Christopher Hitchens on President Obama

Despite being a self-declared Marxist in his youth, the late Christopher Hitchens supported Bush Jr's invasion of Iraq and wasn't a fan of "left of center" President Obama.

From the Sydney Writers' Festival 2010:

Hitchens was an odd bird. Interesting, but odd.

BREAKING: Conservative pundit disliked Democratic President.

Insert joke about Hitchens being a drunk here.

I wouldn't peg Hitchens as either conservative or liberal. The only thing one can truly peg him on is being anti-religion.

Now that's not fair. He also clearly disliked women.

LOL! He was one of those guys I never really "liked" but I would read him (occasionally) nonetheless.

Eh. At various times he wasn't that hard to peg; he was a Trotskyite of one degree or another for ages and his embrace / carriage-of-water-for the Bush administration was emphatic enough that it strains semantics to say that he wasn't a neoconservative for a while there. After that flirtation wound down, he was sort of between affiliations, functionally a "liberal" in the international sense of "non-socialist non-conservative," with his irreligiousity and what remained of his "liberal hawkery" as his more notable political affinities.

It also bears mentioning that his anti-religious views, although certainly general and sincere, were both over-focused on Islam and (at least judging by one or two of the selections in The Portable Atheist) kind of vituperative towards it in a way that was a bit off-putting to this left-atheist. That aspect of his irreligiousity bears a bit in placing him politically, given how neoconservatism and Islamophobia fit together in the 2000s and afterwards.

"Radical yelley contrarian who switched sides to always be as contrarian as possible" is my description of his views.

It's fitting that one of the finest literary commentators on Orwell should have followed his example in creating problematic, superficial dichotomies out of complex issues. The difference is that Orwell changed his mind, more or less, and Hitchens just attacked in a different direction.

This guy could speak 'off the cuff' at a level better than I can write :/ Will be missed.

Having watched the parts where Hitchens talks (helpfully linked in the description) I think you've mistaken "minimally critical" or "not entirely sycophantic" with not liking Obama. He doesn't say anything damning and offers some quite generous compliments.

And I don't know what Obama is if not left of center.

I don't know what the politics are like in New Zealand but Obama is conservative on the Canadian and European political spectrum. A number of his policies, such as "Obamacare", originated from Republicans (before they went coo-coo for coco-puffs) or carried over from the Bush Jr. administration.

Parts of that spiel are fine but the one-party-state reference and trilateral commission namedrop and other things are, in common with the actual plot there, a bit zany. On an international plot Obama might wind up in the top right quadrant, but he certainly wouldn't in a nationally contextualized plot (ala DW-NOMINATE) and even on a proper international plot there's no way he'd be anywhere near Candidate Romney 2012 (as opposed to perhaps Governor Romney circa his days in Mass.)

Plotting post-primaries (heck, post 2008 primaries) Romney somewhere near Obama's just... goofy. You'd have to take the most charitable possible interpretation of his Denver-debate-type magical Romney who'd somehow manage to combine smiles and friendliness with his insane, socio-economic-revolutionary budget.

Oh right, well on a more objective political spectrum that's true. Any electable presidential candidate is conservative by that standard. I was referring to "center" by American standards, which I assume Hitchens was too, given that he's English and knew the real extent of the political spectrum having been a Marxist.

As you say I suppose even that's debatable, but I'd argue that his stance on various social issues and a willingness (if not ability) to impose taxes on the rich would put him left of center by American standards, if only by a little.

Obama and Romney being only a smidge apart is rather hilarious.

Note "economics" mysteriously isn't on there, even there's overwhelming evidence that's the sort of the left/right split in every single industrial democracy.

That seems to me to be designed to show most mainstream US folks as being "the same" to prove some rhetorical point.