Chesterton and Hitchens

I've just read this, from The Catholic Thing. Aware as I am of Craig Prostak's accusation that I deride those cleverer than I, and reasonably happy with the way the author deals with Chesterton, I yet can only wonder that so much ink is still being spilled over Hitchens. In an age when most journalism is ill-written and slipshod, I suppose one can expect even a moderate talent to be hailed as brilliant. 

The author of the article, Robert Royal writes,

I knew Hitchens only slightly. He was a charming rogue, especially to the ladies, from a certain British epoch – the passing of the great English dominance. That, plus his obvious brilliance earned him a prominent place in Washington journalism.

Ah! A 'charming rogue'! And there we have it - the almost universal admiration for the successful womaniser. One wonders whether, had Hitchens been an unattractive figure like Alexander Pope, or from a less privileged background, his brilliance would have been so obvious, and whether he would have enjoyed such universally adulation.

Perhaps, as with the serpent in Eden, charm got him a very long way.

Having wasted time reading a few articles by Hitchens which would have been better spent changing the month on the garage calendar, my regrets concern only his wasted talents, the appalling effect such a literary popinjay had on his uncritical admirers, and the fact that his siren voice, if it could not sing a different song, was not silenced earlier.

Will that do, Mr Prostak?