@UFO what?

I feel we've lost a lot of common sense and decency. People are so easily offended that they feel entitled to walk out of a room if someone holds a different opinion to theirs.

It was rare then too.

The civility is better than we see today, but the constant bullshit spewed from the right is the same as we see today. Anyone who is prepared to argue that Reagan was an honest guy or even remotely competent at governance has nothing worthwhile to add to the discourse. Mease accidentally got one thing right. He said Reagan’s legacy is nothing if not SDI. Thirty plus years on SDI remains a childish fantasy and Reagan deserves no legacy.

Such an original comment.

Extremely depressing.

Perhaps it was so civilised because they're all good friends? They may have some disagreement but they are all centrist liberals who all fundamentally believe in the dominance of the western capitalist system.

Both Hitchens and James are now dead. Does anybody know about the other two?

@@kiwitrainguy: Christopher Hitchens passed away in 2011, Clive James in 2019, and P.J. O'Rourke in 2022. As of October 7th, 2023, Edwin Meese carries on at 91 years of age.

There were a lot of late night discussion shows, I expect because they were cheap to produce.

You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it. :)

PJ is a GOP suck up. Easily forgotten

I miss that man, every day, Ben.

Imagine him talking of Trump!

@@Longtack55 - That would have been pointless like shooting fish in a barrel- what he would have done is dismantle all the mad premises behind identity politics- particularly the idea that a biological man can become a woman

@@Longtack55 or better yet Hillary

I agree 100%, he would crucify them all

Seemed the opposite was happening here

….and the ability of his opponents to infer the opposite is undeniable….

You assume that he is accurate and truthful. He disarms rebuttal by taking control of the argument, speaking loudly, cutting off others, and insisting on have the last word. Check your assumptions.

@@egverlander well said

Watched it twice to check my assumptions. No interruptions, only corrections which were needed. He let them speak with good manners. The opposing view had the most speaking time. Watch it again and keep that in mind. Hitchens would not apologise for his dulcet tones which is of course correct.

Thank you for that comment. I will pin it here. I had a different video which I uploaded on CH taken down recently!

@@legalmonkey Every Hitch video taken down is a loss to thinking people everywhere.

@@legalmonkey As you doubtless know, there's a serious cult for all things Hitch here on KZfaq, so if you can find a way of circumventing any copyright and try reuploading that video -- maybe by not mentioning his full name or undescoring some letters -- it would go down as well as this upload has.

@@AnkurBorwankar ... and thinking women.

@@mangasky7 - Ok. Thank you for that tip.

By being analytical and honest. Hitchens is fabulous.

This is the late 1980’s not the late 1880’s

He was horrible. Obviously biased.

Meh

​@@arriuscalpurniuspisowhat to the middle?

His bias merely evened the numbers which seems fair ,and he was way more tolerant than Hitchens.

When I watch this and other similar videos u quickly see that Hitchens wasn’t any kind of genius. Just another guy who can speak with confidence based on a privileged upbringing.

Civil, yet treacherous. These awful people deserve to be called out on their horrendous ideologies and outright lies.

@@ajahnpadawan8812ad hominem. don't pout because of your inefficiencies.

@@ajahnpadawan8812 He was on the wrong side of many issues, but his public school accent played well in the US. And I find him both entertaining and essentially likeable. Would be good to spend an evening arguing with him over a few pints…

@@ajahnpadawan8812 Not sure Hitchens ever claimed to be a genius.

I was about to say that.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Well, a sociopath with no conscience is not affected by age

You're welcome. I'm glad you're enjoying it. I have a few more to work on.

@@legalmonkey this is glorious news 🌟 😄 !! Thanks, thanks and ever thanks.

@@johnjosmith42 Meh. Hitchens' vacuous smugness comes off as just swarmy. He is witty, tho.

Hitchens sits on the sidelines and pontificates but could never be in the arena. That makes him an intellectual coward.

@@egverlander An intellectual coward? The world would be a much better place if we had more of them.

