Bitchens

So did anyone else notice that Christopher Hitchens ("Flirting With Disaster", September 27) read a bit much into this Teresa Heinz Kerry quote?

"I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared in the next month." Teresa Heinz Kerry to the Phoenix Business Journal, referring to a possible capture of Osama bin Laden before Election Day.

When I read that, my thought process is simply that the caption ought to say, "Teresa Heinz Kerry, on why she will never, ever be nominated to run for public office."

Hitchens goes on to say that he's talked to numerous other liberals who are secretly hoping that disaster strikes in order to embarrass the president. But there's a reason no politician goes on the record saying such things: it's the sort of off-handed hyperbole that plenty of partisans regularly grumble about behind the scenes. I am certain that there have been some Republicans out there making flippant comments like, "If al Qaeda hits us again, we've got four more years." It's not that the really hope for the deaths of more Americans, it's that they're really, really invested in being correct.

I don't know the context (though neither, clearly, does Hitchens), but Heinz Kerry's quote seems to me to reflect more on her low regard for the Bush administration than anything else. I'll excuse her, as she's not a politician, for being careless in her verbiage. At the same time, she didn't say that she suspected it was the case.

As I enter her words into Google, it's interesting where it primarily pops up: The Washington Times, RightNation.us, The New York Post… could it be that Hitchens is jumping on the conservative bandwagon in pushing this insipid quote into the daylight?

I happen to know that this is not an instance of loose lips. She has heard that very remark being made by senior Democrats, and—which is worse—she has not heard anyone in her circle respond to it by saying, "Don't be so bloody stupid."… Since then, I've heard it said seriously or semiseriously, by responsible and liberal people who ought to know better, all over the place.

It says so much for his reputation that a man I just saw on television the other day defending the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth allegations (a la Bob Dole) is criticizing Michael Moore-esque reactionaries and unnamed Democratic Party leaders desperate to win power for muttering indefensible allegations behind the scenes. (Aside: I agree, and have said in the past, that Kerry deserves some slack for making those aspects of his record a focus of his campaign. I disagree that his "asking for it" demands more responsibility than those who appear to be slandering him, but some responsibility does lie with Kerry for asking voters to focus on image over substance.)