A fond farewell to a terrific opponent

RIP Christopher Hitchens.

Sir Ludovic Kennedy once recalled watching the Bismarck sink. As a sailor, he said, you hate to see a ship go down, even an enemy; there's a respect, even (perhaps especially) for the deadliest of opponents. Like the Bismarck, Christopher Hitchens was fast, lethal, elegant, battleship gray... Full of seamen, too; he had enormous balls: While most people were exchanging easily-formed opinions about waterboarding, Hitchens went and had it done to him and reported back. If you were going to go up against Christopher Hitchens, you loaded for bear or prepared to be mauled.

He never wasted a reader's time, he was often exceedingly funny, and he was always worth reading even when he infuriated the heck out of you. With his untimely death, the world is a significantly safer place for wafflers, blatherers, and half-baked opinions.