On Thursday 24 June 2004 9:54 am, you wrote:
> Professor Rush,
>
> As a proud watcher of "fair and balanced" Fox, I know you would want me to
> point out to all that Christopher Hitchens' credentials as a member of the
> Left have been called into serious question in recent years.    His
> position on virtually any political issue has been radically unreliable of
> late, and so to suggest that the left itself is criticizing Moore's film by
> citing Hitchens is something of a dishonesty.  Recently he's defended the
> Bush administration, while coming down hard on Mother Teresa, Clinton,
> Reagan, and Noam Chomsky.  No political camp can claim Hitchens anymore
> with any kind of confidence. He's always good at provoking, since he's a
> brilliant name-caller, which is all he does in the first few paragraphs of
> the editorial you cite.  Overall, a survey of his recent comment pieces
> reveals a highly idiosyncratic, even bizarre, array of opinions.

What you say above is probably true; but does it matter?  Not to me.

Personally, it doesn't bother me at all if someone holds views that don't
belong to any particular "camp"; that's actually a good thing; it could indicate
some independent thought.  The issue is whether or not Mr. Hitchens's
facts are correct or not.  So, until we all fact-check Hitchens's fact-checking,
there is really not much to discuss.

It is the *content* of the article that matters, right?  Does anyone care about
finding the truth anymore, or do we just discredit people based on what "camp"
they belong to?  (i.e., the right doesn't accept the left's criticism, and the left
 doesn't accept the right's criticism, and so forth).

I would think that the left would want to check Mr. Moore's facts as badly as the
right, to stay intellectually honest.  The worst thing that can happen to the left
is to put Moore up as a poster boy, only to have him completely discredited in
the end.

I am in the process of doing my own work to check Mr. Moore, Hutchins, etc. etc.
My hope is that everyone on the left and the right gives fair consideration to
information voiced by both.

Daniel Hyams