Bill Donohue Debates Christopher Hitchens: Part 1

October 26, 2012

   

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7aiBbA8_Fg
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29HxzgqlWrM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

A very worthwhile watch... Hitchens confronts a real foul-mouthed playground bully type who would rattle any lesser debater with his ferocious and unceasing ad hominem attacks. Hitchens keeps cool, never loses his sense of humor or his faculty for finding the flaw, noting the irony and dispelling the fallacy. He had to know he was setting foot in enemy territory by debating Donohue in a Catholic church.

Very instructive if you wish to be prepared to argue with someone who mainly throws rocks and will concede no point - you must win the audience. Hitchens manages to elicit significant tracts of applause from Donohue's constituents.

Sample some other YouTube videos with Donohue in them - old age has not mellowed him at all. I'd say Hitchens handled him as well as anyone could have.

Anonymous said...

You said it all. A perfect example of someone being completely outclassed on every level

James B. said...

What's I like about this one is it's the earliest CH religion debate I've seen. This is pre-Letters to a Young Contrarian.

Almost all of CH's later familiar arguments are laid out in nascent yet still biting form.

Rodney Ulyate said...

CH wrote up a review of the debate for Free Inquiry's Summer 2000 edition, describing his experience of "a real whiff of old-style Francoism, rather as I imagine it would be to argue with Patrick Buchanan when he was on acid."

Tom said...

Thanks Rodney, here's the link
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=hitchens_20_3

Unknown said...

I agree with the prior comments and would add that the priest "moderator" failed miserably in making no effort to curb Donahue's vitriol even after boasting that the debate's namesakes conducted themselves with "civility and gentlemanly charm" and never uttered a single word in "acrimony or animus."

Ken

 
 
 

Christopher reads from Hitch-22: A Memoir