The Hitch: No longer the authentic voice of dissent?

Scott Lucas, who wrote one of the better pieces on the media's woeful performance following 9/11, writes in the recent edition of the New Statesman about "The dishonourable policeman of the left," Christopher Hitchens. Following his attendance at the recent Hitchens/Ali debate at a LRB panel discussion, Lucas concludes:

"The Hitch" is no longer an activist, no longer a participant in the real debates about power and who wields it, no more a source for thought. No, he is an industry, posing in trench coat with a cigarette dangling from his top lip, hailed as "one of the few remaining practitioners of the five-hour, two-bottle lunch". And, naturally, the most profitable industry is a monopoly. So he packages himself, surreally, not just as a policeman but the only policeman of "a radical left that no longer exists".

Some may suspect this declaration to be all about the Stalinist dictum of making sure Hitchens "keeps with the party line." But I don't think that's what's going on here.

Many folks didn't understand what the hell Hitchens was saying in the pseudo-debate he had with Chomsky in The Nation. While Reason calls him a "free radical," Ed Herman claims he's "sunk below the class we may call 'liberals'" and Justin Raimondo heaps him in with the "leftist glitterati."

Basically, he's been all over the place.

Is the man simply a political chameleon now? Is he merely reflecting values, not politics anymore, as he claims? Again, I don't think so. His analyses since 9/11 have ranged from being utterly absurd and childish to mere caricatures of the actual political environment. Something's going on here, and, as Lucas implies, it seems like it's much to do with ego.