It is going to be hard for Christopher Hitchens to tout his contrarian credentials after bringing every well-worn and unfounded cliché to bear in his endorsement of Barack Obama. But never mind that Hitchens bravely breaks the news that John McCain is old or that he determines the rumors of Sarah Palin’s “bizarre religious and political affiliations” to be true without offering evidence. It’s what he asserts about Barack Obama that’s got me wondering about premature senility in Hitchens.

Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience.

Not capitulationist? Obama has centered his very campaign on capitulation. He just calls it “ending” the war instead. If Obama had been President these last four years, we’d have left Iraq to al Qaeda and Shiite terrorists. And while Obama would squirm his way around the definition of “ending,” there’d have been no mistake about what “dying” looks like, as it would have befallen our Iraqi allies en masse.

And the only things Obama has shown “signs of being able and willing to profit from” are ACORN, Fannie and Freddie. Obama’s admission that the surge has succeeded is no indication he’s able to learn from experience. It’s an indication that he possesses the faculties of vision and hearing. And, if Hitchen’s endorsement is any indication, the skill of mesmerization, as well.