I liked how Clive would ask Meese , an eyewitness insider , what actually happened, and meanwhile Hitchens stuck to his fabricated conspiracy theories. It’s what you would expect from someone who never even had the civility to respect religious freedom, and I say that as an atheist.

@@roughhabit9085 You're aware that Hitchens cites the accounts of others, all made in public, when questioning the narrative of Meese? As for the comment on religious freedom, I'm astonished you think that Hitchens didn't respect religious freedom.

@@rstevens7711 All bullies are cowards. He is an intellectual bully. Watch his atheism book tour, moralistic diatribes.

?! Clive James, P.J. O’Rourke, and Christopher Hitchens.

You're welcome. Thanks for the nice comment. Glad you enjoyed it.

*Hitchens and James were friends- Hitchens spoke highly of James and James of Hitchens.*

@@MattSingh1 I know they'd known each other in the 1970s, and Hitchens liked James , but I always thought James was a little more ambivalent abt Hitchens.

@@gamingwithslacker *No not at all, James was a out-right friend of Hitchens along the lines of Rushdie, Amis, Fenton et al.*

@@MattSingh1 all used to lunch together every Friday I believe, Along with Martin Amis and a few others.

I'd been aware their friendship but, never been able to find an example of them sharing screen time together, until stumbling across this little gem...

nonsense.

@@johnwatts8346 Demonstrable true.

You wish

@@ericprinzing1600 Why do you want me to do that, but think it is dreadful for Hitchens to? He doesn't need to be original on Atheism and in fact no-one can be-- the arguments of atheism are pretty fixed and have been for a few thousand years. Hitchens' value was to introduce a new generation of people to that critical tradition -- see his Portable Atheist. But I think he had a very powerful way of formulating all those arguments anew

@@ericprinzing1600 Wrong.

@@ericprinzing1600 Thanks. On points 1 and 2 -- you were certainly recommending a course of action to me and insinuating -- as you do again here -- that Hitchens is redundant; and there were quite a number of ad hominem remarks in which Hitchens was reduced by you to a sort of trivial entertainer. But no matter. On 'religion poisons everything' -- I think Hitchens made that case very well: it poisons life by making the individual a plaything of non-existent totalitarian deities or very existent theocratic authorities, so crushing our individuality, committing us to a life of subjection and a perverted sense of guilt, and its foundational texts express either primitive tribal codes that we are well rid of or common sense things that are instinctive and don't require supernatural enforcement. That's all quite poisonous, I'd say. On atheism, the fact that its public expression across different ancient civilisations up until fairly recently even in the West was usually met with death or exile or other penalties for' blaspheme' does not mean that people did not have very strong and clear atheistic thoughts from the beginning. They just had to be suppressed. I have nothing against Russell et all. Russell's books are on my shelves, including 'why I am not a Christian'. But to suggest that Russell or Mackie are the last words on the subject of atheism and that no further comment is needed seems a bit cramped. Finally, on Muslims, what you say is a huge slur. Hitchens was certainly for the extirpation of militant Islamists of the ISIS and Al Qaeda persuasion --- the beheaders and suicide bombers -- but in no conceivable sense of Muslims as a whole. For years he advocated for the Sunni Muslim Kurds of northern Iraq. On Stalin and the Orthodox Church, I think Hitchens was actually pointing out that Stalin appropriated all the worst bits of the Church --- the imposition of doctrinaire views, the pursuit of heretics, the tribalism, the inquisitions and fake miracles of industrial and agricultural production. He also made points about the cynical alliance between Putin and the Russian orthodox Church, which have proved all too true in the current Russian onslaught on Ukraine. best wishes.

Delusional

You're welcome. :)

I disagree, and with time, PJ looks a much more clear thinking on the issue. Hitchens would sound more like PJ late in his life.

@@dansullivan7693 That was my impression of him too, Dan. I remembered PJ as well-spoken and well-thought out, but that was from 40 years ago. I guess he was either not on top of his game this day, or he didn't know what was being talked about for a lot of it. His comments here seem really generic, and not geared toward answering the questions posed to him. It felt to me like he was struggling to cover the subject for much of this interview. Thanks for responding.

