Hitchens hasn’t completely lost it

Thank God! (Or in Christopher Hitchens case, thank, uh, nobody.) After being devastated last month when Hitch drank the Obama Kool-Aid, it would appear our favorite functioning drunk hasn’t completely lost it, but rather cast his vote for Obama as a wake up call to the Republicans. Hitch is now throwing a glass of water in the face of Obama lockstep loyalists, and dishing up a nice plate of reality check. (And fortunately not mangling and mixing his metaphors as badly as I just did.)

The recognition of these obvious points should also alert us to a related danger, which is the cousinhood of euphoria and hysteria. Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia (and I hardly exaggerate when I say this; have you been reading the moist and trusting comments of our commentariat?) are preparing for a disillusionment that I very much doubt they will blame on themselves. The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don’t think a diet of hope is going to cover it. Nor even a diet of audacity, though can you picture anything less audacious than the gray, safety-first figures who have so far been chosen by Obama to be on his team?