Awash in Hitchens's irony
As a long-time Hitchens reader, I thought his Kerry endorsement was devastating, particularly this phrase, " Kerry should be put in the pillory for his inability to hold up on principle under any kind of pressure". Several others were puzzled, in view of his (slight) endorsement of Bush.

Harry was among the confused, so he wrote his nephew, who's "in the third year of an Ironic Degree at Oxford".

I didn't know one could get an Ironic Degree. Questions arise as to whether there's extra credit for sarcasm, or for puns (Iron Men majoring in Irony), or whether points are deducted for bad jokes (iron supplements for the Irony crowd, a new Geritol market?) but I digress. Back to Harry's nephew.

The Irony major came to the conclusion that Hitchens's "endorsement of Bush a few days ago is best interpreted as some kind of sophisticated double-bluff irony feinting manoeuvre, rendering today’s support for Kerry even wittier than it already would have been."

If you can't blind them with brilliance, baffle them with . . .