A Good Man, Slighted: Christopher Hitchens deserved a knighthood this year. He didn't get it.

[saveliberty]

By James G. Wiles, The American Thinker:

June 13, 2011
A Good Man, Slighted: Christopher Hitchens deserved a knighthood this year. He didn't get it.
By James G. Wiles

"I couldn't find your name on the Queen's Birthday Honors List," I tootled a college friend of mine last night. "What could they be thinking back there?"

My professor friend (B.A. Georgetown '74; M.A. Yale '75; Ph.D. Cambridge '84) didn't answer. No surprise there.

Bill's a fine scholar, father and husband and a dedicated teacher. He began life as a Boston Irishman -- which is what he was when I first met him in 1973. Today, Bill's "Mid-Atlantic" accent predominates. He's long since stopped pahking his cah in Hahvahd Yard.

But, as a birthright American, my friend Bill also had no right to expect a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. So it's actually no surprise his name was omitted from the Honors List.

The same excuse isn't available in the case of Christopher Hitchens. A native-born Englishman, Hitchens deserved a gong last week and he didn't get it. Shame on the House of Windsor (and the Conservative-Lib Dem British government).

[righteousmomma]

Not surprising about the knighthood and I see no reason for their shame -first he became an American, then he's anti monarchy and finally he's anti God and England is (at least nominally) Anglican Christian.

 

He is a brilliant writer - and an American.

[Valin]

Not surprising about the knighthood and I see no reason for their shame -first he became an American, then he's anti monarchy and finally he's anti God and England is (at least nominally) Anglican Christian.

 

He is a brilliant writer - and an American.

 

 

Good points all. What I'll never understand how a person can be so smart, & so correct on so many issues, be so wrong when it come to religion.

[pollyannaish]

Valin, all I can figure is some sort of profound personal pain. That trips up even the most brilliant among us.