1. Trigger warning: I'm going to write a little bit about Mother Teresa, Christopher Hitchens, Matt Yglesias & sainthood.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
2. In the wake of Mother Teresa's canonization, many people are bringing up the best anti-Teresa polemic, Hitchens' Missionary Position
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Replying to @HeerJeet
3. Like many people, I was much taken with The Missionary Position when it first came out. Two-thirds of it are a brillian debunking.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
4. Where Missionary Position works best is destroying media myths around Teresa (stuff on that fraud Malcolm Muggeridge are great).
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Replying to @HeerJeet
5. And Hitchens pointedly calls attention to stuff sentimental centrist media avoids: Teresa's anti-contraceptive stance & sqalid politics
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Replying to @HeerJeet
6. Where the Missionary Position falls apart is that to decisively make case Hitchens has to show Teresa's hospitals were no good.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
7. Hitchens makes a few gestures in that direction with second hand reports but as so often doesn't do reporting to seal his case.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
8. Allied with lack of reporting is general absence of Indian voices. Teresa lived most of her life in India & was polarizing figure.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
9. Reason I could never fully accept Hitchens was I knew that although she was controversial, Teresa had many non-Catholic admirers in India
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Replying to @HeerJeet
10. When Teresa died, the government of India declared a week of mourning -- indicating a level of respect in India Hitchens didn't address
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Jeet Heer Retweeted
11. Of course Hitchens himself can now be debunked as thoroughly as he debunked Mother Teresa: https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/772600859180077057 …
Jeet Heer added,
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Replying to @HeerJeet
12. Now, it's easy enough to find many, many examples of Hitchens being wrong. Via
@MaxBlumenthal Hitchens on Saddam http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2007/07/iraq-arab-saddam-iran-hitchens …3 replies 5 retweets 53 likes -
Replying to @HeerJeet
13. Hichens went from placing his hopes in Saddam to being Paul Wolfowitz's mouthpiece -- surely a case of two bad extremes.
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