The marriage of Hitchens and ... Obama?

Worlds colliding for me today - Christopher Hitchens, one of my idols for critical thinking and independent inquiry, has just today endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket. While I agree with Hitchens in many realms, politics is not usually one of them as he considers himself a neo-conservative. One thing is for sure though; I may not agree with him, but his positions are very well thought out, intellectually honest, and defended with great vigor. I'm pleased to see that he is now supporting a candidate that I also believe to be the best choice.

His characterization of the McCain campaign's current predicament and national spotlight attention is quite keen:

Last week's so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience.

Mr. Hitchens does not coat any argument with even the slightest bit of sugar. Here's what he has to say about Palin:

I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed.

His arguments are pointed and frankly undeniable in most cases. The point with which I disagree is that he wishes the election could end post-haste as to save them more disgrace. I openly admit that I'd like to see this part of the campaign drag on - it's time for dirty campaign rhetoric to be exposed as the filthy manipulation that it is. With enough media attention to the non-sequiters and attack ads that McCain-Palin have hurled, I hope we could shore up enough embarrassment to last us at least two more elections in the future - maybe more.

The constant fear-mongering that is put out by the republican party must come to an end. Only when people realize that voting out of fear is not the best method to choose wisely will we be able to clearly rationalize a path into the future.

As for now - let the topsy-turvey worlds unite ... Christopher Hitchens for Obama!