Christopher Hitchens RIP

Christopher Hitchens, every conservative theist’s favorite atheist, was a masterful writer. What one loses when a good writer dies is a piece of the future. Life goes on without you. Wouldn’t it be enlightening, to say the least, to know what Mr. Hitchens might have written about, just to pick at random one prickly current event, the recent loss of the United States’ most advanced drone to Iran? Now that his voice has been stilled, we shall never have the piece in hand. Others, no doubt, will take up the slack, but a valuable slant on things, what Soren Kierkegaard used to call “a point of view,” is now lost – because the viewer is irretrievably lost.

“To philosophize,” Miguel de Montaigne said, “is to learn how to die.” Montaigne invented the essay; Hitchens perfected it.

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The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Obamagod!

My guess is that Barack Obama is a bit too modest to consider himself a Christ figure , but artist will be artists. And over at “ To Wit ,” a blog run by professional blogger, journalist, radio commentator and ex-Hartford Courant religious writer Colin McEnroe, chocolateers will be chocolateers. Nice to have all this attention paid to Christ so near to Easter.

Did Chris Murphy Engage in Private Diplomacy?

Murphy after Zarif blowup -- Getty Images Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, up for reelection this year, had “a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference” in February 2020, according to a posting written by Mollie Hemingway , the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. Was Murphy commissioned by proper authorities to participate in the meeting, or was he freelancing? If the former, there is no problem. If the latter, Murphy was courting political disaster. “Such a meeting,” Hemingway wrote at the time, “would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia. “’Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – e...

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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