a.c. on c.h.

alexander cockburn bid adieu to christopher hitchens yesterday on counterpunch and makes a point i had forgotten about, namely the way hitchens treated edward said and gore vidal.  those inexcusable actions diminished the rapidly shrinking man as effectively as his inane support for dick cheney's imperial excesses.  hitchens the public intellectual cartoon character was much like a somewhat obcure but well-respected actor who, after a rise in his profile followed by a series of mediocre performances in pointless films, is quite suddenly recognized as having much less ability than previously believed.  in his piece, cockburn also makes another important point; hitchens stayed public during his cancer treatment and did some nice work in that regard.  at that point in his life, the shameless public personality that was christopher hitchens humanized a fearful struggle that most have no choice but to suffer in relative silence and anonymity.