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O‘DONNELL: I‘m sure also the president did not anticipate that while he was spending a five-week vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, that he would be witnessing a mom, Cindy Sheehan, who has been camped outside his ranch now, demanding a meeting with the president, saying she won‘t leave until that happens.

Christopher, do you think that this represents—or she represents some sort of tipping point in public opinion in America?

HITCHENS: Certainly not. She has, just today, lied about a statement that she made several times before to the effect that her son was killed in a war run by a secret Jewish cabal within the administration. She now says she didn‘t make that statement. She did make that statement. So as well as being an hysterical paranoid ideologist, or at least being manipulated by people who are, turned this into camp fruitbag and nutbag, she has decided not to have the courage or maybe the cowardice of her conviction. She now says she didn‘t make a statement that she definitely did.

FINEMAN: I think, Christopher.

HITCHENS: And she is also inviting a terrific riposte. What if we were to say, very well, the conduct of this war will depend on an opinion poll which we‘ll take of relatives of the fallen in Iraq, only they can decide, only they have the authority. She would lose.

Do I favor such a thing? No. I‘m pro-war but I would be totally against that. It would be handing our policy over to an.

(CROSSTALK)

O‘DONNELL: Howard, what about her.

HITCHENS: . minority which she has allowed our profession, disgracefully, to be used as a megaphone for a fraud.

O‘DONNELL: What about her statement? She is a private citizen to some degree. And yet she has made these comment about U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine. And she says she is no longer going to pay taxes in the United States. Is she fair game, like a politician is, now that she makes these statements?

HITCHENS: Certainly.

FINEMAN: And I would agree with Christopher on that. I think he should be honest in his feelings about these...

(LAUGHTER)