Christopher Hitchens, Right-Wing Obscurantist

Alan Koenig in the Old Town Review Chronicles:

Back in October of 1991, a younger, more radical Christopher Hitchens wrote a superb essay entitled “A State within a State” for Harper’s magazine plumbing some of the more recent filthy deeds and unconstitutional crimes committed by the CIA. Hitchens favorably mentioned in passing the crusading work of a certain Senator John Kerry, who unearthed both financial links between corrupt Saudis, South American drug smugglers and the CIA (in the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)) and investigated the links between narcotics and the Nicaraguan Contras. But that was a far different, much less courageous Senator Kerry from the one that ran for President this past November, and alas, we have a far different and much diminished Hitchens to contend with as well.

More here.