Is Christopher Hitchens channeling Andrew Sullivan?

He seems to have caught a dose of Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS)

Here's Hitchens on Palin in Slate:

Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

In an American state, the buck stops on the Governor's desk. During Palin's term to date, two short years, Alaskan has reduced its dependence on the Federal teat, increased its royalty revenue from its own resources, eliminated a lot of corruption within the Alaskan GOP, and negotiated a deal to bring natural gas to the lower 48 via a trans-Canadian pipeline. These are all issues that Palin campaigned on. They happened on her watch. If they went wrong, she owned the political consequences. This record Hitchens ignores. Perhaps it is because he has no comprehension of what is involved in re-negotiating deals with some of the most powerful multi-national corporations on Earth.

Instead, Hitchens maligns her for her "vindictiveness in local quarrels". She reassigned an insubordinate, wife-beating Democrat, Walter Moneghan, to a different position in her administration and he chose to resign, instead. Then he, and his Obama supporting friends decided to smear Palin with the claim that she sacked him because he wouldn't fire her former brother-in-law; a man who deserved firing by all accounts. If you call Palin's role in this manufactured scandal "vindictiveness", you might be suffering from PDS.

Palin's religion seems to be run-of-the-mill evangelical Christianity. It might make Hitchens foam at the mouth, but it doesn't bother this non-believer. She says she doesn't wear her religion on her sleeve and there is no sign that she pushes her views into her role as Governor. Somehow, her religion is bizarre? She's been a registered Republican for all her adult life, and that is bizarre? It seems Hitchens must think main-stream America is truly bizarre, or maybe it is because he is suffering from PDS.

Palin is attacking Obama on his relationship with William Ayers. Maybe it is the fact that the Weathermen were fighting America because of the Vietnam War. Hitchens views the Vietnam war the same way as the left wing of the Democrat party (i.e the Obama/Pelosi/Reid wing) view the war in Iraq. So, an attack on Ayers is an attack on the "noble cause" of opposing the Vietnam war. Maybe that is the underlying issue that triggered Hitchens' attack of PDS. It sort of reminds me of the way the gay marriage issue triggered BDS in Andrew Sullivan.

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