How pathetic is this paragraph from the 9/11 column Christopher Hitchens published yesterday in Slate?

Let me take the strongest objection to my interpretation, which is that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were exploited by conservatives to settle accounts with Saddam Hussein and that many Americans have been fooled into war by thinking that Iraq was behind the attacks. Leave aside the glaring and germane fact that Saddam was and is in partnership with the forces of jihad; not even the sorriest illusion is in the same category as a book published by The Nation, written by Gore Vidal and flaunted at "anti-war" rallies, which argues that it was essentially George Bush who helped organize and anticipate the atrocity. That's a level of degeneration unplumbed by any other faction. So, the pitiful peaceniks are the chief moral losers, whichever way you slice it.

Let's translate that into plain English:

Some people think Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and so we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. Well, those people are wrong and I’m right -- Al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots, because I said so. And even if belief in a Saddam–Al Qaeda alliance were looney (which it isn't, because I said so), some people think Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks, which is way loonier, and if some people who oppose the war believe something that’s really looney, that makes all criticism of the war, even by people who don’t believe anything looney, morally bankrupt (and looney).

OK, that last "(and looney)" isn't really reflected in the Hitchens text. He just thinks we're all moral degenerates.

(And apparently we're far worse degenerates than government officials who coddle the Saudis -- Hitcheypoo criticizes Saudi-coddling elsewhere in the column, but barely has an unkind word to say about the coddlers themselves. I guess Hitchens believes that a private citizen who waves a Gore Vidal book in the street is more reprehensible than a White House that looks the other way while terrorism is enabled.)