Response to Scott Simon's "Christopher Hitchens' Legacy of Defying Labels"

Long-time Baltimore activist, Max Obuszewski, sent a letter to NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday in reponse to Scott Simon's piece on the passing of Christopher Hitchens called "Christopher Hitchens' Legacy of Deying Labels."  NPR did not publish Obuszewski's letter.

Sent 12-23-11 to NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday in response to Scott Simon’s commentary:

Scott Simon’s maudlin “Christopher Hitchens' Legacy Of Defying Labels” promoted inconsistency as a virtue.  I thought the commentary was actually about Simon.  The one-time Quaker espoused pro-war sentiments and became an embedded reporter with the U.S. military.  Remarkably, he was allowed to remain a host, yet Lisa Simeone's anti-war perspective cost her a public radio job. 

Hitchens does a brilliant take on the crimes of Henry Kissinger and then loses his focus by doing an anti-Mother Theresa film.  Hitchens was once a believer in supporting the 99%, but then became an elitist and a drumbeater for war.  No, the inconsistency is not a value to admire.  This comment by Simon is a copout: "Compromise is difficult when changing your beliefs is taken to be a moral cave-in instead of the sign of a curious, lively mind."  To once favor pacifism, but later to support empire is selling out. 

I would rather believe in a person of good principles who remains consistent.  I have little respect for someone, whether it is Hitchens or Simon, whose political perspective is like a weather vane.  The NPR commentator who promotes inconsistency in thought is looking in a mirror:

In my circles, I praise the person who recognizes that military spending is an affront to the poor and income inequality must be challenged.  Give me a writer such as Howard Zinn any day, whose political perspective remained consistent after his life experiences confirmed the madness of war.