You know, you guys, coming up with a pat response like “strawman” or “changing the topic” looks really stupid to anyone who can follow an argument when it’s not true

The sidebar is on every page: it’s not on topic on every single comment thread. And you are trolling, not joking.

None of this is about “debating tactics” it’s about your behavior. You aren’t offering anything to debate, you are just being annoying.

I suppose if I was the brilliantly funny and “gutsy” Griffin I’d say something like “suck it” right now, just to uphold your standards of humor. Come to think of it, that’s about the level of the Hitchens wit too, these drink soaked days.

I was on topic, it was you who was changing it.

Nope, no one mentioned Hitchens at all under this topic until you brought him up, not one single mention before yours. You did indeed change the topic, since Hitchens is all you ever want to discuss. And the reason it’s a high school debating tactic is because it’s basic and fundamental to any reasoned discourse.

I’m glad you feel you are such a Hitchens authority, I’m sure that thought, your teddy bear, and your thumb help you get to sleep at night, but it has no bearing on Kathy Griffin.

But since, as you prove repeatedly, every column has to be about you and your favorite topic, let’s just make you happy. It’s all about you now. You and Hitchens. Just you and Hitchens, now and forever.

You know, you guys, coming up with a pat response like “strawman” or “changing the topic” looks really stupid to anyone who can follow an argument when it’s not true. Those are high school debating tactics. Or they used to be. By the way, you never read Hitchens before? Not something that surprises me, excuse me for saying so but as someone who read just about every one of his two decades of columns in The Nation I think I’ve got a bit more to go on, Hitchenswise, than a bunch of PR addled neophytes who aren’t familiar with his decades of being a real, backstabbing, two-faced, piece of slime.

Kathy Griffin gutsy? Oh, yeah. Her saying stupid things like this to try to fuel her career as a “comic” takes so much courage. Makes those theists crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge look like a bunch of whusses.

Claire, then you looked at the photo of Hitchens in the shower and kept a straight face?

Yes, I did, it was the mud mask photo that cracked me up.

Then I read the article. I had never read anything by him before, that is one funny guy.

Still doesn’t make it a joke on your part, just you changing the topic again.

To actually get back on topic, I admire Kathy’s gutsiness, if not her comedy. What a shame they censored it, and how great is it that you can find it intact on YouTube.

I just thought I’d mention that Kathy Griffin sucks. As far as I can tell she has no talent and I’ve never so much as chuckled at her so-called comedy.

To each her own, Polly. She’s very trashy, but I often find her funny, at least superficially. She has a routine about Catholics and cursing that is hilarious.