Hitchen's warns colleagues: Don't be dumb as a stump

In his strange nit-picking way, Christopher Hitchens goes wild on Reagan, lambasting the former President for being occasionally wrong. He begins his rant: "Some of us on the left had also been very glad indeed to see the end of the Russian empire and the Cold War. But nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like. "

He accuses the former president of be wrong on Russian linguistics, being falsely annoyed about the term "Star Wars", alarming his Soviet counterparts, alarm constituents by stating his religious beliefs, historically wrong on South Africa, not inviting any uppities to dinner, his friends were not friends but cronies... He goes on with the usual litany (some more defendable than others) and then Hitchens concludes: "He was as dumb as a stump." (with a wink):

I have been wondering ever since not just about the stupidity of American politics, but about the need of so many American intellectuals to prove themselves clever by showing that they are smarter than the latest idiot in power, or the latest Republican at any rate.

Too funny. The lesson here: never underestimate a "stupid Republican."