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I respectfully disagree.

Time and again you'll see "reasoned, intelligent" commentary dismissed on this site because of the source and the source alone (e.g, the publication in which an article appears, the member join date if it's a comment made by a member/"disruptor", etc).

This, however, doesn't seem to apply to Hitchens, who gets a free pass for his willingness to bash Bill Clinton a few years back.

Pat Buchanan, for example, makes excellent points from time to time but you won't get 5-10 replies deep into one of his posts without someone dismissing his points soley because of who the source is. Why such a despicable person as Hitchens gets a pass is quite...odd.

This, however, doesn't seem to apply to Hitchens, who gets a free pass for his willingness to bash Bill Clinton a few years back.
Hitchens was on of the few center-left voice to take a principled stand on the Clinton presidency--yes, and for that he deserves great credit. I personally agree with his defense of the Iraq war part II. He is a rare creature in this political environmnet: an independent thinker. Pat Buchanan, for example, makes excellent points from time to time but you won't get 5-10 replies deep into one of his posts without someone dismissing his points soley because of who the source is. Why such a despicable person as Hitchens gets a pass is quite...odd.
Patty-Patty Buke-Buke is his current incarnation is an unreconstructed nativist: anti-free trade and anti-globalist to a degree redolent of the Seattle anti-WTO prostestors, anti-immigration to a degree redolent of France's Jean-Marie Le Penn, and often anti-Israel. He used to be different: I used to enjoy him before he went over to the dark-dark-dark side.

He richly deserves the contempt we so generously heap upon him. He earned it. To deny him what is plainly his due would be wrong on so many levels. Hitchens, on the other hand, has made no such effort.

I hate that when I see it because that is the "reasoning" of the left and the farther left the more entrenched is that way to think, i.e. The value of one's discourse depends , besides on the ideological content, on the social origins of the writer or speaker. If one is ideologically correct one is still wrong because his views can only be a trick if he had the wrong parentage or comes of the wrong class or race.

When a liberal argument is countered by flurries of namecalling and pointing at a neophyte instead of countering his argument I worry that people are emotionally on the other side even though they prefer, for now, a conservative point of view. When we argue points instead of dismissing a troll who happens to make an argument rather than just spreading drek, then we sharpen our own arguments and thought processes. And to do it to those who actually live at our end of the spectrum but have some funny ideas is atrocious. Argue with them-argue with Buchanan when he is wrong. Hitchens is right often enough that we can afford to fairly calmly point out his errors and his substitution of emotion for reason when he is wrong.