Were the ad hominem diatribes that Hitchens specialized in evidence of his moral integrity and political courage? On the contrary, TV producers and magazine editors love sensational trash talk about media “personalities,” including Jehovah. The philippics of Hitchens were calculated and successful career moves by a gifted publicity hound who spent the last part of his career, appropriately, at Vanity Fair, a magazine best known for models and actors on its covers. (...)

Hitchens was affirming rather than challenging an elite consensus when, on behalf of atheism, he mocked religious believers as not merely mistaken but contemptible and moronic. The religious are despised and dreaded by upscale Americans, and their British court jester could say what they dare not say themselves ...