@@ofrabjousday1 If this is mediocre PJ, I look forward to when he's on his game! Hitchens comes across to me as a dope, Meese is articulate and lawyerly, James is as usual worth hearing, but PJ strikes me as being the most reasonable & intelligent person in the discussion.

@@harmon1103 Yipe.

Horrible forum. They all cut off Hitchens, who very patiently suffered their Nazi crap talk

Yup read it 42 years ago.

Clive James, Hitchens and Meese

@@roryoconnor6574 Three of the funniest men who ever lived, in one room.

@UFO: ok.....it's 'in one room'....😬

I'd say three of the funniest men who lived together in one room would have been the Marx Brothers. (Gummo and Zeppo had another room.)

I'd say that O'Rourke's book "Holidays in Hell" was one of the funniest books I've ever read. Highly recommended.

That's a bizarre interpretation. O'Rourke basically said, "No, but you are!" A really lame retort. I'm not surprised he regards flippancy as a virtue, though.

You are very welcome.

Except, about the facts.

@@ttacking_you and that it's two against one ...

@ Stephen Church. 2v2 or did you skip Jame’s introduction?

@@roughhabit9085 More like 2 v 1.5. The purpose of the show was to discuss how much, if any, truth there was in a particular commonly-held negative view of Reagan. As host, it fell to Clive James to present that view at the beginning. Thereafter, it was 2 v 1. James interjected now and then with some negativity about Reagan, but that was just him steering the discussion in the direction it was supposed to go.

Where did you hood to progress too ? Utopia?

O'Rourke wasnt in the least terrified and very effectively slapped Hitch into place with his return on "flippancy".

Three of them wanted a discussion and Hitchens wanted to be righteous and belligerent.

@Don´tbehasty unlike ideologues he did let facts influence his positions.

@Don´tbehasty as well as US ineptitude (which Hitchens never neglected to point out) would allow. But that had nothing to do with the necessity and rightness of removing Saddam Hussein.

He also screwed Carter with his guns for hostages deals as well as his genocide in Guatemala as charged by The Hague.

@@dthomas9230 it kills me the kind or revisionism that goes on regarding Reagan. As though history has proven him a great president. I guess it’s all relative. I would have taken Reagan over George W Bush. And compared to Trump, Reagan was a saint.

@@tombombadyl4535 That’s what is….nostalgia and the political atmosphere having sunken to new lows in our era. Next to Trump and even W., Reagan seems swell.

@@tombombadyl4535 Not great, but pretty good.

Those days are long gone my friend.

I’m not sure he’s a CH sycophant. Some of his other clips feature Milton Friedman , who is the polar opposite of the idealist Hitchens.

@@roughhabit9085 I’m not sure I ever said he was my dear boy! Nothing wrong with expressing thanks to someone who’s gone to the trouble of posting things one jolly well likes Have a great day sir

@ Eddy K 🍻

I think you mean Hitchens's powers of articulation vs. Meese's barefaced lies. I find it oddly comforting, I had come to think that the right telling easily disprovable lies without remotely caring that we can prove they are lying was a fairly recent phenomena. I forgot about the pioneering work in that field by Reagan and his accolytes (thinking about it, might have go back a little further than to Nixon, although it's no coincidence that even at the very end of the Nixon presidency Reagan would shamelessly deny that any wrongdoing had taken place).

@@chrispalmer7893 Ah. I see. Meese is a liar. Give me just a couple of his lies and if you can reference your source, so much the better, but not required. Incidentally, I did not care for Meese.

@@calql8er What did he lie about?

@@shinybeast8946 Against my better nature I am defending Meese. I asked Chris Palmer to give me some examples of when Meese lied. I presume he did. But I want him to provide me with some specific lies.

@@shinybeast8946 I see what happened. This mysterious chris Palmer must have deleted his post wherein he accused Meese of lying.

