I wonder if we'll ever really get the full story of why Hitchens still, in his own weird way, defends David Irving. Obligatory disclaimer: I of course think having laws which lock people up for odious speech is a really bad idea.
But there really is no distinction between "Holocaust Denial" and "Holocaust Revisionism," except to the extent that the latter is an attempt to put a legitimate gloss on the former, sort of like the difference between young Earth creationism and creation science.
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First off, Hitchens is a drunken idiot. He defends this:
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In a 1991 speech, Irving said, "Until 1988, I believed that there had been something like a Holocaust ... but [in] 1988 ... I met people who knew differently and could prove to me that story was just a legend."
In 1990: "The holocaust of Germans in Dresden really happened. That of the Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz is an invention."
And, again, in 1991: "More women died on the back seat of Senator Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz."
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I've been to the camps. I've seen what was done in the name of 'racial purity' and it's why these skinheads in this country piss me off so much. As a German, I've seen what fanatics did to the land I love, the place of my ancestry. I go to the graves of relatives lost who were conscripted into the army to defend that horror. And I've seen what Germans have done to ensure it never happens again. When some drunk defends a denier, an idiot who actually sees some good in Hiter's policies, it makes me nuts. Yes, the curtailing of free speech should be bothersome to us, but you're not allowed to yell 'fire' in a movie theater either.
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