Christopher Hitchens Is a Drunk

My old friend Diane Holland, in Kennesaw, Georgia, sold me a beautiful old 1963 Chevy that burns oil like nobody's business but otherwise runs perfectly. I could have had it shipped, of course, but since I'm British I've never gotten over the wondrous novelty of being able to drive for days in the same direction. Besides, as an important national columnist, I can write about anything I like, and the activity I write about then becomes a tax-deductible business expense. So I drove the old Chevy back to my home in Humboldt County, California, secure in the knowledge that the money spent on petrol, food, and lodging would have just gone to the IRS instead.

Not that most of my income is taxable. Years ago I used to write for really big East Coast publications, but when they all fired me I decided instead to go into business for myself, syndicating my columns and living the life of a gentleman farmer in rural, isolated Humboldt County. Of course, there's only one real crop that's grown around there, and it's quite lucrative. When my progressive friends are aghast at my infatuation with guns and gun rights, I tell them: get a clue. All of us out here in Petrolia have guns. Our crops are valuable, and need to be protected at all costs. Besides, they'd never let me own a semi-automatic rifle in England. God, I love this country.

God. That's right, God. Take that, Hitchens. I can't believe that some people still confuse me with that drunken sod. Just because we're both misanthropic British ex-pats who've written for The Nation for years and have never been actual journalists but somehow made a name for ourselves as columnists who pick fights over the unlikeliest of targets, people confuse us. Get this straight: I'm nothing like that misshapen bastard. Christopher Hitchens doesn't know the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground, because there is none. He spends all his time getting soused at Georgetown cocktail parties and sucking up to people in power. They all pat him on the head and chuckle indulgently when he goes off on one of his alcohol-fueled jihads against Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger, anti-war organisers, God, or similar individuals. Me, I don't use alcohol. My stuff is stronger. And I only go after really deserving targets, like Al Gore.

Sure, it's fashionable now in some circles to hate Al Gore, but I hated him before he became a saint, when he was just another venal politician. That's why I'm driving a 45-year-old car clear across America: because global warming is a myth. I can drive as much as I want. If global warming were real, the politicians would be doing something about it, and they're not. Gore is full of shit.

It did make me sad when I pulled into a 7-Eleven in Jackson, Mississippi, and they didn't have Citgo petrol any longer. I think Hugo Chavez gets a bad rap. You see, even though I produce my own web site (http://rabbitpunches.org), my syndicated column still runs in a few newspapers, and the editors in those papers often insist I include something political in my columns. And I'm too lazy to write something separate for them. So, there, I did it. Hugo Chavez is colourful but misunderstood. He's a good guy.

Of course, to get from North Georgia to northern California, it would have been a lot more direct to go through Tennessee. But Al Gore's from Tennessee. I'm not setting foot in that wretched state.

My brother is a real reporter. He's in Iraq now, getting constantly shot at and winning all sorts of awards for it. It's so unfair. I get shot at, too, because some of my neighbors are kind of trigger happy. It's a way of life out there, though, so nobody ever gives me any sort of awards.

We also go hunting a lot. I like to go hunting when I'm on road trips, just to see what the locals do. In North Louisiana, it's squirrel season. They're right tasty with enough salt, once the fur is removed. The local restaurants are pretty good, too. There's a popular chain along the interstate called "Burger King." It's right good eating. Vegetarians are pussies.

In Eastland, Texas, I got a flat tire. It was in my left rear tire, probably a swizzle stick Hitchens threw out his car window. My father got a flat tire once. This was in 1914, before the Finland Station and all that, and war had just broken out in Europe. He was the Worker's Daily Herald correspondent for French garden clubs, and he had to get out, but he had a flat, and with the war newly raging it was nearly impossible to get air for his tire, it was being strictly rationed. He wound up cutting a deal with an underground air supplier, but it was a harrowing experience, and as is often the case with parents who've lived through a time of scarcity, he imprinted strongly on us kids the value of hot air. I've never forgotten that.

I don't understand why so many people buy Christopher Hitchens' books. They're atrociously written diatribes about whatever pops into his head. Next thing you know, he'll be writing that 9-11 was a fraud, just so people will have some reason to engage him at his cocktail parties, and it'll become a best-seller, again, while my ten-volume hagiography on Gerald Ford molders on the remainder shelf. And it's such a travesty. These wackos who keep yelping about 9-11 "Truth" are complete nut jobs. My friend Paul Magno was on the plane that hit the North Tower. He saw for himself the fireball that engulfed and melted all three buildings. He told me himself. According to Paul, the hijackers who flew the jet into the tower were all speaking fluent Arabic, too, so it couldn't possibly have been an inside job; we all know that the CIA and US military don't employ any Arabic speakers at all, so it had to be somebody else. And it was Saturday, so it couldn't have been Mossad.

Well, that's 1000 words, so I've filled my contractual obligations for the week. That Chavez, he's an OK guy. Not like Christopher, who is a drunk.

--Alexander Coeburn (I got tired of the jokes)