God what drivel

:)

Yep, back in the day, U.S. presidents didn't have to profess their love of (the Christian) God, not like now ;-)

So true - I fight it when ever I encounter it - but as an old school free speech leftie I feel the battle is being lost

@@chrisbaxter3597 what can't you say now that you could say 30 years ago?

@@mattygroves21478 Biological men cannot become women - just because they say so - that’s one - do you really need me to carry on

@@chrisbaxter3597 You said the unsayable it seems. Out of curiousity, can you define a biological man?

No idea . I noticed he tried to pit Goldwater against Reagan and yet Goldwater was a member of the Wichita John Gaty Trust.

You old

@@britpackdog4545 not yet 50. I started early.

@@liberalmatt wow

@@britpackdog4545 isn’t it (not) amazing. Just an innocent comment that all three literary heroes are in one discussion. Nothing special at all for others, but interesting for me. Sarcasm is healthy - keep going if you wish.

@@liberalmatt not being sarcastic my guy I'm 50 and all my chickens came home to roost

Excellent - James was indeed a very smart bloke and down to earth with it

Nailed it!

Don’t know too much about O’Rourke or Meese . James of course had about five more careers than Hitchens. He was a pioneer of television and comedy. He was considered one of the world’s best literary critics. He knew about ten more languages than Hitchens. Read them both and it doesn’t take long to glean who is the finer writer, and James never got labeled a sewer pipe sucker.

If only being smart equated to effectiveness! As a huge Hitchens fan his eager dourness backfired against his positive company.

Christopher Hitchens was a smart man. He was a debater par excellence & a polemical pugilist. But for all his brilliance he lacked true wisdom & his legacy will not last. Christopher got the flashy wit, his brother Peter got the wisdom.

Well said. Obvious in this exchange in the face of peers. You can see his anxiety go up when he loses control of the conversation. His legs flutter and he starts to stutter.

@@egverlander He never had control of the conversation and had to struggle just to get a point made. O’Rourke and Meese came off as pathetic partisan apologists.

@@joeanthony7759 Not to me. Meese is obviously the Reagan partisan, but I've seen enough in my 75 years to think that he's largely truthful. PJ is terrific.

Maybe. I'd like to hear Bill Barr, for example. But he's too rational to get air time, and we have no forum for reasonable discussion these days, at least not that I'm aware of.

Oh my dear boy

Brings to mind Henry the K and the hardiness of cockroaches.

I'm not sure that "well, the Brits used to crack down hard on the natives when they had an empire" qualifies as "besting" someone who had always been a critic of that empire. And as for "we didn't deal with the kidnappers, we went through a third party", I suppose you can't expect much else from a man arguing that first duty of government is to crack jokes.

You're welcome. Nice place to meet him. When was that would you say? the 90s?

@@legalmonkey A rainy weekday very early 2000s. He was with a woman and a child/children. I told him I thought his essays in Vanity Fair were the best things in the magazine. (I wasn't kissing up to him. I DID think it.) His reply? Well thank you very much indeed. You've just made my day. A charmer. Met his brother near Royal Kensington Gardens approx. 10 years ago. He wasn't rude exactly. Lacked his brother's charm and approachability, though... BEST, David.

@@davidgoulden5956 Ah, so you met both the greater and the much lesser. Meese too is still around - the good die young. Hitch was perhaps thinking of Carter's godbothering but the remark remains otherwise inaccurate and certainly uncharitable.

@@twntwrs The meeting with Christopher was forgettable. If I'd know he would be that chilly, I wouldn't have bothered approaching him. (To be fair, perhaps I caught him at a bad moment.) Regarding Carter, he reminds me of Ted Heath in some ways. That is, both fundamentally decent and very intelligent men who were not ideally suited temperamentally to becoming the leaders of their countries. To compound their problems, I think they attained the highest office at an uncommonly turbulent time. BEST, D.

Drat. Meant to say, of course, that the meeting with Peter, not Christopher, was forgettable!

Hedges?

Pathetic partisan hack. Just because he keeps repeating “I know, I was there” , he thinks we’ll all believe him.

You're very welcome.

Good well said