Wednesday, November 10, 2004

How Good Is Hitch?

He's so good that I read this assault on my faith:

I was instructed . . . that the Enlightenment had come to an end, by no less an expert than Garry Wills, who makes at least one of his many livings by being an Augustinian Roman Catholic.

I step lightly over the ancient history of Wills' church (which was the originator of the counter-Enlightenment and then the patron of fascism in Europe) as well as over its more recent and local history (as the patron, protector, and financier of child-rape in the United States, and the sponsor of the cruel "annulment" of Joe Kennedy's and John Kerry's first marriages). As far as I know, all religions and all churches are equally demented in their belief in divine intervention, divine intercession, or even the existence of the divine in the first place.


And I don't even notice that he's slagging off on the Church I hold so dear. Well, I notice, but I don't really mind it. The difference between a polemicist and a hack is that when the former wields a rapier, you can admire the artistry even if you're the target.

Hitch is that good.

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