I don't see any huge profit in going over every holiday with a fine-toothed comb to find something objectionable about it. I'm sure we could do that to everyone to some degree or another. I used to think of Hitchens as one of a handful of pundits that were actually smarter than me, now more and more I mostly just see him as a crank. Though I do think when a holiday is used by someone like Bush to make a political point (as he did vis a vis the Maccabees) it should be fair game to bring those points up in that regard. Anyway, happy Hanukah everyone. Peace.