Mark Steel isn't as funny as he thinks he is. In fact, much of the time he isn't funny at all. Still, he writes a column for the Independent in which funny is what he tries to be, while at the same time mixing in a little bit o' politics. Because of that - the mixing in - he can be held to certain standards of accuracy, even if there's no holding him to any requirement of humour. Here's Steel on Christopher Hitchens:
Hitchens appears to have become obsessed with defying religion, so made himself one of the most enthusiastic supporters for a war he saw as being against the craziness of Islam. But the war wasn't about God or Allah, it was about more earthly matters, which the people conducting that war understood. And, as that war became predictably disastrous, they were grateful for whatever support they could find. And so a man dedicated to disproving GOD was praised in his death by the soppiest, sickliest, most, irrational, hypocritical Christian of them all. [Tony Blair, geddit? - NG]
You can say what you like about Hitchens - and many who disagreed with his politics have been doing just that since he died - but defying religion wasn't the only, or indeed the principal, motive he had in supporting the war in Iraq. Most prominent here was his opposition to the regime of a murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein - an earthly matter indeed, if not a very funny one. Now, why would Mark Steel (and a spillion or so others on the left) be interested in eliding that fact?
