Without getting into these ins and outs, I think dead is correct about one thing. It was Nixon’s role in the Alger Hiss business and the McCarthy red hunt that first earned him the enduring, knee-jerk hatred of liberals.
Sure, he was a liberal in office. He gave us the EPA. He gave us the opening to Red China.
In the minds of knee-jerk liberals and their kids, he was responsible, along with Senator McCarthy, for the Salem witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition.
I agree with both of you, but most of what you are referring to took place before Hitchens was born, or when he as a very small boy. Without much TV or any internet. He had little first-hand experience with Nixon. Certainly not enough to loath him. I know FDR was a terrible president, because of what my grandparents told me, and because of what I have read in the history books. But will never have enough personal familiariaty with the man to loath him unless he rises from the grave and starts chasing me down the block as a wheelchair zombie.