Hitchens was warm, not caustic, in person, and his ability to shatter an argument was matched by his generosity to people
I was mugged walking home from Christopher Hitchens's apartment, just a few days after 9/11, though of course it was Hitchens who moved to the right. I realize now that evening must have been some liminal period for him; the dinner party (really a drinking party) had boiled down to a bunch of Washington liberals sitting around wondering just when George Bush would start bombing someone. Hitchens did not say much – unusual in itself and portentous in retrospect – but I wound up talking a lot, orating about the uselessness of trying to defeat "terrorism". "'Terrorism' is just a word for the actions taken by anyone on the other side of you," I said. "Not that there aren't unjustified violent acts, but 'terrorism,' the word, just isn't a useful way to talk…"
I trailed off, realizing in mid-sentence that I was paraphrasing an argument I heard in graduate school. Made by Christopher Hitchens. I mumbled something to that effect and Hitchens just raised an eyebrow. "It sounded different coming from you," I think he said, but the blood rushing in my ears made it hard to hear.
Whatever his qualms about the term then, Hitchens later took up the defining terrorism in a way that could be useful and specific (at least to his needs at the time). Google tells me that article has been useful itself, buttressing the beliefs of rightwing bloggers, Hitchens' syncopated fluency with the language used as series of pats on the back.
His presence on the list of people whose writings can be quoted for an argument on either side of an issue without drawing into question the source itself puts him in the company of Abraham Lincoln, the King James Bible and The Simpsons. And atheist though he may have been, he had as much grace in him all three combined.
I don't have the wealth of personal interactions that his close friends do to draw examples of his fundamental decency. I can only tell you that in a town where people don't say "nice to meet you" just in case they've forgotten you met before, Hitchens was warm, not caustic, in person. He remembered not just my name but my family history. Even after we clearly had parted ways politically, he could not have been more courtly (or patient) in conversation. He was a man in constant demand but he spoke down to no one and he was not impressed by anyone.
When I started writing about politics, I thought I wanted to write like Hitchens. Now that I have been writing about politics, I realize that be like Hitchens is a better, if equally unattainable, goal. His ability to surround and decimate an argument was matched by his generosity and attentiveness to people. Only now do I realize that these skills might actually be related.