Infinite Monkeys

Hitching a ride with Hitchens

When Christopher Hitchens is bad — like when he's running down Mother Theresa — he's really bad. But when he's good, he's very, very good. And he's at his very best writing in Slate about, of all things, the celebrity justice connection between Paris Hilton and Scooter Libby.

After describing Hilton's claim to fame as "one of the least erotic such sequences I have ever seen" during which Hilton's "facial expression [fails to] match even the simulacrum of lovemaking," comes this:

Not content with seeing her undressed and variously penetrated, it seems to be assumed that we need to watch her being punished and humiliated as well. The supposedly "broad-minded" culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse.

Ouch. Sympathy for Paris? I have it now, thanks to Hitch's gifts

Oh, and that connection to Libby in the brilliant screed? Here:

Perhaps to compensate for its ridiculous decision to put her on Page One on Friday, the New York Times report shifted from the sobbing, helpless child to the more portentous question of another "high-profile defendant." It cited an even more acid piece of creepy populism, in the form of an order from Judge "Reggie" Walton, who poured his witless sarcasm on those who had filed a brief in support of Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Would such "luminaries," sneered Walton, be equally available for other litigants? It's not his job to arbitrate such a question, and he seems not to understand the law, but if his words mean anything, and from a federal judge at that, they appear to mean that to be a public figure is to risk double jeopardy in the courts.

Enjoy every word of a master by reading the whole thing.

HatTip: The Corner, via Instapundit

Posted by Dr. Zaius at June 14, 2007 04:54 PM