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R E C E N T L Y

Sid and Christopher's naked lunch
By James Poniewozik
The Blumenthal-Hitchens flap reveals the dirty secret of Washington's elite journalists
(02/09/99)

Rolling Stone gathers a $50 million lawsuit; Condé Nast's firing line, part 57
By Susan Lehman
(02/04/99)

Mammary dreams
By Steve Erickson
Behind men's moral outrage at Clinton's behavior seethes the fear that his compulsion is just one step beyond our own
(02/03/99)

The little N-word
By James Poniewozik
So we're all cool with "niggardly" now. Uh ... aren't we?
(02/02/99)

Wills to Sheehy: Your Clinton-incest psychobabble grows tiresome
By Susan Lehman
Plus: Gazoongas raise Maxim, Mother Jones searches in vain and other tales of media madness
(01/28/99)

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ET TU, CHRISTOPHER? | PAGE 1, 2
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Stanley Crouch (author, "The All-American Skin Game"): British people who come to America and set themselves up as pundits are indefensible ... The whole matter is rather startling to me, because I don't know what Hitchens considers himself to be doing. Perhaps he assumes he's above the fray, so far above the fray he can say what he wants to say. I think it may have a disastrous impact on his career. Who would trust him after this?

Eric Alterman (author of "Who Speaks for America?: Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy" and Nation columnist): I profoundly disagree with my friend Christopher's decision to do this, as I disagree with virtually everything he has said and done since the Lewinsky matter began. However, I don't believe in attacking my friends through the media. That's all I have to say.

Ben Sonnenberg (former editor, Grand Street): How sad I am for a mental breakdown of Christopher's. I don't understand what he's doing; I don't think he understands it. It just makes me very unhappy, for personal reasons and for public ones -- here Christopher is a man of the left, allegedly, who would never betray a friend to the authorities, and now he is doing just that and doing it in a particularly ineffectual way. I endorse every word of Alexander Cockburn's column in the New York Free Press.

Alexander Cockburn (writer, columnist): Hitchens has done something utterly despicable. I wrote about this so that I wouldn't have to comment further. All my thoughts on this are in the column I wrote yesterday. [A sample line gives the flavor of Cockburn's piece: "And now, as a Judas and a snitch, Hitchens has made the big time."]

Steven Brill (editor, Brill's Content): I don't think Blumenthal did it, and I'm in sort of a unique spot in that at the time this conversation supposedly took place, I was doing my reporting on the Pressgate article and I tried in conversation with Blumenthal to get him to say stuff [about Monica Lewinsky's alleged "stalking"] and he wouldn't. He sent me lots of clips and [stalking] wasn't mentioned in any of those. The whole thing is blown way out of whack -- if you look at Blumenthal's testimony and at what Hitchens is saying, there isn't any disagreement about the facts. Hitchens is right about that.

Ann Louise Bardach (contributing writer, Vanity Fair): Hitchens is a dear friend and will remain one, but the whole episode is troubling to me.

Graydon Carter (editor, Vanity Fair): In a get-along go-along town like Washington, where everybody cares way too much what everyone else thinks, Christopher goes his own way intellectually, politically and certainly sartorially.

Victor Navasky (editor, the Nation): I think there are two separate issues. First, this is a distraction, an irrelevance and a sideshow in terms of the impeachment of the president. It is a comment on the media and the pitiful case for impeachment that Henry Hyde has to grab onto this and has tried to use this against the president ... Second, the journalistic principle is: It is inappropriate and improper for a reporter to use a private conversation with a friend for public purposes without first getting clearance ... To cooperate with opportunistic prosecutors or prosecutorial operations raises real questions, as it did in the '50s when people who cooperated legitimized these operations.

James Chase (editor, World Policy Journal): I am a good friend of Sidney Blumenthal's and a longtime acquaintance of Christopher Hitchens'. I think Sidney is a person of great integrity, so I found it astounding that someone who purported to be his friend would impugn his integrity.

How Hitchens could do this I don't understand. The day before the affidavit, I hear, Hitchens told friends at a party that he would stand by Sidney though the two disagreed about the president. And, earlier that week, as I understand it, Carol Blue (Hitchens' wife) called Sidney Blumenthal, before his deposition testimony, and wished him well. I find it more bewildering that they would have submitted an affidavit to Republican prosecutors. Why did they do this? I am totally bewildered as to why and would not care to speculate.

Lewis Lapham (editor, Harper's): Maybe if I were Sally Quinn, I'd know whether to discuss this subject after the soup, with the asparagus or before the sorbet.
SALON | Feb. 11, 1999

Susan Lehman's Media Circus column appears every Thursday.