Hitch & the hicks
New York Post [Page Six] - May 29, 2007
Hitch Kicks Up Ungodly Furor
CHRISTOPHER “Hellbound” Hitchens has just finished a wacky, hick-
state tour for his best-selling atheist manifesto, “God Is Not Great”
- and he had no trouble whipping up hundreds of furious churchgoing
folk and cheering nonbelievers who flocked to debates in Georgia,
North Carolina and Florida. As confrontational as ever, newly minted
American citizen Hitchens, during one heated discussion, invited an
Orthodox Jew who got in his face to step outside, The Post’s Kyle
Smith reports. Later, during a phone-in interview with a family-
values radio station, Hitchens was asked, “Are you familiar with the
work of Nietzsche?” Hitchens, amused, said he had heard of the man.
The interviewer continued, “Are you aware that when Nietzsche wrote
some of his strongest anti-religion books, he was suffering from the
effects of syphilitic delusions?” Hitchens replied that he’d heard
the claim but was skeptical. The interviewer gently continued, “Might
there be a medical explanation for your book?” Score one for the
hicks! Hitchens, laughing, said, “At least they almost pronounced
Nietzsche’s name right.”