Hitchens, Salon editor trade insults over the Clintons David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Tuesday December 2, 2008





Print This Email This When MSNBC's Chris Matthews invited his guests on Monday's Hardball to comment on Barack Obama's most recent appointments, writer Christopher Hitchens seized on the opportunity to express his well-known distaste for the Clintons.



"She only cares about one thing," Hitchens asserted of Hillary Clinton, "namely herself and her prospects, and after that her impeached, disbarred husband and the many undeclared interests of his and hers that they nurture for the future."



Matthews then turned to Salon editor Joan Walsh, who laughed and responded, "Christopher, your views on the Clintons' integrity are well-known -- I consider them eccentric." She added, "I think this is a terrific appointment."



Hitchens returned to the attack a second time when asked to comment on Obama's currentt attempt to downplay statements he made during the primaries about Clinton's lack of foreign policy experience.



"I thought that Obama's answer there was incredibly cheap and evasive," Hitchens charged. "He was right the first time to say this woman doesn't, in fact, have any foreign policy experience. ... The experience she has claimed, such as in Bosnia, was fake."



As Hitchens continued grumbling that people like him could "do without" Hillary Clinton, Walsh retorted that was true only of "a group of eccentric Clinton-haters" and that Obama "wants the strength of the Clinton name, the Clinton brand."



Hitchens, however, couldn't accept that. "What you want as president is to know your secretary of state spends all her time working to make sure your policies stick," he insisted. "With this woman, that can't be said. She's always thinking first about herself, second about her husband."



"Well, I trust Barack Obama's opinion more than yours," Walsh replied tartly.



"Guess who's saying it," Hitchens sneered. "That's a very clever thing to say. ... What a fatuous remark."



"Barack Obama is a supremely qualified person -- yet your opinion matters?" Walsh shot back.



Matthews finally attempted to ask, "Will Bill Clinton, with his popularity in south Asia, be brought in as an envoy with regard to Kashmir and the general dispute between Pakistan and India?"



Hitchens replied, "Someone whose main clientele is the Wahhabi royal family of Saudi Arabia, who paid for the people who just blew up Bombay, I don't think would be an ideal mediator, no. But that's just my opinion, as Miss Walsh would say."



"Christopher, you can call me Joan," commented Walsh. "I've had dinner at your house. It seems condescending to call me Miss Walsh."





This video is from MSNBC's Hardball, broadcast Dec. 1, 2008.









Download video via RawReplay.com







