Christopher Eric Hitchens, 1949-2011

The iconoclastic atheist Christopher Hitchens is dead at 62 of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer. From Towleroad:

The NYT: "...a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq..."

Graydon Carter remembers him at Vanity Fair. Christopher Buckley remembers him over at The New Yorker.