Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was in the new Villainmobile yesterday listening to the CBC. (He has a demo of SirriusXM radio for a few more months and he’s found that he listens to the CBC once and a while.) While listening to the CBC he heard a number of commentators reminiscing about the life of Christopher Hitchens. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t recall who was speaking at the time but the individual was commenting on how, contrary to his public persona, Hitchens was a consummate gentleman with impeccable manners. The speaker (who now as your Maximum Leader thinks about it, might have been David Frum) said that he visited Hitchens a few weeks ago and even though Hitchens was weak and ravaged by cancer and its side affects, he (Hitchens) stood up from the sofa on which he was laying down and attempted to offer his visitor a seat. The speaker indicated that Hitchens was always the gentleman in private.

This prompted your Maximum Leader to recall that many years ago he met Hitchens in DC. They ran into each other in a hotel lobby. Hitchens was going to a party, your Maximum Leader to a different party. Your Maximum Leader introduced himself in the lobby and we rode the elevator together. We exchanged small talk about some goings-on in town. Somehow the conversation was drawing down and we exchanged emails. Your Maximum Leader later mailed Hitchens a short polite email thanking him for sharing an enjoyable elevator ride. To your Maximum Leader’s surprise, Hitchens responded the next morning with an equally pleasant email. That struck your Maximum Leader as showing a civility that was often missing from public people.

In closing, your Maximum Leader will restate that which he quoted earlier. The world is a whole lot dumber (and less interesting) without Christopher Hitchens.

Carry on.