I think people who are upset with this piece by Hitchens are either missing his point (understandable, I guess, as he often has trouble translating his thoughts from his native language into English without incoherent rambling) or just don't like him (also understandable, for his indefensible endorsement of the Iraq invasion and occupation).

But Hitchens didn't even go as far as Jack Shafer did in his column about the media going overboard about Russert. My take of this column is that he felt the idea of the "Russert Miracles" is ridiculous. Has the bar for miracles been lowered that much, to where two presidential candidates talking to each other is considered a miracle? I would think if you're going to talk about miracles, it might be something like Bush and Cheney resigning for screwing up everything they have done since taking office, or the Democratic leaders acknowledging that they are way too chicken to stand up for anything. But Springsteen playing a song for somebody is a miracle?

I know we are in a period of inflation, and our president is the self-proclaimed "master of low expectations", but come on. Even for all the people who believe in the magic of a never-seen but all-powerful god, isn't this re-defining of miracles too much? Can't we have a miracle-maker like the wizard of Oz, who gives brains, courage, and heart to politicians?

The entire concept of miracles is a joke for little children.

It the term is going to be used it should be used only for those voodoo miracles that a so called 'god' is responsible for.

I'm truly, truly getting sick of religion. I don't think I can keep quiet about this for much longer. I need to, I have to repudiate people whenever they go off with their whacky supernatural ideas. I've been polite about this shit for way too long.

I'll pray for you then, PhilistineTheArtLover.

It's a joke, it's a joke!

No it's not a joke, I will pray for you, both.

Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but when religious people, especially Catholics and moreso Jesuits, claim to be great searchers for Truth, they stumble badly. To wit, the example of "anti-miracles" - simply, those who prayed but still drowned. If saved, a miracle; if not, it was God's will. I am sorry, this is a rigged semantic and an il-logical game. If belief is faith, fine; if the Bible is the revealed Word, fine; just do not pretend it can be proved with anything approaching the Scientific Method. It is a sign of weakness to stoop so - like social scientists who think that having more statistics about people will make their studies more solid, like physics (and the joke, physics isn't solid!).

...and to wittier wit,

the debasing of miracles might remind one of Father Guido Sarduci on SNL who railed about the cannonization of Elizibeth Seton at the expense of other more Saint-like Italians. I think the quote was: "We have Italians with five and six miracles who can't get in becuase there are too many Italians saints and she gets in with two rather than the required three... and I hear one of them was a card trick."

ps Hello Christopher from China. You still owe me a drink from the free Verdi Requiem tickets I gave you in line at the National Cathedral. Now was that not, and would that not be a miracle?

I think Jack and Christopher's motivations for thier complaints are much more pedestrian. Print guy's both, they envy the attention slathered onto the passing of a mere mortal TV News personality.

But if they are sincere, neither of them need to worry about such a fuss being made when they die. CHRISTopher also dies with the assurance that no one will make a fuss after his death.

Athieism is the new Facisim

Heil Hitchens!