks. HST came close, but nobody I've ever read has written a high octane piece which runs from the opening paragraph right through to the end at full bore exhaustive frenzied speed, grabbing your attention and pummeling you with point after joke after addictive aliterative phrase. Evry book has that flat, contemplative space where it slows down - sort of a drum solo in the middle of the show. Why can't some writer just relentlessly fire the engines from page one through page 200?
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