To do it justice, there really should be an audio version of "Cindy Sheehan's Sinister Piffle" as read by Stewie, of Family Guy. I dare say, for those who know, Stewie is more Hitschy than Hitch. Just imagine what Stewie would do with this lament: "What dreary sentimental nonsense this all is."
So here are the basic how-to's for this particular Hitchens creation.
Open your column with the grossly truncated concluding sentence of Maureen Dowd's "Why No Tea and Sympathy?" For good measure, quote it out of context, too.
Insert a "quote" from Cindy Sheehan, preferably something with Israel in it, and make sure the "quote" is from a "letter" sent to Nightline and which ABC News is so far unable to confirm or authenticate.
Mischaracterize Dowd's column as being about Sheehan when it's really about Bush running out of places to hide.
Declare: "I am at a complete loss to see how these [Dowd's and Sheehan's] positions can be made compatible."
Throw some red meat to the red staters: "Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive."
Pad column length with some standard-issue talking points, including: "Sheehan has met the president before and has favored us with two accounts of the meeting, one fairly warm and the other distinctly cold. I have no means of knowing which mood reflected her real state of mind…."
Incorporate really obscure historical references, a less obscure historical reference, and a nasty contemporary reference: Pope Gregory, Emperor Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire, and Canossa; Abraham Lincoln; and David Duke, respectively.
Conclude on an emphatically dismissive note: "I distrust anyone who claims to speak for the fallen, and I distrust even more the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them."
***
Personally, I prefer my references more cartoonish:
Stewie Griffin: "I wouldn't bother visiting the neighborhood of make-believe today Mr. Rogers, I dare say you find it quite in ruins."
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